Libram X - Geek Culture and More

Organized Play

2011-10-03T12:05:00.002-05:00

With my jump back into RPG event organizing, the topic of organized play has understandably been on my mind as of late. While I do find it somewhat amazing, I know that there are a lot of people out there who aren't familiar with the concept, so I'm going to take a bit to talk about that. In my next post, I'm going to go more in-depth with the actual process of setting up and running events.

Let's take a trip in the Way-Back Machine. In the days of 1st Edition D&D, a new beast formed itself out of the chaos of that era. It was called the Role-Playing Game Association, or RPGA for short. What the RPGA specialized in was convention-play events like the D&D Open and other tournament-style play. An RPGA adventure would contain a number of pre-generated characters, an adventure, generally very tough and meat-grindery and meant to test players' mastery of the game. If you want a taste of these days, you can go and check out the old C series of modules, and even some of the S series.

Players and teams were scored on a number of different factors, and some events were set up so that only certain teams or even individual players would be able to progress on to the following rounds. They were often gruesome adventures, but were generally only one-shot stories. Eventually, someone had a thought similar to, "This is really great, but what if I could make my own character and play that character over and over in an ongoing storyline, and still do it in a similar format?"

Skip ahead to the early days of 2nd Edition and the founding of the Living City campaign. The RPGA took the idea of making up your own character and playing in an ongoing storyline and married to one of the most popular settings of the times - the Forgotten Realms.

The Forgotten Realms is undeniably the most developed (some would say over-developed) campaign settings in the history of the game. The Living City campaign took one of the lesser-developed areas of the setting - the city of Raven's Bluff and its surroundings - and set it aside as a sandbox for the RPGA and players of the campaign.

Sadly, I never got to play in the Living City campaign, but it lasted a long time - right up until the advent of 3rd Edition - undergoing some leadership and rules changes over the years. The "Living" portion of the campaign came from the fact that the actions of your characters could affect the direction of the storyline. In the days before the internet, the distribution of the campaign was such that most of it was run at conventions all over the nation. With so many players, data had to be collected and an aggregate of the results would determine what actually happened. It wasn't as perfect as a home campaign, but it was as close as you could get.

Many other Living Campaigns developed through the RPGA over the years: Living Jungle, Living Death, and more. With the coming of 3rd Edition and the d20 system, even more living campaigns popped up: Living Force, Living Spycraft, Living Arcanis, and, of course, Living Greyhawk.

Ah, Greyhawk. The place where it all started (aside from Blackmoor, but that its own Organized Play campaign as well). With 3rd Edition again placing Greyhawk in the seat of the "assumed" D&D setting, a new opportunity opened up. What if you were take the model of the very successful Living City campaign, but instead apply it to a whole world - a world that was rich in history and established canon, but was at the same time much less developed than the Forgotten Realms. A world like Greyhawk.

This, of course, has its own downsides. How do you deal with something on that scale? The solution was, in my opinion, one of the best things the RPGA ever cooked up - the Regional system. It went something like this.

Every real-world area was tied to a region of the World of Greyhawk. The state of Wisconsin, for instance, was tied to the region of Highfolk. If you were to play an actual game in that region, you would have to play adventures from that region. If you wanted to play an adventure from, say, the Shield Lands, you would have to travel to Minnesota or the Dakotas and play there. Each region was run by a group of three administrators, known as a Triad, who oversaw the adventure writing and storyline for that particular region.

Some areas of the setting were considered "Core" regions and were not tied to an actual real-world region. Places like the City of Greyhawk and the Duchy of Ten were areas in which these Core adventures were set, and anyone, regardless of their region could play in these adventures. These areas were overseen by the Circle of Eight, the main administrators of the campaign.

As time went on, there were additions and addendums to the regional system - Adaptable adventures, Meta-regions, Adapted adventures, and more. By the time the campaign ended (at the height of its greatness in my opinion), the possibilities for play were astounding.

But, there were downsides to this system. First and foremost was that not all regions were created equally, or at least their leadership or the quality of their writing wasn't. I was very lucky to be part of the Highfolk region - we had a very creative and active Triad who created some great and sweeping storylines and, for the most part, kept the proverbial trains running on time. Other regions didn't have that. There were a number of regions who had a general lack of interest, and had a hard time even producing a handful of adventures each year, much less coherent and compelling stories.

The other main issue was travel. The implementation of the regional system had a number of immediately obvious side-effects like if we in Highfolk ever wanted our characters to cross the Yatil Mountains to the west and venture into Perrenland, it would require a real-life trip to Australia. Eventually, this was handled by having "Fiesta" events at the larger conventions where you could freely play adventures from any region.

While it was nice, it did have the effect of widening a substantial gap that existed between those players who were willing and able to travel to conventions and those who were not. For players like me who were able to travel to the big regional conventions in Milwaukee each year, things were cool. I had the chance to play adventures months before they were available for play at public game days, and I got to take part in the Interactives - huge special events that were usually pivotal in the storyline of the region and were not available to be played anywhere else.

The true fact of any Organized Play campaign, as I am always wont to tell people, is that you get out of it what you put into it.

Since the coming of 4th Edition and Pathfinder and the great gaming schism of the 21st century, there are two main Organized Play campaigns - Living Forgotten Realms and Pathfinder Society. (Yes, I know that there are others, but LFR and PFS are the two biggest campaigns out there.)

Living Forgotten Realms was WotC's attempted successor to the popularity of the Living Greyhawn campaign, but with a lot of changes to address all of the issues with the previous campaign. First, while it is (or was, at its beginning) a regional campaign, characters were free to play any regional adventure regardless of where they were actually playing the game. It also opened up the possibility of replay by allowing any player to play or DM any given adventure any number of times, so long as it was with a character that had not gone through that adventure. In previous iterations of a Living campaign, this was patently verboten.

There have been a lot of changes to the LFR Campaign over the few years that it's been around, the biggest being that they have recently moved away from actual physical Regions for the adventures, and towards "Storyline" adventures. While there hasn't been a lot of action on the official campaign website in the last month, the campaign still seems to be dragging itself along. It's hard to say with confidence that it won't just fall to wayside some day soon, though.

Pathfinder Society, on the other hand, seems to be picking us steam with no sign of slowing down. PFS takes has taken a slightly different approach. First off, it is not a "Living" campaign, and doesn't really try to pass itself off as one. While it shares a lot of commonalities, it has not had a strong ongoing narrative until very recently. It is also not a regional campaign. Adventures can take you all over the Inner Sea region of Golarion and beyond. A unique aspect to the campaign are the factions, shadowy sub-organizations within the Pathfinder Society that are vying for political control of the city of Absalom. The biggest downside to the PFS campaign is the fact that Paizo charges a nominal amount (about $3 each) for the campaign adventures.

I think everyone should give Organized Play campaigns a shot at least once. It's not going to be for everyone, as there are some things that have to be sacrificed for the ability to take your character anywhere in the entire world and play in a sanctioned event. One of these is a rather unrealistic treasure distribution system. Another is that most public game days and convention events do have a rather limited amount of time to run an event in, and even though the adventures are designed to run in a standard 4 to 5 hour time slot, there are a lot of times when this can lead to some skipping over and hand-waving of a lot of actual role-playing.

In my estimation, however, the benefits far outweigh the costs.

Grab Bag

2011-09-27T12:04:00.003-05:00

Name Recognition

I experienced a bit of a weird moment the other day at work. Now, I've experience more than my fair share of weird moments in life, but this wasn't like falling through the cello cabinet and ending up with a tuba on top of me or waking up naked under an afghan in the middle of a group of middle aged and elderly ladies kind of weird. This was an entirely new kind of weird, the weird of being recognized, at least by name, by someone who you've never met.

It happened like this:

I was at work and a customer came in and I began to ring up his order. He noticed that I was wearing a derby shirt, and asked me what team I was wearing. I proudly proclaimed that it was for the Chippewa Valley Roller Girls, and that I announced for them.

"Oh, cool," he said. "What's your derby name?"

"Mat Black."

"Hey, cool. I've heard you game at Pegasus Games in Madison."

I was a little taken aback. But yeah, I told him, when I get the chance. Sadly, I've only really had the chance to actually game there once.

So, as the day went on, it just kept seeming stranger and stranger. Here was this guy, who was, admittedly, a pretty cool guy whose wife is or was a MRD bench coach, but who had heard where I've gamed. Like I said, a totally new kind of weird.

Mutants & Mayhem

I got to run session two of our Gamma World game this weekend. I'm pretty stoked, but pretty nervous as well. I haven't had a home campaign that's made it past two sessions in well over 5 years. So I'm understandably nervous that session three might never roll around.

This time around, we used my house rules, and I think it was a pretty good success. Even with my mechanics, not everyone had the same Alpha Mutation that they started with.

Gobi, Steam Bolt, and Jerry from Texaport (played by Manda from Mandariffic) were joined by a couple of new mutants - Jellie von Faustus, a Gelatinous Demon played by Naomi (from Mind Stain) and Rut Roach, a Cockroach Pyrokinetic played by her fiancee Dustin.

The newly-bolstered group headed back to the badder steading and found that the outside security had been beefed up. It was pretty short work, and then the group prepared for the huge bat-winged lion with laser beam eyes that they knew waited inside. With some recon work from Jellie, and a hypno-ray that Jerry had scavenged, the group made pretty short work of the encounter, ultimately suggesting to the yexil that it fly away and be happy in the wilderness.

They then descended the stairs where they found a couple of badders waiting in ambush. Beyond the landing at the bottom of the stairs, they discovered a large machine humming away, a cage full of mindless humans, and more badders (these had flails). They managed to make short work of the machine that seemed to be draining them of energy and feeding it back to the badders, who, without their healing, didn't last very long.

And that was where we left it. When we next pick up, the group needs to decide what to do with the humans, and if they want to delve into the system of tunnels leading from the machine room.

Pathfinder Society

It's been a long time since I've gotten to play in any Organized Play campaigns. The last time was when I went to an LFR game at Pegasus (see how I tied that together?). While LFR is fun, it mostly serves to make me nostalgic for the days of the Living Greyhawk campaign. That, in turn, makes me nostalgic for the experience of being an even organizer.

It might seem crazy to think fondly back on the hours of labor and headaches that getting gamers to act in an organized fashion can bring, but nonetheless, I do miss it. So, with the Pathfinder Society program entering its fourth year with new leadership, a new storyline, and lots of new possibilities, I'm getting ready to jump back in. Some time in the next month, I will be hosting the first public Pathfinder Society even here in Janesville (at least to my knowledge). I'm sure it won't have a massive turn-out, but that's okay. I've been there before. I'll post more about it as more details are finalized.

Putting the Cook Back in the Kitchen

2011-09-23T10:03:00.001-05:00

In case you haven't heard, Monte Cook is returning to the Wizards of the Coast R&D Team. This has thrown fuel on the fire of speculation around an impending 5th Edition of the D&D game and gamers all over forum boards have begun further splitting themselves into pro- and anti-Monte camps inside the larger pro- and anti-4E camps.

One of my dirty little secrets? I can't stand most gamers.

(Chances are, if I've gamed with you more than once, you're probably not one of those. Also, please be prepared to place you tongue firmly in you cheek for most of this.)

Rather, I can't stand the inherent schismatic nature of gamers. I can't stand Edition Warriors. The horrible truth about the "Edition Wars" is that it wasn't caused by WotC publishing 4E, or the cavalier way they announced it, or Paizo tuning up the engine of the 3.5 system, or any of that. It was caused by the overly extremist nature of most gamers.

And it's not solely a D&D thing. Working in a game store, I hear lots of rips of every edition of D&D. I hear gamers extolling the virtue of Old World of Darkness, and how much the New World of Darkness sucks. I hear the exact opposite.

I'm probably a bit of an oddity. If you look through my gaming bookshelves, you'll find stuff from every edition of D&D, from both iterations and multiple editions of World of Darkness, and more. I've never found an RPG where I couldn't find something about it that I liked. In fact, maybe that's why I can't understand most gamers - I'm spending my time looking for things to like, rather than spending it looking for things that weren't as good as the version that I play.

All RPGs, all games in general, will eventually collapse under the weight of their own rules. The more rules you add on, the faster it will happen. It's happened with every edition of D&D, it's happened with the World of Darkness, it's happened with nearly every game. Add to that the fact that in order to turn a profit, a company has to produce new product to sell, and you've got a perfect storm environment. In order to keep making a game, you have to make new product, and every new product you make pushes you one step closer to the day when you will have to reset and put out a new edition of the game. It's the circle of geek.

Of course, sometimes, you're going to have to make some radical adjustments to the rules. If WotC had published 3.75 instead of 4E, you'd still have people griping about having to replace their books and having to do conversions on older products, and why aren't you producing free pdf documents that update all of these old products that I've purchased from you? Which another thing I can't stand about most gamers - their sense of entitlement. The thought that they are the most important customer, and that they are the ones who the company should be catering to. A certain myopic sense of self-importance. But guess what? I work in a game store, I've been to GenCon and Origins and tons of other conventions. There are a thousand more with that same attitude, and not a single one of you would agree on the "right way" to play the game.

So, that brings me back to Monte, and the speculation of 5th Edition.

Of course there's going to be a 5th Edition (also, NEWSFLASH, there's eventually going to be a 2nd Edition of Pathfinder). That's a given, and if you think it's not, you need to get out of your mom's basement more often than to buy the latest supplement for the best and only real version of D&D EVAR! It's not a question of "if," it's a question of "when," and "by whom?"

If we look at the idea of games collapsing under their own rules, 4E is at that point. While I do quite enjoy a number of things about 4E, one of its major shortcomings was the sheer glut of rules material that was produced in a short period of time. Between all of the material crammed into the early issues of the online version of Dragon, and the insane production schedule (both of which resulted in so many "Updates" to the rules that you practically needed a personal assistant to keep up on them) 4E had nearly as much rules bloat in its first year and half as 3.5 had in its entire run.

And then there was the Essentials fiasco. Don't get me wrong, I liked a lot of stuff in Essentials as well, but it seems that its main purpose was to confuse the consumer. What is this? A new edition? Is this better than my old stuff? It's supposed to be compatible, but why have a bunch of the rules changed? Why do I need to remake the character I made with the Red Box? It was a unmitigated marketing disaster for a pretty solid project.

So, 5th Edition IS coming (or, possibly, as Stephen Radney-McFarland at NeoGrognard postulates, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) and I think that it will most likely be produced by WotC. And it's probably one of the things that Monte will be working on. Possibly it was one of the main reasons he was hired back.

As I mentioned before, this decision has even further splintered and polarized people. A quick read through the 4E forums on WotC's site revealed accusations of Monte being a egotistic hack who lives only to soak up adulation from fanboys and who couldn't design his way out of a paper-bag using his decade-old ideas (of course these accusations were made by people who didn't co-design one of the best-selling RPGs ever, so whatever). It has also been pointed out that he might be Batman.

It's this very thing - this overly-sensitive reaction that someone is out to "ruin" THEIR personal game - that irks me. It's the basis of the "Edition Wars," and it's the reason I can't stand most gamers.

I'm happy that Monte is back designing at Wizards. I'm looking forward to see what he does there, whether it be 5th Edition or not. And if it is 5th Edition, I'll probably play that too.

So, my message to most gamers out there? Stop being little bitches, grow up, grow a pair, and realize that it's just a fucking rules system, not a part of your core of being.

A Night at the Museum, Lovecraft Style - A Review of Fantasy Flight's Elder Sign Game

2011-09-22T11:22:00.000-05:00

So, let's just get this right out of the way. I work at Noble Knight Games, so when I do game reviews, the links that I'm going to provide to where you can get the game are going to be links to Noble Knight. That's just the way it is.

Now, it took a little while for this game to finally come in to the store. But, anyone who knows me knows that I love me some Lovecraft and I love me some gaming, so Fantasy Flight's Arkham Horror line is right up my alley. So I was pretty excited about this one.

Was it justified? Let's find out.

Naomi from Mind Stain came over yesterday morning to play Elder Sign with me. Neither of us had played before, and I only gave a very cursory glance at the rules before going to bed the night before. I figured that would be a good way to gauge things like ease of learning the rules. But, as usual, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Elder Sign is a card- and dice-based cooperative game for 1 to 8 players ages 13+, designed by Kevin Wilson and Richard Launias (who might be the man who has ALMOST won the Spiel des Jahre more than anyone else) and published by Fantasy Flight Games. While it has Fantasy Flight's well-known production quality, it is part of the Silver Line, so it doesn't have that over-the-top-ness of their bigger releases. Still, it's a gorgeously produced game that's going to wow newcomers and satisfy long-time FFG fans.

If I may indulge a tangential thought (and you really can't stop me), I've recently heard that in an effort to keep the price point on their games low, Fantasy Flight will be moving the bulk of their new games to the box size of their current Silver Line games like Elder Sign and the revised edition of Red November. Whether or not this will have an effect on their usual component quality remains to be seen, but it's something that I'll be keeping an eye on.

The basics of Elder Sign are pretty simple: you and the other players are investigators resolving strange events in and around a museum; Events that presage the awakening of one of the Ancient Ones who will burn the world to a cinder. In order to stop the Ancient One, you must collect Elder Signs to seal them off from this world. Of course, collecting the signs isn't easy, and if you fail to stop it from awakening, you will have to fight a desperate and nearly hopeless battle against the Ancient One.

If you've played any of the Arkham Horror board games, or the Call of Cthulhu Living Card Game, or the Mansions of Madness board game, you'll recognize most or all of the investigators in the game. Anyone familiar with those games, or just with the Lovecraftian Mythos, will also recognize the Ancient Ones: Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, Hastur (Hastur! Hastur!) and more are all here to try and turn our world into their own apocalyptic party house.

One of the coolest components of the game is the clock. The clock starts at midnight, and at the end of every player's turn, the clock is advanced three hours. Every time the clock hits midnight, certain card events trigger, and the Ancient One (usually) gets one step closer to our world.

The brilliant thing about this mechanic is that it will make games with more players very difficult as midnight will come around more and more often. It also lends itself as an incredibly easy way to change the difficulty of the game. Want an easier time? Simply advance the clock two hours (or even just one) instead of three. Want a tougher and more desperate game? Advance the clock four hours at the end of each turn. These variant rules aren't presented in the book, but should work to fine tune the difficulty of the game.

Setting up the game for the first time can be a little bit confusing. Like most Fantasy Flight games Elder Sign has a lot of different types of cards and counters, and like many of their games, the rules simply aren't as complete and laid out as well as they could be (I'm looking at YOU, Death Angel), and are at times somewhat vague. As an example of this, the rules provide a very helpful "Anatomy" of an Ancient One card and an Investigator card, but fail to provide anything similar for the Adventure cards, which would have been a big help in setup and in game play in general. It took us about 30 minutes to set Elder Sign up, but this will likely be cut down to no more than 15 minutes the next time we play.

Each investigator has different starting equipment and different special abilities. We played using randomly drawn characters, with Naomi playing the magician and me playing the doctor. Right off the bat, this illustrated that not all character abilities are created equal in this game. The doctor has the ability to heal one stamina on any investigator (including himself) at the beginning of his turn. The magician gets to draw an extra spell card whenever he would normally draw one. I used my ability on every turn of the game while Naomi got to use hers only once or twice.

The layout is pretty simple. The museum is made up of six cards laid out in two rows of three underneath an entrance card. Each card is a room or area in or around the museum and has specific tasks that must be completed before the card can be resolved and a new one drawn in its place. The entrance card is a sort of "safe" area, where investigators can heal and get items or spells. The actual layout of the cards are actually kind of meaningless, as investigators can move freely to and from whichever cards they choose.

While this freedom of movement does allow for strategic options on which rooms to face at any given time, it also has two distinct drawbacks. First, it detracts from the feel of actually exploring a museum by moving from one room to another. Second, it can bring on a bit of "Analysis Paralysis" as players figure out which of the cards is the best option to attempt to resolve each turn. I am actually working on some variant rules that changes the movement a bit, making the game more challenging and interesting.

Each room in the museum has a number of challenges that need to be resolved in order for the card to be completed. These challenges are represented by a symbol or series of symbols that correspond to the faces of the specialized dice that come with the game. The dice mechanic is really the meat of the game, and is somewhat reminiscent of Steve Jackson Games' Zombie Dice game.

There are six green dice, one yellow die, and one red die. Any time a task is attempted, the player rolls all six of the green dice. If the player has one or more combinations of dice that match one of the tasks shown on the card, they can choose to complete one task per roll. If they successfully complete a task, the corresponding dice are set aside on the card, and the player may choose to roll the remaining dice in an attempt to complete another task. If a roll does not result in a combination of dice that complete a task, the player may choose to attempt again by setting one of the dice aside and rolling again. This goes on until a card's tasks are all completed or the player is unable to complete any further tasks. Rewards for success and penalties for failure are listed on the cards with fairly simple and easy to remember iconography.

There are additional rules elements that will let players add the yellow die or the red die to their rolls, or let them re-roll single dice or entire pools, or let them "save" die results for later. Some of these are pretty straight forward while others are somewhat vague, but in all, it's a very strong system.

Monsters are fought using the same system as completing the adventure cards, with each monster having sets of symbols needed to defeat the monster. Like Arkham Horror, Elder Sign uses as "Monster Cup" to randomly draw monsters when they are encountered. Our main issue with monsters was that the rules seemed somewhat unclear on where monsters were placed when they were drawn, and how they interacted with tasks in the rooms that they appeared in. I'm sure that after another game or two, it will make a bit more sense, but it was a little confusing the first time around.

There are, of course, other rules and elements to the game, but these are the basics that everything else is built upon.

Our two-player game lasted about two hours, including set up time and time spent figuring out rules as we went. We were fighting against Shub-Niggurath, who adds an extra requirement to every monster in play, making our game pretty tough, as we had a glut of monsters appearing almost every time the clock struck midnight. We didn't get a chance to finish, but at the time we ended, Shub-Niggurath's doom track was about half-filled, and we only had about one quarter of the elder signs needed to win. Had we had enough time to play the game out to its conclusion, it probably would have been a very close game.

So let's get to some numbers. I'll be rating games that I review in a number of categories using a 1-10 scale, with 1 being very, very bad and 10 being amazingly good. Let's see how Elder Sign stacks up.

Graphic Design/Presentation - 8
Like all Fantasy Flight games, Elder Sign's components are very nice and well-designed. The graphic design is simply beautiful on this one, but being a Silver Line game, the components are just a little less spectacular than bigger games like Talisman, Mansions of Madness, and Arkham Horror.

Ease of Learning/Clarity of Rules - 3
This is the area where Elder Sign falls very flat. Simply put, this game is going to take a little time to grok. The rules, as I've previously mentioned, are sometimes a bit opaque. I would suggest having someone read the rules thoroughly a couple of times before playing this game, and maybe even play a solo game to have a good idea of how things work in order to explain to other players. If your group picks this up and plays it out of the box, there will be a lot of questions and missed rules for a number of turns. Hopefully, FFG will be quick on the draw to post some rules clarifications or FAQs on their site.

Ease of Play/Mechanics - 7
Once you've figured out the rules, the game usually moves pretty quickly. There are some moments of "Analysis Paralysis" as players gauge their chances at completing the available adventure cards, but this is balanced, in my view, by the coolness and fun factor of the dice rolling mechanic.

Theme/Feel - 6
Elder Sign falls a little short here. As it's part of the Arkham Horror line, the theme is nothing new, and there's not enough in this game to really set it apart in a manner like Mansions of Madness. That being said, the Arkham Horror/Call of Cthulhu theme is one that never gets old for me, so it's not a major flaw. However, the game doesn't quite hit the mark on feel. While the flavor text on the cards is as good as anything else in the Arkham Horror family, the ability to move wherever you want on a given turn really detracts from the idea that you are exploring a museum.

Fun Factor - 9
All issues of feel and vague rules aside, Elder Sign is a lot of fun. Even with two players, there were moments when Naomi and I had a good cheer when making an especially important roll, and groans of disappointment when we failed. Once you get the rules figured out and running smoothly, you WILL have fun.

Replayability - 8
With a good number of different investigators, Ancient Ones, and adventure cards, it's unlikely that you'll ever have a game that plays exactly the same as one you've played before.

Value/Price - 7
At a retail price of $34.95 (NKG has it available for $29.95), Elder Sign isn't going to break the bank or be a major investment like Mansions of Madness. With the game's good replayability rating, you're going to stretch your money as well. You definitely get your money's worth with Elder Sign.

Overall Rating - 7
This is a game you or someone in your group should pick up and play. You're going to have fun, even with the steep curve. If you're a fan of the Arkham Horror line, and looking for a game that won't take quite as long as a typical game of Mansions of Madness or Arkham Horror itself, Elder Sign will fill that niche. It's dice mechanic is unique enough to keep it from getting Jones-Theoried in favor of other games in the genre, and it's a game that you'll be able to play time and again. If you aren't already familiar with Arkham Horror or other cooperative games, this is actually a pretty good way to get your foot in the door with either. If you have a great time with Elder Sign, you're also going to like Arkham Horror and other co-op games like Pandemic, Defenders of the Realm, and Castle Ravenloft. If you're looking to pick up a copy, head to Noble Knight Games to get yours now.

Thanks for reading this far into my first game review here on Libram X. I'll be playing this one again, and will be posting my thoughts about further sessions of Elder Sign in the future. I'll also be writing up some proposed variant rules to change the game's difficulty level and add more feel to the game with limited movement.

My Weekend at the Dream King's Palace - Part Three

2011-09-21T09:46:00.000-05:00

Okay, so you want me to get right to juicy stuff, right? Where's Neil's house? Did you see what he's working on now? Did he have any dirty underwear lying about or anything like that?

Well, I'm not going to go into any of those details, save to assure that there were no Hugo-winning drawers anywhere in sight. What I will say is that Neil's house is gorgeous. For as long as I can remember, I've loved old Victorian and Edwardian houses, and I've always wanted to live in a house with a turret. Until this weekend, I had never had a chance to go inside a house like this.

The way there was long and winding, and I'm glad that we followed Lorraine and Kyle from the after-party, because I probably never would have found it with only directions.

My first thought at seeing the house was that it was pretty much THE house that I had always wanted to live in. It was large and dark, but still inviting, with a large open porch and, yes, a turret.

We got to meet Lola and Cabal right away. They are truly beautiful animals, even more so than they are in pictures. And friendly, to boot. Lola put up a big show of ferocious barking at first. She bounded up to us, but switched to nuzzling and sniffing mode when she got there. Cabal was, of course, more reserved. He waited by the back door for us to come to him, and accepted our petting and scratching with a quiet dignity. In short, they are the kind of dogs that anyone would love to have around.

Kyle went off for a midnight walk with Lola and Cabal while Lorraine took Kristen and I inside. When it comes down to it, Neil's house is a house much like any other. Sure, it was filled with lots of books and Beautiful Things, but it was like any other home and it exuded it's owner's presence even in their absence.

Lorraine gave us directions to our bed for the night - all the way up the stairs to the top of the turret. Cool. On our way up, we met the first of the cats, Coconut. He was a mixed white and gray, and didn't seem to mind the fact that there were strange people climbing his stairs too much. We stopped a bit to pet him and introduce ourselves, then continued the ascent. Up we went into the attic.

Now, I honestly don't know if Neil writes in the attic. If I had the house, I would most certainly write in the attic, and it seemed like a place the Writing Happened. There were shelves and shelves of papers and other stuff. I made a point not to be too nosy about it, but my inner geek couldn't help but notice (and drool) over some old Sandman and Death merchandise that I would have loved to play with. If Neil does write in his attic, I think I spied the room where it actually happens. I'm good with getting that close to things.

"Um, I don't know if this is where we're supposed to be," one of us said to the other.

"Yeah, I don't think so. This is like back stage," the other replied, looking around in wonder.

We had lost the flow of the turret and were unsure where to find the next set of stairs.

"Maybe we should go back down and wait for Lorraine to find us," said one of us.

"That's probably a good idea," said the other, casting last second glances around the attic as we made our back down.

And so we hung out with Coconut some more. Or possibly he hung out with us, it's kind of hard to tell with cats.

We waited at the end of a long hall. Between bouts of petting Coconut and marveling at how loud his purr was, I explored the length of the hall, checking out the beautiful works of art hung on the wall - Dave McKean and Charles Vess and others. Stuff that you wouldn't find anywhere else, personalized and personal sort of things. Beautiful Things.

Eventually, Lorraine found us again, sitting somewhat sheepishly, I imagine, and the top of the stairs. It was eventually decided that, because of our allergies, it would be best if we stayed in the library instead. In Neil Gaiman's library. In case that wasn't perfectly clear already.

The library used to be Lorraine's room, she told us, before she got her own house. She was an excellent hostess. We met another of the cats, Princess Snowflake, the distinguished matron of the house who followed us to the bathroom. Princess likes to drink out of the faucet, and in fact, it might be that the main reason that she allows humans to reside in her house is that we have the ability to turn the faucet on.

Joey, the third cat, also seemed to enjoy the bathroom. Every time I saw him that night, he was in the bathtub, looking expectantly at the tap.

So, once Lorraine made sure we were all settled in, she took her leave to go back home for some well-deserved rest. She had, after all, just skated in her first two derby bouts, as well as being in charge of setting the whole thing up. We gave her hugs and congratulations and some carrot bread that Kristen had baked as a thank-you.

Then we were alone in Neil's house.

Kristen observed, and I concurred, that it was akin to being a kid and deciding that you were going to run away to live in a museum, like in "The Mixed-Up Files of Basil E. Frankweiler." It really kind of was.

Neil's library is a lot like you would probably imagine it would be, except you probably wouldn't think to put a futon in your version. There were lots and lots of books, of course. Old books, new books, red books, blue books; Books you would expect like fancy versions of his own works, antique books of Poe and other classic literature. I was thrilled to see a couple of old Fritz Leiber Lankhmar novels sitting out on the desk. They had been purchased from a library sale. There were other things you would expect like classic literature and the huge bookcase filled with all manner of texts on mythology and folklore.

There were also a few surprises that you wouldn't expect to see, like a Chelsea Handler book and Stephanie Meyer's "The Host." If you take a minute to think about it, though, even these make sense. It's obvious that Neil loves books in the same way that I do. If I had a library, I could only hope that it looked a lot like his.

And of course, there were the awards. Hugos (three of them), the Newbury Medal, the Nebula (the coolest looking award I've ever seen), and more. While they really are huge deals, their presence in the library was natural, like it would have seemed strange for them not to be there.

So, weary from a long hard day, we prepared for bed. Kyle returned from his trek with Lola and Cabal. He would be staying in the room next to ours, and we chatted for a bit, he enlightening me on the power dynamics between Coconut, Princess Snowflake, and Joey.

You might expect that sleeping Neil Gaiman's library would lead to wondrous and mystical, meaningful dreams filled with characters from mythology, but the honest truth is, I was so tired that I can't even remember if I dreamt at all. I do know that I woke very happy and well-rested, even though we only got 6 hours of sleep and had to hit the road right away.

There was still a bit of wonder left over in the morning. Sadly, though, we wouldn't be able to stick around and enjoy the venue. We got ourselves together, wishing we could stay longer, and headed out.

Kyle was outside already, playing with the dogs. We chatted a bit more, and said our goodbyes. As we pulled out of the driveway, our last sight was Kyle, Lola, and Cabal heading off into the woods for a morning walk.

And, just like that, it was over, which is, generally, how these sort of things end.

So, if you're ever wondering what it's like to visit Neil's house, I would have to sum it up by telling you that it is very obviously the house of a Very Nice Man.

Thank you, Neil, for your hospitality, and Lorraine, for so very many things that I can't even begin to list them, and to Kyle, for being a Very Nice Man in his own right, and for making us feel like we weren't ghosts haunting an empty house.

My Weekend at the Dream King's Palace - Part Two

2011-09-20T09:01:00.001-05:00

For those that don't know, aside from an accredited Gaming Geek, I am also the announcer for the Chippewa Valley Roller Girls, the Eau Claire area's original Women's Flat Track Roller Derby league. Not only had this sport made me friends with a great group of dedicated and fun ladies, but it's had a few side perks as well.

Now, I know that this about this weekend, but there's really a year-long preamble to how things got to this weekend, and I think it's important to recount my side of those events.

Last Halloween, I had the pleasure of attending The Gathering of American Gods at the House on the Rock. I was thrilled just to be going to one of my favorite places on the face of the earth to celebrate one of my favorite works of fiction. Little did I know how it would my personal worlds of derby and literature collide in a most unexpected way.

So, I kept running into Neil at the event all weekend, in strange ways that often seemed to be driven by fate. And perhaps they were.

I had heard that the Fabulous Lorraine, Neil's assistant as well as a very talented lady in her own right, was a fan of derby. I thought that was pretty cool, since she was lived in the Eau Claire area, and I should find a way to invite her to our upcoming bouts. Then, on a late October Saturday morning, things happened that changed a lot of stuff.

Through a series of rather inexplicable events including my inability to make a decision, rocking out to a Drums album so intently that I missed an important left turn, and forgetting a pack of cigarettes in my car, I ended up entering the House on the Rock right alongside Neil and Lorraine.

I gave a polite nod and hello to Neil, and sort of pulled back in the group a little, not wanting to intrude. I ended up walking next to Lorraine, and decided that it would be a Good Thing to strike up a conversation about derby. So, I confirmed that she was a fan, let her know about CVRG and my announcing for them, and found out that she was one of the people who got turned away from our first sold-out bout. We chatted for a bit about derby and her getting to join Neil and Amanda Palmer and others on stage at the Evelyn Evelyn show I had attended a month or so prior, and then let the group go on their way to take photographs in the carousel room.

"That was pretty cool," I thought.

As the weekend went on, I met Neil in passing a couple more times, and kept running into Lorraine. We talked derby some more, she introduced me to Joan of Dark from Naptown, and talked about how excited she was to get to skate for her first time that weekend.

I became facebook friends with Lorraine, and we would chat about derby. I'd let her know when the bouts were, and when practice was, and encouraged her to come and skate with the girls and give it a go. You can read all about Lorraine's adventures on her blog at her website.

The months rolled by. Lorraine attended the bouts. Neil came with her to one, and it was great. I got to meet Joan of Dark again, as well as Lorraine's awesome friend Daisy. Things were going well.

Then Lorraine started attending practices, which made me very happy for her. I knew how much she wanted to, and how scared she was at the same time, and it was just great to be there to see her take her first steps, as I had for a lot of other girls on the team. It's amazing to watch that confidence develop and really empower these ladies. You can tell just by watching how life-changing it is for most of them.

So, fast forward to the beginning of Season Two, and the Back-to-School Bruise-a-Thon mixer this weekend. In that time, I've moved twice and ended up in Janesville, a four hour drive from Eau Claire. There's no way that I'm not going to announce for CVRG, though, as long as it's realistically possible for me to do so. Lorraine is now head of the Events Committee for the league, and has been nice enough to provide a place for Kristen and I to stay when we come up for the bouts.

So, a couple days before the big event, I get a message from Lorraine that there might be snag - photographer Kyle Cassidy is going to be in town, and she's not really going to have enough room at her place.

"So," she says, "you guys will be staying at Neil's house."

In the second or two following that, a lot of stuff went through my head. Part of me fainted dead away. Part of me just kept screaming "OMIGOD!" over and over again. Part of me was trying to calm the other parts down. Neil's just a person. He does regular old person-y stuff like everybody else does. Part of me thought, "Is that what my life is now? Spending the weekend announcing four back-to-back derby bouts, meeting world-famous photographers, and hanging out at an award-winning author's house? I can deal with that."

I'm pretty sure the cool and collected part won out at first, but as the days went on, that "OMIGOD!" voice got stronger. Not only was I getting to announce for these lovely roller warrior women, but I was going to get to sleep at Neil Gaiman's house? OH. MY. GOD!

So, the weekend was furious and fun. A four hour drive from Janesville to Eau Claire, most of which was spent coming up with some, if I do say so myself, pretty awesome intros for a ton of skaters from other leagues that would be attending. It was so nice to see everyone again when I arrived, and I'm still always a little surprised at how warm the welcomes are. Self-esteem issues, I guess, but whatever.

Then set up at the venue, which is always a blast to witness. Thankfully, the arena had internet access, so I could get some sponsor info. Most of the rest of the time was spent wrangling data into spreadsheets for team rosters, ref info, sponsors, timelines, season schedule, blah blah blah. All rather tedious stuff that you're not interested in.

The bout itself was spectacular, even though it was incredibly cold and attendance was low. I got to see a lot of great skaters from other leagues and got to witness some of the new crop of CVRG skaters - Velveteen Rogue, Toxic Hell, Emmachete, Medium Rare, Sissy Strangler, Shawtown Shankher, Jinx'd Karma, and of course Quiche MeDeadly (Lorraine).

"This is really fascinating, Mat," you're probably saying, "but when are going to get around to your stay at Neil's?"

Well, kids, THAT is going to have to wait until tomorrow's post.

I know, I'm such a tease.

My Weekend at the Dream King's Palace - Part One

2011-09-19T10:36:00.001-05:00

We followed the Dream King's Seneschal and the Artist to the palace. The way was long and winding, and you couldn't tell if you were approaching the palace until you were already there. We had received an invitation from the Seneschal, a friend of the family, to stay the night while we in the area. Morpheus would be away, but we were welcome to partake of his hospitality along with the Artist.

As we arrived, the guardians of the palace came alive. They were four-legged and pale as mist; beautiful creatures who shouted their alarm at the presence of newcomers. The younger of the two bounded toward us, barking ferociously. As she reached us, she began to nuzzle and sniff, dropping her threatening demeanor to welcome us. She lead us toward the palace and introduced us to the other guardian, an older and distinguished gentleman who offered his head and back to be petted in greeting. The guardians and the Artist went off for a walk around the grounds while the Seneschal lead us inside.

The palace seemed to hold its breath in the King's absence. The Seneschal brought it to life with her presence. Though Morpheus himself were absent, his aura still permeated the place, a shadow in the corner of your mind's eye. The Seneschal directed us to climb the long stairs to a chamber at the top of the highest spire in the palace, where we would be staying. We began the climb while she went of to take care of some very important business.

As we climbed, we came across one of the many oneiric denizens of the palace. He lounged across on of the stairs, furred in white and gray, and eyed us curiously. His name, as we would come to find, was Coconut. He and his two companions, Princess Snowflake and Joey, were the real owners of the palace. They were however, nice enough to let Morpheus and others think they owned it. They also gave others the great pleasure of feeding them and appreciating them. It was a good system, and everyone was happy.

The stairs seemed to shift as we ascended. Perhaps we only turned left when we should have turned more left. We found ourselves in what seemed to be a backstage store room. Bits of old dreams were piled on shelves. I'm pretty sure we caught a glimpse of Morpheus' work room. Not sure if we supposed to be here, we headed back down the stairs to a hall of Doors, where we indulged ourselves by admiring the dreams and visions hung upon the walls and appreciating Coconut some more. Eventually, the Seneschal found us again.

It was decided that instead of staying in the tallest spire, we would spend the evening in the library. The Seneschal showed us around, assuring us that everything would be okay. Before she took her leave, we gifted her with carrot bread and warm embraces. Then we were alone in the palace of the Dream King.

The library was everything one might expect and more. Shelves lined with generations of dreams, both those of Morpheus' own design and those of others. There were fantastical cities, dark and twisted tales, rocket ships, even a tiny galaxy encased in glass. Tired from our day, we readied ourselves for bed.

The Artist returned as we finished brushing our teeth. He would be in the room next to us, and it was nice to know that we weren't the only ones haunting the palace. We chatted with the Artist for a bit, and then turned in.

So, what does one dream when they sleep within a dream? I wish I could recall, but we woke refreshed, with gray light seeping listlessly into the room.

The morning did not change the palace much, except for the lighting. We prepared ourselves for the journey back home, gave some more appreciation to Coconut, Princess Snowflake, and Joey, chatted some more with the Artist, and played with the guardians a little. Before leaving, I left a dream of my own, knowing that it would be one among many in Morpheus' collection, but still something that felt like I needed to do.

As we drove away, we watched the Artist and the guardians going off for another exploration of the grounds. Then it was back to the real world, though we will always feel a pull to return.

Putting Some Thought into Your Character

2011-09-15T10:13:00.002-05:00

Once you know what you're doing, it's pretty easy to roll up a RPG character. But even once you know what all the numbers mean and how they interact, it can still be a chore to make a character that's more than a set of numbers.

For me, character creation is a bit of a holistic process. I'm able to come up with story ideas as I choose feats or powers or other character options, and those story ideas in turn inform other choices I make. Unless I'm making a quick throwaway character, I have a pretty developed background by the time I'm done.

However, I understand that not everyone is able to think along those same lines. It's become especially important for me lately to realize this, since I've been doing a lot of gaming with people who haven't gamed much, or at all.

To help with this I've developed a few ways or made a few adjustments to usual ways of thinking to help these people out.

First, I usually try to create a reason why characters are adventuring together. There are some great elements in my article on inserting the FATE system into Pathfinder, but even before that, I would have each player choose two other characters to have some sort of link with. In the future, I will be doing something similar, but in reverse. I plan on having a player choose two other characters, but have those two players determine what the link is. This will go around the table, and the only rule will be that you cannot choose a player whose character you already have a link to. If I start off with the players who are a bit shy or uncomfortable with this sort of thing, it should work out. It takes the immediate pressure off of them, and by the time it gets to the point where someone chooses them, they should have some good ideas to work with.

But what about developing backgrounds for individual characters? Some people just aren't sure where to start, so I've developed a worksheet with some basic ideas that allow the player to fill in the blanks. By the time they're done, they will have a nice stable foundation on which to build more ideas.

The worksheet is easily usable for any version of AD&D or any other game that uses a race/class combination. It's easy enough to adapt it to any system. A player doesn't need to fill in every blank, especially if it doesn't apply, but the more they add, the better.

As an added bonus, this can be used as a tool to choose Aspects if you are using my rules for putting FATE into Pathfinder.

Enjoy.

4E Fatigue (Alpha Version)

2011-09-13T11:14:00.001-05:00

Action economy can be a very important part of game design. But it's not the end all be all of the rules. I've played a few games where you are free to determine how many actions you get per round, though there are penalties for going outside of the norm of the system. I've been mulling over how to bring this concept into D&D for some time, and I've come up with a system that would work with the 4E rules - Fatigue.

First off, since the Fatigue system will allow characters to take extra actions during combat, it makes getting rid of the existing Action Point system a necessity. Secondly, since it will make characters able to do a bit more during combat than they could with those Action Point rules, you'll need to make sure that enemies are a bit more buffed up than they usually are. Start by using the updated monster stats from the Monster Manual 3 and the Essentials Monster Vault. They're a bit tougher than the original wave of monster design. Lastly, if you normally use Fortune Cards in your game, you should probably forgo using them, at least while you initially try out this system.

Before I go any further, please note that these rules have not yet been playtested. If you decide to try this system out, please leave a comment letting me know how it worked out and any changes that you made to make it work better. OK, on with the show...

Threshold

The threshold statistic is an abstraction of how far your character can push themselves before becoming fatigued. Your threshold is equal to half of your number of healing surges per day, rounded down. Effects such as rituals or magic items that give you temporary or conditional healing surges do not affect your threshold. Only effects such as feats or class features that give you permanent healing surges affect threshold.

Fatigue Points

You gain fatigue points by taking extra actions in combat. You may take any number of extra actions during your turn in combat, but for each action you take beyond your normal allotment, you gain one fatigue point as soon as the action is resolved.

When your character gains a fatigue point that puts his total equal to or greater than his threshold, he gains the Fatigued condition (save ends). You may not attempt a save on the turn that you gained the Fatigue Point that caused you to gain the condition. If a character has a number of Fatigue Points equal to their Healing Surges per day, they become Unconscious.

The Fatigued Condition

You take a -2 to all Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution-based skill checks.
You are slowed.
Any effect that would cause you to gain the slowed condition instead immobilizes you.
Any effect that would cause you to gain the dazed condition instead gives you the stunned condition.
Any effect that would cause you to gain the stunned condition instead knocks you unconscious.
If you take a standard action (including using a standard action to perform a lesser action), you grant combat advantage until the beginning of your next turn and you gain a fatigue point.

Healing Fatigue

At the end of a short rest, you reduce your fatigue point total by 1. At the end of an extended rest, you reduce your fatigue point total a number of points equal to your threshold. You may not reduce fatigue points by more than your threshold in a 24-hour period, even if you take successive short rests.

Any time a character would spend a healing surge to regain hit points, they may instead choose to loose 1 fatigue point. Effects that grant additional hit points of healing do not affect the number of fatigue points lost. A character spending healing surges to reduce fatigue points may reduce their them by more than their threshold.

Fatigue from Other Sources (Optional)

At the DM's discretion, other powers or effects may deal fatigue points. In general, an effect should never deal more than 1 fatigue point at a time, and should deal it as a replacement to something else the power does, not in addition to it.

Monsters and Fatigue (Optional)

To even out the score, you can let the PCs opponents take advantage of this system as well. Minions and regular creatures of level 3 or lower do not have threshold scores. Regular creatures of level 4 or higher have a threshold score equal to half their level, rounded down. Elite creatures of any level have a threshold of half their level, rounded down, plus two. Solo creatures of any level have a threshold score of half their level, rounded down, plus five.

Magic: the Gathering - Why I Left and Why I'm Coming Back (Sort of) After 17 Years

2011-09-07T09:01:00.000-05:00

I'll admit it: I had a brief love affair with Magic: the Gathering when it first released in 1993. It lasted less than a year (not the shortest of my relationships, by any means), and the break-up was rather bitter. It's interesting to note that if a child had been born when I stopped playing, this would their final year in high school (ironically, the same age that I was when the game released). It gives one perspective.

Why did things end so badly? As is often the case, it was mostly an economic reason. I simply didn't earn enough to keep Magic happy.

When the game first came out, it was all great fun - buying starter decks and boosters, hoping to get some of those really cool cards that you've seen but never owned, playing games with friends and hoping to get something cool from the ante, developing and testing new strategies, trading cards, and coming up with new ways to play the game, especially with multiple players.

Then the secondary market began to stir.

In the beginning, everyone was on pretty equal footing. Sure, some people were better at deckbuilding and identifying combos and strategy, but they were happy to share it and teach others. As the game began picking up steam and becoming more and more popular, though, people became more aggressive about the game. Why would they want to give you hints on how to build a better deck when they were winning good cards by beating you every time? Why would they want to help you beat them and win their ever-more-expensive cards. What was once friendly competition became more and more cut-throat.

People were spending more and more on singles in the secondary market, and were beginning to starters and boosters by the box and the case. People would agree to go in together on cases, and when they arrived would fail to have their portion of the money. Feelings were hurt, friendships were damaged. It was like a nerdy drug cartel war at times.

I do not come from a wealthy family. At best, we could be considered solidly middle-class, if not lower-middle class. I didn't work at the time, and didn't have a lot of disposable income. I also still had an ongoing RPG habit to support with what little money I did have. This meant that my collection of cards became comparatively underpowered relatively quickly.

That's not to say that I didn't have some good cards. I had a number of "good" cards, and people LOVED to play against me because I was relatively easy to beat, with the possibility of getting one of those good cards in return. It took me a little while to catch on this, but eventually, I got there.

Shortly after the Antiquities expansion released, a couple of friends went to a game shop a few hours away and dropped a total of around $700 on a combination of 4 or 5 cards. To me, that was the big orange blinking signpost to get the hell out.

I sold off my entire collection of cards for a little more than my total investment and never looked back.

So, why, after 17 years, have I recently picked up a few decks? There are a few answers.

I bought my first deck a few months ago. It was an old Fifth Dawn pre-constructed Stampede deck that I got for 50 cents at Goodwill. I had initially planned to trade in the singles at the game store at which I work for a bit of store credit. Then we started packing for our move from Stoughton to Janesville, and the deck got packed away and was mostly forgotten.

As I said, I currently work at a game shop. This is the main reason why I've decided to get familiar with the game again. We have a Magic expert at the store, but even he gets a day off once a week, so Tuesdays are sort of a "No Magic Questions or Trades" day. While I'll never know as much as our expert, I think it would be a fine idea to be at least somewhat conversant in the game - more than my bitter memories would let me be, at least.

Also, there are times when I just want to play a quick friendly and competitive game, and only have myself and another person. I simply don't have many games that fit that bill - most of the competitive games I own really need at least three players to be interesting.

So, the other day, I picked up a Knights vs. Dragons Duel deck from work. While it might take some finesse to convince Kristen to play, it's a possibility. It will also allow us (or, more likely, me) to play against a couple of friends who we play other games with. They have been fairly regular Magic players in the past, and while they've sold off the majority of their cards, they've held back a few decks in hopes that they get a chance to use them again.

Now that I have a bit more disposable income than I did in high school and work at a game store, I can more easily afford to keep up on the game. While I'm never going to play seriously in tournaments or raid the secondary market for the coolest uber-combos and deck builds out there, I plan on trying to keep up on the newer releases. If nothing else, it will fit into my goal of playing more games over the fall and winter.

Fantasy Gaming and Art

2011-09-06T10:36:00.003-05:00

I was a fantasy gamer long before I ever rolled my first twenty-sided die. As far back as I can remember, I was enthralled by fantastical artwork, and ruminating on the matter, I realize that a lot of it was directly related to Dungeons & Dragons.

Prior to knowing what a role-playing game really was, D&D's artwork had captured my attention. My dad was a model rocket enthusiast when I was a little kid, and we would often go to our local hobby shop, The Hobby Hub, for him to buy supplies. While he was purchasing his rockets and engines and such, I remember being transfixed by what was to be a big part of my life going forwards. In particular, I remember a large poster advertising something called The Dungeon Master's Guide.

At the time, I had no idea what a Dungeon Master was, but the image stuck with me. Who were these brave heroes, and what was this frightening red thing they were fighting? And who was I rooting for? I wasn't entirely sure.

At some point before or after that (it's all a bit hazy decades later), I became aware of D&D as more than just some vague concept. One of my earliest introductions, as it was for many my age, was through TSR's Endless Quest series of Choose Your Own Adventure-style books. The book that sticks out in my mind the most is Revenge of the Rainbow Dragons.

I was always fascinated by the aesthetic of and concept of the color spectrum, and seeing it combined with a fantasy element really captured my young imagination.

The other image that I always associate with these formative pre-gaming years is the cover from Dungeons of Dread.

The strange thing about this image is that in my memory, it's not only the illustration used for this booklet, but also the one used for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons video game for the Intellivision that my dad's friend had. I would play it endlessly whenever we visited, even though I had no real idea what I was doing. With some research, though, I could not find any images of the Intellivision game with this artwork. What I did find, tickled part of my brain.

The moment I saw it, I remembered it. Maybe it was the snake arching to attack that layered itself onto the memory of the water weird that made me remember the image incorrectly. In any event, it goes to illustrate (pun only slightly intended) my point that, for me, fantasy gaming has been largely informed and influenced by the art that goes along with it.

But, back to my dad's friend for now. At some point in the early 80's, a very important thing happened. We kids were digging through my dad's friend's closet looking for games to keep us entertained. That was when I came upon one of the most important finds of my life. It was a game, but smaller than any game box that I had ever seen before. And there was no board, only words and strange, almost hypnotic artwork, and bizarrely-shaped plastic dice like I had never seen before.

I was, for lack of a better term, instantly in love. I took it to my dad's friend to have him teach me how to play it. He admitted that he had no idea how to play it. He had bought it to play with some friends, but they could never figure it out. So he told me that I could have it if I was interested. Why he thought a six-year old would have a better shot at figuring out a game that a group of relatively intelligent adults couldn't figure out is, to this day, quite beyond me, but I'm glad that he did.

I spent the next couple of days trying to wrap my brain around the game, but it was a bit beyond my comprehension. So I spent a couple of weeks trying to get my mom to explain it to me. As it turned out, she had even less of an idea than I did, so eventually, the game went into a box in the attic. It sat, in the attic and in the back of my mind, waiting for a day that I had no idea was on the horizon.

Today, it seems a bit strange that I would have such a hard time grasping the game, but it was a much different time. Concepts like "characters," "levels," "classes," and "experience" weren't as widespread a concept in gaming as they are today. We had video games, but they were systems like the Atari 2600, Intellivision, and Odyssey2, and were largely the domains of the "bigger kids" and adults. For us, games were things like Memory, Battleship, Monopoly, and Sorry. Or running around in the yard, whacking each other with sticks. It was a simpler time.

So, years passed and that old Basic Set sat in our attic, but my fascination with fantasy continued. I read a lot of books about greek mythology, watched a lot of movies like Dragonslayer and The Beastmaster, read The Hobbit, and played with my Masters of the Universe toys. I also had a bunch of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons action figures. All of this helped keep alive the part of me that would eventually bloom into a fantasy gamer.

I remember being on a multi-school field trip in first or second grade (possibly later or earlier, the period is still a bit of a mish-mash). On the bus, I met a bunch of kids, a year or two older and from another school, who sat in the back with a bunch of books and papers and seemed to be having a great time. Investigating, I discovered that they were playing D&D. They had obviously been playing for quite some time, and weren't interested in teaching someone how to play, but I got to watch for a while. I didn't understand the rules, but I got first real look at role-playing, and I knew it was something I wanted to be a part of.

While I'm still not sure if the timeline really matches up, I'm fairly convinced that one of the books they had along on that field trip was Oriental Adventures.

The cover immediately captivated me. I had spent a lot of time watching the USA network's "Kung Fu Theater" on the weekends, and the thought that this game would let me play a ninja or samurai just made it so much cooler. But, as things do, the field trip ended, and I never met those kids again. At that point in time, kids who went to other schools may as well have been from other planets.

Time passed.

It wasn't until Christmas of 1988 that I would finally get to play D&D for myself. A phone call from my cousin set the whole thing off. His cousin from the other side of his family had visited from college, and brought his D&D books with him. He showed my cousin and his other cousins how to play, but had left. More D&D was needed, and I was the answer. I spent a couple of hours digging around the attic and uncovered the Basic Rules, the Keep on the Boderlands module, and most of the strange dice. I headed over to my cousin's, and came back a different person.

That was an epic week. Four of us shut ourselves in a basement, only venturing out to beg grown-ups to take us to a place where we could find more D&D books to buy. The Hobby Hub had long since shut down, but we happened across a place downtown called the International Toy Company. They specialized in Playmobil and other imported and expensive toys and games, but they had a small section of role-playing games. And dice... oh, the dice.

After a couple of our initial adventures, I had taken over as the Dungeon Master. This was a trend that has carried through my life. We blew through the Basic levels in a night, and so the first product purchased was the Expert Set.

Now, here was some art that changed my life. Sure, that old D&D art was cool in a weird sort of way. But this... this was cool in a COOL sort of way. Who wouldn't want to be a warrior on horseback facing down a pouncing dragon? Not to mention that it included an adventure with DINOSAURS! The moment I purchased this product was the moment that I consider myself to have really and truly become a gamer.

School went back into session and we began to show our friends this new wonder. And we began to make new friends to game with. Weekend family road trips became excuses to look for game stores. Two of the most important to me were Professor Books in Winona, MN and Pinnacle Games in Rochester, MN (both of which have been gone for a long time now).

Professor Books was the store where I picked up two very important books. The first was the brand new Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Player's Handbook. We had been playing for a little while now, so we were ready to take it to the next step. For quite a while after that, there weren't many distinctions, for us, between OD&D and AD&D. There certainly was never too big a distinction between 1st and 2nd Edition.

The more important of the two books, though, was actually a novel.

I picked up Chronicles, Volume 3 at the same time, but it was this cover that blew me away. I had, of course, read fantasy books before, but this was somehow different. This was fantasy that wasn't something that was just for kids. It took me less than a day to finish Dragons of Winter Night, and I didn't slow down for years.

Pinnacle Games is a singularity in my life for two reasons. The first is that, until then, I had been completely unaware that there even COULD be a store devoted solely and entirely to games. It was like entering a wardrobe or being whisked away by a tornado and ending up in an entirely different world.

The second reason is the first issue of Dragon Magazine that I ever purchased.

This is my all-time favorite piece of D&D-related artwork. It spoke to me in a lot of ways. Autumn has always been my favorite season, and Halloween my favorite holiday. It also showed me that it was not only possible, but incredibly cool to mix horror in with fantasy. I still have the very issue that I purchased that day. It's one of my most sentimental possessions.

We discovered other stores back in town that sold D&D - Kay-Bee Toys and Waldenbooks in the mall both sold books. Kay-Bee had a ton of adventures that were on clearance for a dollar or two each. This was probably the single largest source for our adventures in those days. Waldenbooks, though, was our source for rule books. I still remember two very important books that were purchased there.

The cover of Unearthed Arcana still defines, for me, a "wizard's laboratory." I have a framed puzzle of this artwork hanging on my wall right now. It also opened our eyes to more options for play.

The second book was something that built upon my budding love of horror mixed with fantasy, and is a staple of D&D history.

This adventure shows up on a lot of people's favorite lists, and for a lot of good reasons. For me, it was the beginning of paying attention to authors and artists. A horror adventure written by the one of the authors of the Dragonlance books? Yes, please. And what was this strange, forlorn cover art? And this strange symbol as an artist's signature? I think Clyde Caldwell was the first artist to really make me realize how much my love of gaming tied into my love of the artwork. A lot of people criticize his art for various reasons, but he's still one the best in my book.

From here on out, it became a wild and wooly love affair with fantasy, horror, and art. I could go on for hours about just about every piece of D&D product art covering most of the span of the game and what it means to me, but instead, I will just leave you with some of my favorite product covers over the years.

Perhaps I will go into my relationship with art and other RPGs in a future post.

Gamma World, Session One

2011-09-03T22:45:00.000-05:00

Just finished up running the first session of what will hopefully be an ongoing Gamma World campaign. First, let's meet the characters:

Steve "Steam" Post (played by Nick)

Steam is a mutant with the Speedster and Exploding origins. He is enthralled by things that blow up and go fast. He sports a fancy letterman's jacket and his weapon of choice is a baseball bat.

Gobi (played by Kristen)

Gobi is a mutant with the Plastic and Plant origins. She is a humanoid plant decked out in a leather jacket and who attacks with prehensile vines. She can also produce various fruits.

Jerry from Tech Support (played by Manda)

Jerry is a mutant with the Saurian and Plaguebearer origins. He is a man-sized Tyranosaur armored with old couch cushions. He prefers to bite his enemies. Jerry likes collecting buttons, eating meat, and performing science.

Our group of lovable misfits have taken on the job of saving the village of Blisterin' Faire from a daily visitation of robots that sometimes destroy the city walls. Following leads, they discovered a small tower occupied by badders and their hired guards. After dealing with the outer guards, they found themselves outmanned by the badders' yexil pet. Narrowly escaping death, they have set out to return to Blisterin' Faire to find more help.

My Initial Thoughts

For our first game, I decided to forgo using my home-brew rules and just use the rules as they were written. After the first session, I think that I was pretty right on with my changes. While I do get the design idea that getting a new Alpha Mutation every encounter will make players more likely to use those cool powers, in practice it didn't really play out like that. Next session I'll be instituting my changes and we'll see how those play out.

Next time we'll hopefully be adding two more to the party.

Chainsville

2011-09-02T11:08:00.000-05:00

[Chainsville is a home-brew setting for Wizards of the Coast's Gamma World D&D 4E RPG. It is based on Janesville, WI, where I currently reside.]

Overview

Chainsville is a small fortified town along the banks of the Rawk River. The town is sandwiched between the radioactive wilderness known as the Ur-Ban Jungle and the Wastelands - the picked over ruins of the much larger Ancient city that Chainsville is built upon. The town is named for the massive chains that have been built across the Rawk River at various points, allowing complete control of traffic along the river.

Leadership

Chainsville is ruled by the Loved and Most Reasonable Emperor Norton Kane, a militaristic tyrant who inspires fear and terror in his subjects. However, he also keeps them protected from the horrors that reside in (and sometimes decide to venture out of) the Ur-Ban Jungle and the barbaric residents of the Wastelands, as well as offering a comfortable life for his army.

Kane's rule is indirectly opposed by an enigmatic figure known as Mother Mercy, a healer who oversees the Temple of Mercy and offers rest and succor to all those who need it, no questions asked. While Mother disagrees with Kane's military mindset, she does not openly speak out against him or foment rebellion. At the same time, Kane finds himself unable to move against the healer, as she provides a great service to his wounded soldiers. At the moment, the two leaders are at a stalemate, but many speculate that an open conflict is inevitable and imminent.

History

Before the Big Mistake, Chainsville was a city of a comparable size to the Ancient cities of Madzon, Uclare, and Luhcroz, though not as large as the nearby Ancient mega-cities of M'wahkee or She-Coggo. At the very same moment that the Big Mistake happened, a small nuclear device was detonated in a shopping mall. The explosion, combined with the forces of the Big Mistake, devastated much of the city and birthed the strangeness of the Ur-Ban Jungle. The areas southwest of the Rawk River were the least affected by the disaster, and many of the surviving populace eventually congregated there.

For decades, the area was a lawless and barbaric area. Between the abominations of the Ur-Ban Jungle and bloodthirsty mutations living in the ruins, life was often short and brutal. Then Norton Kane arrived with Ancient weapons and vehicles. In a relatively short amount of time, he built walls and offered protection from the dangers of the area. As more and more people fled to the safety he offered, he organized military scavenging parties, stripping the areas that are now known as the Wastelands of materials used to rebuild Chainsville. The famous river-chains were forged, giving Kane control over travel and trade on the Rawk.

A decade after Norton arrived, the healer now called Mother Mercy emerged from the Ur-Ban Jungle, bloodied and near death. She was taken in by Norton's guard for questioning, but after months of interrogation, it was determined that she had no memory of who she was or how she had come to be in or survive the Ur-Ban Jungle. After her emergence, Norton declared that the Ur-Ban was strictly off-limits. No expeditions would ever go in, and anything or anyone coming out would be executed on sight. This decision, and the timing, has caused many to speculate that Mother Mercy's interrogation was not entirely fruitless.

After being released and allowed to stay in Chainsville, Mother Mercy took up residence in the Ancient Temple of Mercy. The temple had been abandoned and ignored by Norton, who had no inclination toward such things. Over the decades, Mother Mercy has restored the temple to a semblance of its former glory, and has gathered a small cadres of followers, known as the Daughters of Mercy.

Current Events

The fifty years since Kane's arrival have been more-or-less uneventful and lead to a new prosperity for the town. While his rule is absolute and, at times, seemingly cruel, the Emperor has brought a respite from the creatures of the Ur-Ban Jungle and the Wasteland raider, established a standard currency, and brought business and trade to the area. Chainsville is perfectly placed as a crossroads for both overland and river trade caravans from many surrounding cities. However, there are others who are interested in more than trade in the town...

Adventure Hooks

The nuclear explosion during the Big Mistake and the resulting Ur-Ban Jungle make Chainsville and area of interest to the Radioactivists. While Kane has established a lockdown on travel into or out of the jungle, there are still holes in security that can be exploited by those adventurous or wealthy enough. PCs belonging to the Radioactivists might be sent to the city to find a way into the jungle to explore it. Alternately, PCs might be hired by either Kane or Mother Mercy to enter the jungle and stop a group of Radioactivists before they achieve whatever nefarious plot they have in mind.

Emporer Kane's claims of rulership extend far beyond the walls of Chainsville, though he does not currently have the military might to back these claims up. These claims might conflict with the wishes of Emperor Napoleon III and the Brotherhood of the Fit. Brotherhood characters could be sent to town to sow unrest or to try and take out Kane directly. Alternately, Kane might have need of a group of individuals to make a scouting run or strike on nearby Brotherhood encampments.

The Wastelands are not unpopulated. A strange mix of outlaws, barbarians, and hermits live beyond the western walls of Chainsville. Mother Mercy or Kane may need to find someone who has fled to the Wastelands, possibly to avoid being found altogether. Alternately, members of the Red Death or the Iron Society may have taken up residence in the Wastelands and may be looking to start a bit of genocide.

September (and Beyond)

2011-09-01T11:42:00.000-05:00

September is here, and that means lots of good things. Halloween stores are starting to open and the holiday itself is only two months away. Roller derby season is starting up, and that means a lot of trips from Janesville to Eau Claire to announce for the Chippewa Valley Roller Girls. It also means that the big convention season is over, and most of the really big gaming product releases have passed.

One of my goals for this fall and winter is to play more varied games. RPG-wise, I hope to get in some of the new Gamma World, Eclipse Phase, The Dresden Files RPG, Scion, World of Darkness (old and/or new), Star Wars Saga Edition (I'm champing at the bit to play Calman Artis, con-man, techie, and slicer) and the Laundry. While I do love D&D/Pathfinder, and plan on playing it as well, there's a lot of other stuff out there, and it's time to make some of it happen. Board and card game-wise, I'm hoping to dig into my library a bit more. Game nights usually default to Talisman or Castle Ravenloft/Wrath of Ashardalon. Come October, I'm sure The Legend of Drizzt game will added in there, too. But I've still got games in my collection that I've never played once (Vampire: Prince of the City, Letters From Whitechapel, Battlestar Galactica, and Merchants & Marauders, to name just a few), or ones that I haven't played enough or in a long time (Mansions of Madness, Red Dragon Inn, Defenders of the Realm, and Killer Bunnies, to name a few more).

The real question, though, is how to achieve all of this while at the same time working six days a week, announcing for derby one or two days a month, starting up a monthly Pathfinder Society game, get started on a top-secret project, and still having some time to myself once in a while. It's going to be an interesting adventure...

Finding the Path of Fate, Part 3

2011-03-28T18:23:00.000-05:00

In parts one and two of this series, I detailed how to determine seven aspects for your Pathfinder RPG character. Now that you've got them, though, you're probably wondering exactly what you do with them and how.

Aspects are used to gain and spend fate points, which are benefits that you use to shape the story in dramatic ways and help your character succeed at actions. Fate points are a lot like the hero points from the Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide, but are much more numerous. If you are using aspects and fate points for your campaign, you should not use the hero point system, as they are somewhat redundant.

Each character will start the game with a set number of fate points. This number will be set by the GM, but I suggest using either the character's level, or the character's level +2. This starting number is also a statistic called refresh. At certain intervals, characters' pools of fate points will reset to this value. The frequency that these resets occur is up to the GM. A couple of simple suggestions is to have fate points refresh every play session or every character level. A more complicated way, and my personal suggestion, is to base the refresh on stories, or acts within those stories. This makes a little more work for the GM, and leads to fate points being a bit more of a precious resource, but it will lead to a game that has more of a cinematic and story-driven flow. In general, the more frequently you have your character's refresh their fate points, the lower their refresh values should be.

It is best to use some sort of physical counter - glass beads or poker chips work best - to represent fate points. Avoid using anything edible, as players may absentmindedly eat their fate points. I'm only half-joking there.

There are two mechanics that you will use with fate points. The first, invoking an aspect, is used by the player to spend one or more fate points to receive a benefit. The second, compelling an aspect, is used by the GM (and sometimes other players) to add a hindrance or complication to the story in return for a character earning a fate point.

When you invoke an aspect, you choose one of your aspects which you think would give you an edge in a certain situation. The aspect should tie in this situation, and it is ultimately left up to the GM to decide whether or not that aspect is applicable. A good GM will not dismiss your attempt off-hand, and there may some back and forth negotiating on the matter. If the GM decides that your aspect is applicable, you spend a fate point for one of the benefits listed below. If he does not, the fate point is not spent. You may only spend one fate point per round per aspect you are trying to invoke.

Once you have successfully invoked an aspect, you may spend a fate point to gain any of the benefits listed in the hero point system except Act Out of Turn, Extra Action, or Recall, with the following modifications:

Bonus: Because fate points are far more plentiful than hero points, the bonus received is reduced to +2 before the die roll, or +1 after the die is rolled. This bonus is a luck bonus that stacks with other bonuses gained from using a fate point, but not from another source. You may not use this benefit to assist another character. Using a fate point in this way is the least beneficial method.
Inspiration: This works exactly as stated in the Advanced Player's Guide.
Reroll: You may reroll any one d20 roll you just made, or any damage roll you just made. If rerolling a damage roll, you must reroll all of the dice. In either case, you must use the second roll, even if it is worse than the original result.
Special: This catch-all category is always subject to the GM's approval. In addition to the examples listed in the Advanced Player's Guide, a player may spend a fate point to invoke and aspect for effect. Doing this allows the character to declare a fact or circumstance that would benefit a character and make it true. This is a very open benefit, and as always, the GM has the final say on the matter, and should establish some guidelines beforehand. Some good examples of guidelines are the effect may not adversely affect another player character, the effect may not give a direct mechanical benefit, and it may not give the character a magic item or a non-magical item over 10 gp in value.
Cheat Death: In order to cheat death, the player need simply spend two fate points without invoking an aspect. If a player is able to invoke an aspect, he need only spend one fate point.

The flip side of invoking aspects, compelling aspects allows the GM a way to complicate stories for characters and gives players ways to gain fate points. Generally, a compel will focus on only one aspect, but in rare cases, multiple aspects may be compelled, and more fate points gained. A player is free to refuse the compel, but will not get the fate point unless they accept it - in fact, they'll have to pay a fate point to refuse it.

Compels come in two flavors: limitations and complications. Limitations restrict a character's possible actions in a given situation. This sort of compel can limit the type of actions available to a character, but can never dictate an exact action that a character can take. For example if a character had "Bully" as aspect and was trying to talk his way past some city guards, the GM could compel that character's aspect to deny him the ability to use the diplomacy skill in the situation. If the player accepted, they would still be able to use the intimidate or bluff skill to get past the guards, though this may result in some less-than-desirable consequences.

Complications are situational events or plot twists that make life a little tougher. This might be the appearance of a antagonistic NPC, or a secret coming out at the wrong moment. In some cases, the compel might even suggest failing at a skill check without even rolling the die.

When the GM sees an opportunity to compel a character's aspect, he presents the possible effects of the compel, and tempts the player by suggestively waving a fate point in front of the player. Like invoking, there may be some room for negotiation on the compel. Once the terms have been settled, the player must decide whether or not to accept the compel. If they accept, they receive the fate point, but must abide by the guidelines of the compel, and any consequences - foreseen or unforeseen - that arise from it. If the player decides not accept, they must give the GM a fate point, but do not have to abide by the compel.

Sometimes, a player may find himself in need of fate points and/or see a good opportunity for a compel. A player may initiate a compel for his own character by merely mentioning it to the GM. If the GM likes the idea, he may offer the fate point like a normal compel. If you see an opportunity for a compel against another character, you may initiate a compel against them by pushing forward a fate chip and pitching your idea. If the GM agrees, he will take your fate chip and offer the compel to the other player. If the other player accepts the compel, they receive your fate chip. If they decline, you do not get your fate chip back.

At other times, you may find yourself playing out your aspects without thinking to ask for a compel. In this case, the GM should make a note of what happened and award the affected character with a retroactive fate point, or let the character start with an extra fate point after the next refresh. This situation should only apply if the player made choices based on their aspects that adversely affected their character in some way.

Sometimes, the GM may have a particularly good idea for a compel - something that makes a very tense and dramatic turning point for a story - but the player just isn't biting. In cases like these, the GM has one more trick to pull out: escalation. In cases like these, if the player refuses compel, the GM ups the stakes by offering a second fate point. If the player still wants to refuse, he must spend another fate point (for a total of two) to refuse. If the player accepts, he gets back the original fate point that he spent to refuse, in addition to the two points for accepting the compel. In extremely rare and dramatically important situations, the GM might escalate up to three points if the second compel is refused. In cases of escalation, the GM and player should add some details to the story that reflect the mounting tension and importance of the moment.

Players may also initiate an escalation. When initially refusing the compel, the player can simply push forward the first fate point and state that they aren't willing to accept for only one fate point. The GM is then free to either accept the refusal or escalate the compel. Regardless of who initiates it, an escalating compel should be used sparingly as a tool to build and shape the story.

Those are the basics of the aspects and the fate point system, and how to integrate them into Pathfinder. Hopefully you will find them intriguing and/or useful. If you try them out in your own games and would like to share any comments, please feel free to do so.

There are also rules that I may go into in future posts, including assigning aspects for NPCs, monsters, locations, and even stories or campaigns in general. If you can't wait until then or if you are looking for more in depth examples on the workings of the system, I suggest picking up one of the many games that uses the FATE system. In particular, I recommend the Dresden Files RPG.

Finding the Path of Fate, Part 2

2011-03-21T19:19:00.002-05:00

In the first part of this three-part posting, I covered the basics of aspects and how to determine your first two aspects (your high concept and your trouble). In this part, I'll go over the remaining steps for determining your remaining five aspects.

After deciding on your high concept and trouble, you will want to determine your background, or where you came from. This can be as simple as a paragraph or two describing your childhood, or can be substantially longer. For older characters, this can be expanded to cover young adulthood, but in most cases, it will deal with your early life. In the end, there should one element of your background that becomes your aspect for this phase of character creation. It might be a person, place, thing, event, belief, or something similar, but it should be something that is an integral part of your character. Also, since we are merging the F.A.T.E. mechanics with Pathfinder, this background can help inform your choice of traits (from the Advanced Player's Guide and other PFRPG products). Sample aspects that might come out of your background could be "raised by an evil sorceress," "family heirloom - longsword," "kidnapped by goblins," "religious visions," or "grew up in a waterfront tavern."

The next step is called rising conflict and deals with what shaped you after your childhood. Again, this can be a paragraph or two, or more if you're feeling inspired. Your rising conflict should generally cover people, events, and choices that lead to your becoming an adventurer, and in particular should reinforce your class choice. Your aspect for this phase will be similar to your background aspect: an important person, place, thing, event, belief, et cetera, and is also another good indicator of appropriate traits for your character. Continuing with our background examples, some good ideas might be "turned away from evil mother for true love," "father died, passing the longsword and responsibility to me," "began hunting goblins for revenge," "accepted a calling from a god or goddess," or "began entertaining the tavern-goers with song and poetry."

The fun really begins with your first adventure, a step called the story. This is your character's first real foray into the world of adventure, but shouldn't be fully fleshed out. In fact, a simple sentence or two works best, as other characters will be adding some meat to your story in the next couple of steps. It's helpful to start with thinking of a simple title for your first adventure. You don't need to spend a lot of time on the title - think of something that would be fitting for a short story.

If you're having problems writing your first story, think about your character's trouble aspect, and see if you can come up with any ideas that reinforce that theme. You can also try using this great story skeleton (published in the "Dresden Files RPG: Your Story"):

When [something happens], [your protagonist] [pursues a goal]. But will [your protagonist] succeed when [antagonist provides opposition]?

You'll probably want to write this down on a large index card in order to make the last steps of this process easier.

Once you are finished with your story, you'll want to pull something out of it for your aspect. Most likely it's a quality about your character's personality that would be integral to the movement or conclusion of your character's story.

Now you've only got two aspects remaining, and those are going to be determined by guest starring in the first stories of two other characters. You'll also have two other characters guest starring in your first story.

There are a few ways to determine whose story you'll be guest starring in and who'll be guest starring in yours. The GM can simply collect everyone's first stories, then shuffle them out randomly, making sure that no one gets their own. This would then be repeated a second time, making sure no one gets a story that they've already guest starred in. Alternately, you could simply have everyone pass their story to the left or right, then do so again. Lastly, if the players are familiar with one another and amenable to the idea, everyone can share their character's details from high concept to first story, and the players can determine whose stories they would best fit into. In this case, if there are more than two players interested in guest starring in a character's story, the player in question should make the final decision on who the two guest stars will be.

When guest starring in another character's first story, you will add a sentence or two to the story, with your character a minor but crucial role in the story. You can contribute in one of three ways: complicate the story, solve a situation within the story, or solve one situation but complicate another.

You will draw the last two aspects of you character from these contributions to others' stories. Like all previous aspects, they will be short phrases and should be related to how you complicate or solve (or both) the story in question.

Once you've finished the guest starring phases, you're done. You can finish off any parts of regular Pathfinder character creation that are remaining, using all that you now know about your character as a guideline. As an added bonus, not only will you have a good idea of who your character is, you'll also have links to the rest of the group and the beginnings of some great stories.

So, now that you've got all these phrases that describe and define your character, what do you do with them?

That's what I'll be covering in part three.

Finding the Path of Fate, Part 1

2011-03-07T19:29:00.000-06:00

In this three-part blog, I will be discussing how to integrate some of the mechanics of the FATE 3.0 system into the Pathfinder RPG. I will be referencing the FATE 3.0 system as presented in The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game: Your Story (published by Evil Hat Productions). If you don't already own this game, you can get a copy here. I will also be referencing two books from the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game (published by Paizo Publishing): the Core Rulebook and the Advanced Player's Guide. Though all of these items are covered by the Open Gaming License, I will not be reproducing rules text, merely commenting on the printed rules themselves, so if you're interested in implementing these ideas, you'll copies of the relevant books in order to do it.

A quick word of warning before I go any further: FATE is much lighter and more cinematic on rules than Pathfinder is. These ideas add a lot of storytelling elements into the character creation and play of the Pathfinder system, so if your group is more about numbers and tactics (with which there is nothing wrong), you may not want to use them. In fact, once it gets down to the game master and even other players invoking another character's aspects, things could get chilly if your group is more interested in gaining every possible advantage in every situation than they are in making a good story. You have been warned.

There are four little words that are integral to creating FATE characters: "Character Creation Is Play." It's a pretty simple little maxim and, looking back, one that I've always tried to play by, but seeing it in print can really drive the point home. There's nothing more frustrating for a game master than starting a campaign only to find that the players have all made characters that would realistically have little or nothing to do with one another. In The Dresden Files RPG, the first step in character creation is actually collaboratively creating the city in which the game will be set. While that's a great tool for Pathfinder (and something that can certainly be tried if you want to get more advanced), in this case we're going to assume that the GM has a campaign idea in mind, and will relate the basic setup to the players.

The upshot is that your group should spend at least the first part of their first session creating characters TOGETHER. As character creation unfolds, each player will have a chance to come up with a bit of his backstory, and will have other characters participate in that backstory as well as participating in the backstories of others. But, before we get to that part, let's talk about Aspects.

Aspects are simple phrases that describe and define your character. It might be something as simple as "Elven Wizard," or something as intriguing as "Seeking Revenge for the Death of His True Love." Each character will have seven aspects, determined by his high concept, his trouble, and by the five phases of character development. This part of character creation can be done before or after normal Pathfinder character creation. Either way has advantages and disadvantages. You, as the GM, can make that decision yourself, or discuss it with your players. Personally, I would choose to do it beforehand.

You character's high concept is a nutshell conceptualization of your character. Most everyone who's played a roleplaying game has, at one time or another, in one way or another, already come up a high concept. Don't believe me? Does this sound familiar?

GM: So, what's everyone playing?
Player 1: I'm a Neutral Good Human Skill-based Rogue.
Player 2: I'm the most beloved Gladiator in the Slave Pits of D'Huun!
Player 3: I'm a Taranthian Bounty Hunter
Player 4: I'm a Wizard who is seeking forbidden knowledge
Player 5: I'm an Follower of the Old Ways, traveling to spread the word and keep them alive.
Player 6: I'm a Bard.

Right? Right. At it's most basic, your high concept can be your race or class or a combination, but it might include more detail. All of the above are perfectly fine examples of a high concept.

Your high concept is also your first aspect.

Your second aspect will be determined by your trouble. Your trouble is something (or even someone) in your life who complicates things. Perhaps you are in debt to a powerful organized crime figure, or you have an truly insatiable curiosity that is constantly getting you into tight spots, or you're a jinx. Maybe you have a child to take care of, or a bounty on your head, or you doubt your faith. By no means is your trouble the only complication in your life, but it is the one that truly defines you.

The most important thing to remember about your high concept and your trouble (indeed, about ALL of you aspects) is that they provide NO mechanical benefits in and of themselves, but will be used as a way to move the story, motivate your character, and get access to things that will provide mechanical benefits.

Next time, I'll go over determining the rest of your aspects, including your character's first story, and how to co-star in other characters' stories. Then, in the third installment, I'll go over how to use your aspects in conjunction with Pathfinder's hero point system.

The Weekend in Gaming

2011-03-06T19:54:00.000-06:00

Sadly, the Gamma World game that was planned for this weekend did not go off. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to run it before moving at the end of April, but if not, I'm sure I'll have ample opportunity down in Madison.

I did, however, finally get to play in the first session of a Pathfinder RPG campaign that we've been trying to get going for a while now. We are playing in the Lonely Coast setting, published by Raging Swan Press, modified to fit in Brian's home-brewed campaign setting. It was good fun, and I am a little bummed that I will only get to play in it for a short time (our next session is in four weeks).

It also gave me an opportunity to put my copy of the Pathfinder RPG SORD (System Operating Reference Document), published by Myth Merchant Press, to good use. If you're a Pathfinder player or GM, the SORD PF is an extremely useful product, especially for the low price of $3.71 (as of this posting. on Tuesday, March 8, it goes back to the regular price of $4.95 - still a great deal!). Get your own copy here.

I hope to have some time this week to look over the character creation rules for the Fate 3.0 system, as I'd like to find a way to meld the mechanics of that system into the Pathfinder system. I'll post the results here when I work out the details.

The only other game-related occurrence from this weekend is finding a copy of the Batlestar Galactica board game, published by Fantasy Flight Games, for under 12 dollars. It was new and in the shrinkwrap, but there was some damage to the box. Much like Gamma World, I hope to get a chance to play this before I leave Eau Claire, but am sure that I'll have plenty of chances after. If you'd like to know more about the game, check out The Dice Tower's video review.

That's all for now. I might try to get some posts up this week about merging the Fate 3.0 and Pathfinder systems (as I previously mentioned) and maybe called shot rules for D&D 4E.

Remaking Gamma World

2011-02-28T20:18:00.000-06:00

This Saturday, I will finally be running a game of the new Gamma World RPG (technically the 7th edition of the game, I believe). Now, a lot has been made of this latest iteration of the very popular role-playing game, from its embrace of the nascent silliness of the setting to the trading card aspect of the game.

One of the most common misconceptions is that you need to use the random card mechanic and buy lots of booster packs and have all the players make their own pimped out decks in order to play the game. Unlike anyone else I've heard talk about this game, I'll tell you right up front that idea is bullshit. Of course, WotC would like you to spend money on tons of booster packs, but you don't need them. Of course they suggest players building their own decks, or at least randomly drawing from the GM's deck, but you don't need to.

That's not to say that I don't enjoy the cards in the game. On the contrary: I actually think that they should have included cards for other things - like character Origins. What I really do hate, though, is the insertion of a rarity mechanic into the cards. Perhaps I'll get into that another time. For now, I want to focus on how to make Gamma World a more "stable" and traditional RPG, focusing on the use of the cards - especially the Alpha Mutation cards.

Here are my house rules on Alpha Mutations:

1 - Players do not use their own customized decks. Everything is run with one Game Master deck. First, split up your Alpha Mutation deck into three separate decks, one for each of the Mutant Type keywords: Bio, Dark, and Psi. Whenever a character receives an Alpha Mutation card, roll 1d6. On a 1-4, he draws from the deck associated with his primary Origin. On a 5-6, he draws from the deck associated with his secondary Origin. If both Origins have the same Mutant Type, you can forgo rolling the die and just draw from that deck (DUH!).

2 - Players do not draw new Alpha Mutation cards after each encounter. Powers from Alpha Mutations may be used again after a short rest.

3 - Alpha Flux: Whenever a natural 1 is rolled during an encounter on any d20 roll, and Alpha Flux occurs. Immediately after the action that caused the Alpha Flux is resolved, the character's turn ends. He then chooses one of his readied Alpha Mutation cards, sets it aside, and draws a new Alpha Mutation card in its place. This follows the standard rules for drawing an Alpha Mutation card. The character's previous card is then placed back into the proper deck. A character can avoid discarding and drawing, if he so chooses, but becomes stunned until the end of his next turn.

So, there they are. Makes for a bit of a more traditional sort of character, instead of one who is constantly developing new and often inappropriate new mutations. Though I suggest using the cards to keep track of Alpha Mutations (mostly eliminating redundant Alpha Mutations in the party), you could also have players write down their Alpha Mutations and return them to the deck, giving other characters a chance to gain the same mutation.

But, what about the Omega Tech cards? I suggest also using one Game Master deck instead of letting build their own deck of desired items. If they really want something, have them tell you, and if you're feeling generous, maybe they'll get it. I plan on drawing randomly from the deck whenever it is called for, but if I feel the item is too powerful or something that I don't want the party to have, I'll just a draw a different card in its place.

So, don't feel that you need to use the card mechanics for Gamma World as they are presented in the book. If you want, you can even go so far as to turn it into a standard RPG and let the characters choose their Origins (in which case, you might see a lot of Radioactive Androids and Giant Yetis) and Alpha Mutations and choose what pieces of Omega Tech they will find. In this case, the cards are just a different way to keep track of the information.

I will post a summary of the Gamma World game at some point after this Saturday.

Gaming in La Crosse

2011-02-27T20:52:00.000-06:00

Had some good fun playing games in La Crosse this weekend. Did a couple of games of Carcassonne using the PC version on my laptop, then some We Didn't Playtest This At All, and ended the night with some Munchkin Quest.

The PC version of Carcassonne (from Koch Media, Hans im Glück, and Meridian 93) is pretty good. It eliminates a lot of the problems that come with playing the physical game in public places. The tile art is identical, so it's still got the wonderful look of Carcassonne. We played it with two actual players and one computer player, and it worked very well, but I can see it being something of a hassle if you wanted to do a game with more actual players. It's also a little hard to take in the whole game board at a glance. You can zoom out, but as the game goes on and the board gets larger, you lose a lot of the detail if you look at the whole thing. The game comes loaded with a few of the early expansions (everything through King and Scout), but if you're a completist like me, you might be a little disappointed that you won't be able to play with some of the later and rather interesting expansions.

Aside from those minor faults, the PC version is an almost identical experience to playing the table top version. Just be sure to use the "Hardcore" mode.

We Didn't Playtest This At All (from Asmadi Games) was a pretty fun game. It's kind of like Fluxx, but without all the well-crafted game balance and detailed strategy. (If you've never played Fluxx, that was a joke.) It's a great time-killing game, and usually results in a lot of laughter. Kristen and I played a bunch of games after I picked it up last weekend, and most of the games only lasted about 45 seconds at most. This time, there were four people playing, and while most of the games took slightly longer (except the one that I won on my first turn), they were still very quick. If you're looking for something to carry with along with you for those moments when there's nothing else to do, this will fill that niche.

Munchkin Quest (from Steve Jackson Games) is a board game version of the popular long-running card game, Munchkin. It's got a lot of the fun of the original, but where it falls a little short is the length of time each individual player turn takes. The four-player game we did took almost three and a half hours, and consisted of two complete turns for each player, with the first player in the order winning the game on her third turn. Sadly, Munchkin Quest's setup requires the inactive players to pay at least a low-level of attention to the game during the active player's turn, with short bursts of more concentrated attention. With each player's turn taking around 15 minutes, this can be a little draining. There were parts of the game that SEEMED like they should have worked differently than indicated in the rules. The biggest instance of this is failing to Run Away from an unsuccessful combat. We were all seasoned Munchkin players, so it mostly went okay, but this game probably isn't a good choice for casual gamers or beginners in the pastime.

So, here are some house rules for Munchkin Quest that I've been thinking about. They are designed to make the game move faster, and some of them are more severe than others, but if you play Munchkin Quest, feel free to mix and match and try out anything that looks interesting.

REDUCED MOVEMENT
Players begins with two move tokens instead of three. Players may never have less than one move token. Any effect that reduces a player's move tokens below one stay in play and must be dealt with individually, but the player remains at one move token.

FAILING TO RUN AWAY 1
If a player fails his check to Run Away from an unsuccessful combat, the player must spend a move to move into the room to which he was attempting to Run Away. This happens after the monster's Bad Stuff takes effect. If a player has no remaining moves, he remains in the room with the monster. The monster will not move out of the room as long as the player remains in the same room.

FAILING TO RUN AWAY 2
If a player fail her check to Run Away from an unsuccessful combat, her turn ends immediately after the monster's Bad Stuff takes effect.

MONSTER MOVEMENT 1
During the Monster Turn, each player with monsters in the dungeon rolls a monster die and moves only his monsters according to the result.

MONSTER MOVEMENT 2
If a monster did not move from its room last turn, and the monster die indicates that it would not move this turn, it moves one room toward the nearest player. If two or more players are equidistant from the monster, the player who controls the monster decides which player it moves towards.

the new blog

2011-02-26T13:11:00.000-06:00

I'm pretty sure I've never had many, if any regular readers of my short-lived book review blog, but after a few years, i've decided to resurrect it, in a manner of speaking. So here's the low-down:

For the last couple of years, almost all of my reading has been done through audio books. Say what you will, but it's what my life allows. In fact, as I am able to listen to audio books while at work, my throughput on reading has skyrocketed far above what it ever was while I was working at Waldenbooks/Borders. However, I really don't feel that it's fair to do a review of a book based on an audio version, as a bad reader can ruin an otherwise great novel.

So, instead of focusing solely on book reviews, Libram X will now cover a wide variety of topics. I'll still do book reviews, as well talking about books more generally, but I'll be talking about board, card, and role-playing games (including my own home-brewed rules and content), comic books, tv shows, movies, music and other geeky things. I'll probably also talk about roller derby.

So, let's get started.

It's currently snowing outside, and I'm sitting in a coffee shop in LaCrosse, sipping hot cocoa and waiting for a handmade veggie pizza. Rilo Kiley's "Under the Blacklight" is playing over the sound system. It's not a terrible way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Later tonight, I plan on getting together with some friends for some games. There will probably be Munchkin Quest and maybe some Smallworld, for which I just picked up the few expansions that I didn't have, so I'm itching to give those a run. I've also brought along the entirety of my Munchkin card game collection (which is pretty darned close to everything that's out) as well as a strange little card game called We Didn't Playtest This At All, which is kind of like Fluxx, without all the game balance and strategy.

My pizza has arrived, and it smells delicious. Hopefully the next post will talk about what games were played, how they worked, and will have some pictures to go along with it.

Welcome to the new Libram X!

The Somnambulist

2008-02-16T19:46:00.000-06:00

The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes (2008, William Morrow & Company)

It’s a rare thing to find something really different. While the story evokes Poe’s character of C. August Dupin, Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, television’s Twin Peaks, and more, Jonathan Barnes' debut novel is truly something really different.

In turn-of-the-century London, aging stage magician and consulting detective Edward Moon has grown weary of spinning illusions night after night and longs for the good old days of evil criminal masterminds and derrings-do. Of course, as everyone knows, you should be careful of what you wish for.

From the giant, hairless, mute, milk-swilling, seemingly immortal eponymous character, to a man who lives life in reverse, to a bearded lady of the night, The Somnambulist never fails to deliver characters so interesting and “out there” as to border on the uncomfortable (in the absolute best sense of the word).

The story is delivered at an incredibly breakneck pace, with enough plot twists to make the average season of 24 seem utterly predictable. While this makes for a great story, it can, at times, be an almost exhausting read.

Barnes is an author to watch, and could easily become as gifted a storyteller as Neil Gaiman, Susanna Clarke, Clive Barker and others of that nebulous “modern fantasy” genre. If you’re a fan of early 20th century detective stories, old-fashioned pulp action, or just plain bizarre stories, you’ll want to pick up The Somnambulist.

Rating: 3 1/2 Stars

Author's Website

Gods Behaving Badly

2008-02-16T19:42:00.000-06:00

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips (2007, Little Brown & Company)

In Marie Phillip’s wonderful debut novel, the ancient Greek gods are alive but not so well in the 21st century. Having lost most of their power, their days are spent pursuing mundane careers; Artemis as a professional dog-walker, Apollo as a budding television psychic, Aphrodite as a phone sex operator, and so on. To top it all off, they are all living in incredibly close quarters in a run down house in northern London.

Phillips does an incredible job of translating many of the ancient myths (especially Orpheus and Euridyce) into a modern setting. Gods Behaving Badly is nearly impossible to set aside once you’ve started. With such a great story, and Phillip’s own background in television, it’s no surprise that the book was optioned for a television series (by Ben Stiller’s Red Hour Production Company) before the book was even released here in the states.

Gods Behaving Badly is a book you should put near, of not at, the top of your “to read” list. Even those without an interest in mythology will have a great time.

Rating: 4 Stars

Author's Website

20th Century Ghosts

2008-02-16T19:38:00.000-06:00

20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill (2007, William Morrow & Company)

This collection of Joe Hill’s short fiction is, in a word, incredible. A far cry from Heart Shaped Box, this collection shows off Hill’s writing talents in a number of genres, not just “horror.”

Oddly reminiscent of Karen Russell’s collection St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, all of Hill’s works have an almost visceral sentimentality to them. From the Godzilla-meets-Kafka “You Will Hear the Locust Sing,” to the winsome “Bobby Conroy Comes Back From the Dead,” Hill’s talent shines through.

20th Century Ghosts is a must-read not only for fans of horror, but modern fiction readers in general. From the opening story “20th Century Ghost” to the crowning and epically creepy novella “Voluntarily Commital,” Hill will have you feeling exactly what he wants you to feel… and that is the sign of a true storyteller.

Rating: 4 ½ Stars

Author's Website

Baltimore, or, the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire

2007-10-18T15:45:00.000-05:00

Baltimore, or, the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden (2007, Bantam Books)

Acclaimed writer and artist Mike Mignola (Hellboy) teams up with prolific horror and supernatural fiction author Christopher Golden for this wonderfully original vampire tale.

Set at the end of World War I, Baltimore is the story of three strangers, united only by their mutual acquaintance with Lord Henry Baltimore: a surgeon, a sailor, and an aristocrat. The men are summoned to an inn, and they spin their personal tales of terror to one another as they await the arrival of Baltimore himself.

Inspired heavily by Hans Christian Anderson’s The Steadfast Tin Soldier, Baltimore is a well-crafted allegory of the long-term futility of war and the dehumanization that can come those who are in the trenches. The various stories that make up the books are excellently layered inside of other stories, and are tinged with an ample amount of Lovecraftian eeriness. Mignola also contributes numerous monochromatic illustrations to the story, enhancing the feel of the story.

Baltimore is a must-read for any fans of great horror tales, and a great way to wind up to the impending Halloween season.

Rating: 4 1/2 Stars

Author's Website

30 Days of Night

2007-10-14T13:54:00.000-05:00

30 Days of Night by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith (2003, IDW Publishing)

Niles' and Templesmith's 30 Days of Night series of graphic novels eschews the romantic view of the vampire made popular largely by Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles series, and brings them back to what they were for generations before: monsters. There is no doubt that the bloodsuckers of this series are anything other than evil.

30 Days is set in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost settlement in the United States, where the sun stays up for 30 days out of the year, and down for another 30. Something evil is coming to the sleepy little town, though. Something with sharp teeth and a hunger for blood and flesh...

Niles' quick and terse story is complimented by Templesmith's horrific and somewhat vague art. 30 Days of Night is exactly what any horror story should be: fast, bloody, and frighteningly disorienting. With the impending release of the film version of 30 Days of Night, you'll want to rush out and (ahem) sink your teeth into this one.

Rating: 3 1/2 Stars

Author's Website
Illustrator's Website

The Book of Joby

2007-10-14T13:35:00.000-05:00

The Book of Joby by Mark J. Ferrari (2007, Tor Books)

Freelance illustrator Mark J. Ferrari makes his fiction debut with The Book of Joby, a hugely ambitious epic of modern fantasy. By turns hillarious and tear-jerking, the story mixes Arthurian legend with ages-old mythological archetypes (coming of age, the harrowing of hell, e.g.), reincarnation, and the religious philosophical debate of free will versus predestination.

God and the devil make the same pact they have made countless times before: will God's chosen champion renounce Him and turn to evil when all hope seems lost? This time, however, the stakes are nothing short of the entirety of creation. So it is that nine year old Joby Peterson is unknowingly chosen. The story follows Joby as his life becomes a never-ending cycle of crushing and tragic mediocracy.

The Book of Joby is a well-crafted example of modern fantasy, and an utterly absorbing read filled with well-imagined sympathetic and unsympathetic characters. Keep Ferrari's name on your list of new authors to watch for.

Rating: 4 1/2 Stars

Author's Website

The Other Side of Silence

2007-10-14T13:01:00.000-05:00

The Other Side of Silence by Natasha Mostert (2001, Hodder and Stoughton)

Natasha Mostert's books are wonderfully-woven tales of mixed psychological and supernatural suspense, and her second novel is no exception. The Other Side of Silence is the story of Tia Theron, a university professor in Johannesburg, and how she becomes embroilled in a plot to change the face of music, and possibly the face of humanity, forever. It's a little like Darwin's Radio meets Wuthering Heights with a techno soundtrack.

Like Mostert's other works, this book is filled with tension, obsession, and an almost cloying gothic atmosphere. The subject matter in this novel is a bit esoteric for the average reader, as the storyline centers around sound and scale theory as well as the idea of decentralized information processing, and is set in South Africa. Mostert, however, does a commendable job in giving enough background information that most readers won't feel completely lost. Her portrayal of Johannesburg, in particular, is on par with any of Gibson's gritty near-future cities.

While there are a couple of small and inconsequential inconsistancies, The Other Side of Silence is a gripping read.

Rating: 3 1/2 Stars

Author's Website

The Lies of Locke Lamora

2007-09-02T18:04:00.000-05:00

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch (2006, Bantam Books)

While I am a huge fan of fantasy literature, sometimes all the elves, dragons, and wizened old wizards can become a sort of Gandalfian test pattern. So it's always nice to find a well-written non-Tolkien fantasy novel.

Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora is among the best of this genre. Though it is built upon such solid foundations as Robert Aspirin and Lynne Abbey's Thieves' World anthologies, Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar novels, a bit of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, and some Charles Dickens for good measure, Lynch's work is definitively of his own making.

The sprawling city of Camorr, built upon the elderglass ruins of an ancient and mysterious civilization, owes much to medieval and renaissance Italy – for instance, the fact that the city is criscrossed by many canals and waterways. The thieves and ruffians of Camorr, united under the powerful and clever Capa Barsavi, have come to a lucrative and well-balanced Secret Peace with the constabulary and nobility of the city.

Into this city is born Locke Lamora, a boy with a knack for getting into trouble. Orphaned at an early age, Locke is taken in and raised by the Gentleman Bastards, the smallest gang in Camorr. As he grows, Locke eventually takes leadership of the gang, spinning con after con designed to secretly flaunt the Secret Peace. When a mysterious assassin, known only as the Gray King, begins a systematic execution of the Capa's men, Locke and his Gentleman Bastards find themselves juggling an ever-growing number of schemes, each more desperate than the last, hoping the entire thing doesn't collapse around them.

The best thing about The Lies of Locke Lamora is that it's the first book fo a series. So if you're looking for a great fantasy novel that isn't just more of the same old elves, dragons, and wizards, give it a read.

Rating: 4 Stars

Author's Website

Pattern Recognition and Spook Country

2007-09-02T17:28:00.000-05:00

Pattern Recognition and Spook Country by William Gibson (2003 and 2007, Putnam Publishing Group)

A little over twenty years ago, William Gibson changed the face of science fiction literature, quickly becoming one of the premier authors of what came to be known as the "cyberpunk" genre. While many before had written predictive tales of what may come to pass, Gibson and his contemporaries did it in a very timely and stylish way.

Now that we are well entrenched in the twenty-first century, reality has had a chance to catch up to Gibson's future. Pattern Recognition and Spook Country are both set in the current day, which is every bit as eerie as Gibson's former vision.

Pattern Recognition is the story of Cayce (pronounced "Case") Pollard, whose allergic sensitivities to corporate trademarking make her a freakishly accurate divining rod for product trends. What starts out as a typical job for an advertising consultancy called Blue Ant rapidly turns into a hunt for the source of a series of internet video clips that has created its own subculture. The investigation leads to various stops around the world, and keeps Cayce constantly questioning everyone's motives, including her own.

Spook Country is the interwoven tale of three main characters: Hollis Henry, a former goth rocker turned freelance journalist who is working for a magazine which may or may not exist, but is most assuredly a subsidiary of a corporation called Blue Ant; Tito was born in Cuba before he came to New York and took up his waiting life in a shadowy criminal family trained by ex-KGB operatives; Milgrim is an addict of anxiety drugs whose life has been taken over by a man who may or may not be working for the government. As the stories begine to intertwine, everyone begins to feel the paranoia of living in a culture where consumer technology is strangely analogous to intelligence tech. Hollis' investigation of a new form of art combining virtual reality and GPS technology leads to a secret cargo container that has been circling the globe for years. As the container nears port, the players come together, both behind the scenes and through numerous catspaws, for something big.

While not directly linked in story, both novels take place in the same present day world, with Blue Ant and it's corporate powerhouse (the unlikely-named Hubertus Bigend) tying together secrets and conspiracies. If Gibson's past patterns hold true this time around, we can expect his next book to be the glue to the trilogy, bringing characters and plots together for something mind-blowing.

Rating: 4 1/2 Stars each

Author's Website

Crooked Little Vein

2007-08-07T20:14:00.000-05:00

Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis (2007, William Morrow & Company)

For those not familiar with the man, Warren Ellis is the creator of reknown graphic novel series Transmetropolitan, Planetary, and The Authority, among others. While he has published a couple of non-fiction works in addition to his sizable writing credits in the graphic novel world, Crooked Little Vein is his first fiction novel— and what a debut it is!

Imagine, if you will, that some shadowy government organizarion has created a child spliced from the DNA of William Gibson and Chuck Palahniuk. Now imagine that this child has been raised on nothing but Raymond Chandler, Kurt Vonnegut, Japanese monster movies, and internet porn. Continue to imagine that shortly after this child has come to late adulthood in a post 9-11 climate, he has been taken to a remote one-room shack containing a table, a chair, and a typewriter, illuminated only by a bare 60-Watt lightbulb. He is promptly injected with a solution of Red Bull cut with the ashes of Hunter S. Thompson and told to write a novel capturing the current American zeitgeist. That imaginary novel would only begin to approach the sheer strangeness of Crooked Little Vein.

Down-and-out private eye Mike McGill has always had strange and horrible luck. With a little more than three dollars in his bank account, Mike is given a job he can't refuse: retrieve a magic book written by the Founding Fathers— a backup Constitution and mystical reset switch for "American" values. As he pursues the elusive text, Mike's bizarre luck never lets him have a moment's peace. From movie-night with a group of Godzilla bukakke fetishists, to his new polyamorous tattooed goth-punk assistant/ love interest, to strangely illuminating conversations with serial killers on airplanes, Crooked Little Vein will hurtle you through the deviant underbelly of America and confront you with practices so offensive that you never even though to want to be disgusted by them.

Though Ellis makes Palahniuk look like Barney, his severely twisted prose is more than just pure shock, it is undercut by a feverishly strong intellect. Crooked Little Vein poses societal questions on par with such great names as Orwell and Huxley, while truly leaving the reader to draw their own meaning from the story.

Readers should be warned, though, that this is not a story for everyone. If you are easily offended or "grossed-out," you would probably do best to move on. If, however, you have a twisted sense of humor and a proclivity for the bizarre, you don't want to miss out on what will hopefully be the first in a long line of novels from Ellis.

Rating: 4 1/2 Stars

Author's Website

The Midnight Side

2007-08-04T19:59:00.000-05:00

The Midnight Side by Natasha Mostert (2001, HarperCollins Publishers)

Mostert's fourth novel, Season of the Witch, holds the honor of being the first review, as well as the catalyst, for Libram X. The Mignight Side was her debut novel, and illustrates that her work started off strong and only got stronger.

The Mignight Side is the story of Isa de Witt, a South African architect who receives a cryptic phone call late one night from her cousin Alette, who currently resides in London. Not long after, Isa is contacted by an attorney who informs her that Alette was killed in an automobile accident. The only problem is that Alette was dead when she called Isa. Thus, Isa travels to London to attend to her cousin's estate, and the three mysterious envelopes left to her, and is pulled into a world mystery, lust, and revenge from beyond the grave.

Like Season of the Witch, The Midnight Side is a tale of obsession, and uses many similar themes of duality, reflection, and balance, all topped off with a supernatural twist. The novel, however, stands on its own, blending the stock market, patent law, lucid dreaming and post-mortem communication into a masterful tale of suspense. The Midnight Side is at once wonderfully tense, psychologically horrifying, and obsessively romantic, and is full of excellent plot twists.

A few bits of ungainly dialogue and occasional repetition creep in here and there, but readers of her later works can see how strong her brilliance was even in her debut. The Midnight Side is a definite must for those who love a good supernatural suspense.

Rating: 4 Stars

Author's Website

Soon I Will Be Invincible

2007-08-01T21:04:00.000-05:00

Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman (2007, Pantheon Books)

Superheroes are a big industry these days, what with the multi-million dollar box office blockbuster franchises from both Marvel, DC Comics, and plenty of smaller-press companies. Not to be outdone, video game designer Austin Grossman pens Soon I Will Be Invinvible, a unique yet eerily familiar novel about superpowered heroes and villains.

The story alternates between the point of view of incarcerated supervillain Doctor Impossible and amnesiac cyborg superhero Fatale. CoreFire, the world's most popular hero, has disappeared and the remaining members of his now defunct superteam, the Champions, set aside their differences and reform the team to solve the mystery. Fatale is recruited for the new team along with other newcomers, including the enigmatic figure of Lily— a former villain herself, and known associate of Doctor Impossible. Meanwhile, Impossible himself escapes from prison to put his latest and most diabolical plan for world domination into effect.

Grossman knows his comics lore, and Soon I Will Be Invincible is thickly layered with familiar comic book plot and character archtypes. He does an admirable job of balancing these traditional archtypes with a bit of realism that makes his heroes and villains much more than just two-dimensional personas. The whole falls somewhere between classic Golden-/ Silver-age comics and more "realistic" popular sources like Alan Moore's Watchmen and the fledgling NBC hit Heroes.

While the story does suffer from the occasional lapse of logic (even comic book logic) and confusing prose, it is a commendable first work. Throw on some tights and a cape, lock yourself away in your own Fortress of Solitude and give Soon I Will Be Invincible a read.

Rating: 3 Stars

Author's Website

Bad Monkeys

2007-07-31T21:20:00.000-05:00

Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff (2007, HarperCollins Publishers)

The first words ever to meander through my brain in relation to Matt Ruff were, "Oooh, pretty!" This might seem strange to some of you, but that would simply mean that you've never seen the nearly obscenely neon dadaist cover of Ruff's sophomore novel Sewer, Gas, and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy. His latest novel, Bad Monkeys, can best be visually described as intriguingly creepy, with its hazard yellow jacket and macaque-shaped Rorschach blot cover. But far from being just an author with great-looking books, Ruff is a master storyteller who is only getting better with each novel he publishes.

Bad Monkeys tells the story of Jane Charlotte, who sits in an interview room in the psychiatric wing of a Las Vegas prison after going on a violent rampage in a casino, then telling the police that she works for an arm of an invisible group dedicated to fighting evil. As she tells her amazing and unbelievable story to the psychiatrist assigned to her, the edges between fantasy and reality begin to blur, until they finally become completely insignificant. From trying to expose serial killers in her youth to NC (Natural Causes) guns and Mandrill bombs to quantum-powered DNA-specific X-drugs, Ruff not only twists the plot, but totally reverses it on multiple occasions.

This novel reads like a combination of a Chuck Palahniuk novel, a Phillip K. Dick novel, and a Terry Gilliam movie, though Ruff manages, as always, to tell his story in a voice that is completely and uniquely his own. In Bad Monkeys, he brings together elements of all of his past works: the uncertain psychological aspects of Set This House in Order, the far-out pop culture and action of Sewer, Gas, and Electric, and the epic and sweeping archtypal conflicts of Fool on the Hill.

Bad Monkeys demands to be read: so go pick up a copy, read it with the lights low... and for goodness' sake, don't be a Bad Monkey.

Rating: 4 1/2 Stars

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Three Bags Full

2007-07-31T18:17:00.000-05:00

Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann (2007, Flying Dolphin Press)

The "cozy mystery" genre really isn't my cup of tea, laced with arsenic or not. German author Leonie Swann's Three Bags Full, however, uses a gimmick that was nearly impossible for me to resist: crime-solving sheep.

When their shepherd is found with a shovel sticking out of him, the sheep of George Glenn's flock reluctantly endeavor to discover who in the tiny Irish village of Glennkill killed him. Lead by Miss Maple, the smartest sheep in Glennkill (and possibly the entire world), the investigation draws in the rest of the flock: Sir Richfield, Othello, Mopple the Whale, and many others. The resulting adventure is moving, comical, and strangely enlightening.

The only downfall to Swann's story is that sometimes the prose gets so wrapped up in telling the story through the eyes of the sheep that it becomes confusing and disorienting to human readers. It's hard to say whether this is due to the actual writing or the translation (Three Bags Full was originally published in German, but these spots are, thankfully, few and far between. Swann runs the gamut of comedy, drama, tragedy, and suspense, and always keeps the reader guessing as to the real answers to the mystery right up until the end.

Fans of british mysteries will find Three Bags Full to be familiar territory with a new and interesting twist. All but the most vehemently anti-mystery readers are sure to find something here to warm up to as well. With a debut like this, Leonie Swann is definitely an author to keep an eye on.

Rating: 3 Stars

InterWorld

2007-06-28T21:19:00.000-05:00

InterWorld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves (2007, Eos Books)

It's no secret that Neil Gaiman can do no wrong in my eyes. One day, he may prove me wrong, but after 15 years, I don't think so. His young adult collaboration with Reaves certainly hasn't.

High school sophomore Joey Harker couldn't find his way out of a paper bag with a map. He's always getting himself lost, even in his own house. One fateful day, he manages to get himself lost so badly that he winds up in an alternate reality. Things only seem to go downhill from there as he encounters reality-hopping technocrats, world-conquering witches, and a secret army dedicated to keeping the balance - made up entirely of alternate versions of himself!

Gaiman is no stranger to children's literature, but InterWorld is his first real foray into the young adult action/ adventure genre. Reaves brings a world of experience writing for such television series as Star Trek: the Next Generation and Gargoyles to the mix, making this novel a wonderful story in what will hopefully become a fully-fledged series. Readers of the Pendragon series and James Patterson's Maximum Ride series will find a lot here to interest them.

InterWorld will be a very quick read for most adult readers, but is enjoyable by sci-fi/ fantasy and action/ adventure fans of all ages. There are a few minor editing issues, and sometimes the first person story lapses into language that doesn't seem appropriate for a high school sophomore (even one who can Walk between realities). The only real problem that crops up is a fairly major contradiction in the plot near the end of the story. As a whole, though, InterWorld is simply brilliant.

Rating: 4 Stars

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Heart-Shaped Box

2007-06-28T10:45:00.000-05:00

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill (2007, William Morrow & Company)

For those not in the know, Joe Hill is the nom de plume of Joseph Hillstrom King, son of Stephen King. With parentage like that, it's impossible not to compare the works of father and son. While fully rooted in the genre of horror, however, Heart-Shaped Box is not your father's (or his father's, for that matter) ghost story.

Ex-heavy metal rocker Jude Coyne has spent his years of retirement at his old farmhouse with a rotating cast of goth-girl groupies. A collector of the macabre, he happens across an online auction for a dead man's suit, complete with haunting spirit. With money as no objective, Jude purchases the suit, and in short order finds the dead, as well as his own past, catching up with him.

Hill's first novel is hip and modern, and owes more to Japanese-inspired horror films like The Ring and The Grudge than the more traditional American horror story. The ghosts in Heart-Shaped Box are subtle and invasive, and it's sometimes hard to figure out where the supernatural ends and the psychological begins. The book is highly cinematic, and I would be quite surprised if I didn't see this story make its way to the big screen in the next couple of years.

While Heart-Shaped Box is a great read, it is still Hill's debut novel, and sometimes it shows through. While the plot and action are excellently-paced, the characterization sometimes suffers, particularly when it comes to Jude Coyne. Jude's age only seems to give him problems when it's immediately important. One moment, he might be bounding up stairs without a thought while the next he is bemoaning his aging joints. Also of peculiar note for me was Jude's beard. I was almost a third of the way through the book before it was mentioned that the main character possessed a rather long beard. This was somewhat jarring, as I had not pictured him that way. It seems like something that would have been rather easily remedied early in the book.

All in all, though, Heart-Shaped Box is an addictive read, and Joe Hill is definitely an author to watch.

Rating: 3 Stars

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Season of the Witch

2007-05-31T13:34:00.000-05:00

Season of the Witch by Natasha Mostert (2007, Dutton Books)

Computer hackers, remote viewing, alchemy, witchcraft, and memory; while it may sound like a typical episode of Coast to Coast AM, these are actualy pivotal elements in Natasha Mostert's stunning fourth novel, Season of the Witch. In the tradition of Neal Stephenson, Mostert manages to take these and other seemingly disparate elements and weave them together into a mesmerizing whole.

The story is centered upon remote viewer turned info-thief Gabriel Blackstone, who is hired by a prominent London citizen with ties to Blackstone's troubled past. The job seems simple enough: find out what has happened to his client's estranged and missing son, last known to be in the company of high society sisters Morrighan and Minnaloushe Monk. As he investigates the mysterious Monk sisters, Blackstone quickly discovers that this missing persons case has become a case of murder. The deeper he delves into the mystery, the more he becomes bewitched and entranced by the sisters. But which is his love, and which is a murderer... or are they the same person?

Part muder mystery, part supernatural thriller, and part gothic romance, the story pulls you in as more and more layers are revealed. At the same time, the characters are well-developed and each seems to reflect or balance aspects of others, both major and minor. The concept of duality is an important part of witchcraft and alchemy, and so serves as major uniting factor between the story and the characters themselves.

Fans of Anne Rice who have been lamenting her exit from the realm of the supernatural need look no further for the heiress to her legacy. But make no mistake; far from being a clone or write-alike, Mostert's writing is sincere, authentic, and stands out from the pack. Her prose is a perfectly executed balancing act of story and characterization, and her depiction of London rivals Rice's New Orleans in its swelteringly gothic romanticism. Season of the Witch fairly drips with seduction, sensuality, madness, and obsession.

Rating: 4 1/2 Stars

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