#RPGaDAY, Last Year: Day 7 – “Do you own a copy of Nobilis?”

by Thomas3 Comments

Last year, today, our question is What is the most intellectual RPG you own? ((aka “Who has a copy of Nobilis?”))

Most intellectual RPG? Man, that’s worse than defining “old school” from day five. Are we talking about a game that makes you feel smarter than people who don’t grok what you’re reading? Or a game whose writing is rated above a sixth-grader’s vocabulary? A game with lofty ambitions or goals to make you a better person and reflect on the real world? Perhaps an agenda-filled RPG? How about the most pretentious game ever?

Let’s face it, most RPGs are pretty dumb. You make a character and her or she or it does stuff, usually through a liberal application of violence, in order to, um, get stuff. The writing may be slightly better than these little posts I’ve been making, but the largest word I have used so far in this screed is “intellectual”, which was part of the question prompt, so that’s not saying much.

256px-Nobilis-coverSo, do I have a copy of Nobilis around here?

Nope.

Drat.

The closest thing I own to that is the Buffy: The Vampire Slayer game.

Huh.

Think.

Work, Brains. Work.

Look, most RPGs are pretty smart. You create a whole world out of thoughts, man. The people who live there come straight from your brain! Their motivations, their goals in life, their stupid, stupid mistakes they’re still paying for after all these years have sprung from your imagination. Even if you’re playing HOL, Macho Women with Guns, or Nobilis.

RPG_HoL_coverIn that case, I’m leaning towards a generic RPG, one that gives the game players the freedom to do anything. The big questions I have for a generic RPG are: Can this game do horror? Can I do a Star Wars game that feels like Star Wars in this game? (Also related: Can I do a Shadowrun game with this game?) Can I play comic book superheroes with this game? It doesn’t matter if I have to get a supplement or sourcebook to slot in a new play mode, like picking up GURPS Horror or GURPS Supers to make it work. But I don’t own GURPS proper. (Just two sourcebooks: GURPS Mysteries and GURPS The Prisoner).

I’m going with the Cortex Plus game line from Margaret Weis Productions. If I have to pick one, and only one, game in the line, it’s Smallville. Not only does it allow for all those game styles ((seriously, go find Smallville and use it for a fantastic Star Wars game)), but the Cortex Plus system allows for the players to create things in the world, getting their brains involved in the shared world. This thing in the world didn’t exist until this player thought of it. BAM.

MAGIC.

Is that still your answer today, Thomas?

Yeah, I think so. I’m tempted to look at Fate Core and use that for everything, but Leverage is probably the best Shadowrun game out there. And as much as I like Fate, it doesn’t do horror that well. I’d also recommend Primetime Adventures, but that doesn’t do action in a satisfying way. Cortex Plus is a base game system that can do a lot. It’s like starting with a roux, some rice, and chicken stock and winding up with shrimp etouffee or a spicy gumbo, depending on what you add. ((I’m also loathe to recommend the various “Powered by the Apocalypse” Apocalypse World variants, despite loving AW. While they take on the same base, they are all starting to blur together to me right now, seemingly just swapping out names for basic moves and adding a new custom move here or there. There’s a superheroic variant that I’d like to see — With Great Power, I think — but I’m more interested in seeing what the Sentinels Comics RPG, developed by some of the people behind Cortex Plus, is going to do in the superhero space. Wow. Serious digression.))

I worked on the Firefly RPG, which uses a different iteration of the basic rules that Marvel Heroic Roleplaying used and they’re both fantastic games. Leverage and Smallville both have the same basic similarity, but different executions — heck, I kind of want to play Star Wars, Smallville-style.

I would wager the Cortex Plus game system would be more popular if the license was truly open.

Aside: I’m working on sourcebooks and supplements for Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, the new game from the creator of Nobilis, so I’ve got that partially covered.

#RPGaDAY, Last Year: Day 6 – Favorite Game Never Played

by ThomasNo Comments

Caught up to Now, Last Year!

A year ago, the question was What’s your favorite RPG you never get to play? Let’s see how I answered last year and see if that still holds true for this year.

My roleplaying days have become leaner in recent years. I played a ton in the high school/college years, then again years later with a literal renaissance of gaming. Since moving to Maine, roleplaying opportunities have diminished. I’m on the east coast, which means that all the gamers from the home group are anywhere from two to three hours off, depending on the time of year, so it’s hard to connect. There’s the child’s bedtime to consider – unlike some gamers, my spouse also loves to game, so I can’t just say I’m going to start playing games via Hangout and honey can you put the girl to bed in an hour? – plus with the time difference, we’re starting around 9:30 at night and ending (hopefully) two hours later. There’s an occasional Shadowrun game I’m in and I’m planning on doing a Fate D&Dish game with the family this weekend, but still, I miss the weekly home game and the monthly Tucson RPG Guild meets.

In other words, there’s a lot that I’m not playing right now that I wish I could.

So… favorite RPG I never get to play. Hm.

bp_modguideBlue Planet possibly has my favorite game setting, but the actual system is… awful. I’d love to hack it with Fate or Apocalypse World, but that’s not a whole “game”, though, is it?

Shadowrun also has a fun setting, but there’s something about how old school the system is that really bugs me. Plus, that’s hit the table a few times this year.

Looking through my shelves and PDF depository, it’s probably one of three games:

There’s a Buffy: the Vampire Slayer game that mashes up Buffy and the Disney Pirates of the Caribbean movies, putting a Slayer smack dab in the Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy that I pitched to the home group a few times, but nobody ever bit. It would have been one of those campaigns that was. But it wasn’t.

I’ve always wanted to play in a street-level Unknown Armies game. I don’t know much about the game, or how it is played, but reading actual play reports and hearing how cool that game can be has always made me want to play it. Downside: I’ve never played it.

Or maybe it’s this Star Wars Age of Rebellion game that’s right here. I did get to run last year’s Free RPG Day adventure at Gen Con 2013 for a group of friends who get back together only at Gen Con. (And once via G+ Hangouts.) I really enjoyed the game system. Unfortunately, I’m still a bit jaded when it comes to Star Wars. I’ve never fully recovered from the sting of the prequel trilogy, which soured the whole IP for me.

The more I think about it, the more I think that Buffy campaign is on top here. The movies are fast, action-packed, and fun; the show can be dark, is smart, and full of adventure. The game itself is a low-prep game to run, too! While the players fill out a full-on character sheet, the GM only really needs three stats for the adversaries. That’s a huge bonus for those times I don’t have to prep!

Honorable Mention: Apocalypse World. Man, I really like that game.

bigpreview_Pirates of the Caribbean, Elizabeth Swann

Okay Thomas, what about this year?

Wow. I’m still pretty close to last year’s gaming write-up. I’ve got two good answers to this, but one really fits with this year’s Day 28: Favorite Game You No Longer Play. So my answer this year is last year’s Honorable Mention. I looooove me some of that there Apocalypse World. 

pdc_madmaxfuryposter2Yeah, we ran a short game of Apocalypse World that died. Wife doesn’t like it, but I think it’s because that game ended in a way that was so… not our game’s style. ((And in truth, it was really my fault for thinking that telling the other protagonists they weren’t part of the Hocus’ organization would have let them have freer reign, but in reality it just pointed them at each other with knives and the whole game had to be scrapped. It didn’t help that we also had a horrible time with Dungeon World, another *World game.)) But I love that game system — it’s fast and direct and leads to interesting fiction and so much more story can be accomplished within a game session. ((Don’t get me started on Shadowrun.))

I’ve also been doing some projects with Magpie Games and Dead Gentlemen Productions that are derived from Apocalypse World — in particular, Urban Shadows does some neat stuff with AW merging it with a World of Darkness/Tim Powers vibe. I’m really enjoying how the system is put together and how it just works, man.

The three contenders from 2014, how do they stand up today? I still want to get some Buffy, the Pirate Slayer action going on, but that’s going to be one of those games best left in the imagination of the past. Unknown Armies… um, I’ve got the playtest documents. So we’ll see how that goes. And Age of Rebellion — man, I wish I loved those movies more. Maybe after The Force Awakens comes out and if it’s good, the girl and wife might want to do a quick Star Wars game. ((Oh, that Fate D&Dish game mentioned last year? It never happened, but a D&D 5e game did!))

#RPGaDAY2015, Day 6: Most Recent Game Played

by ThomasNo Comments

Caught up to the current day on #RPGaDAY2015. Whew! So here’s the plan from here on out: in the morning, ((Probably around 11am, EDT.)) a “Last Year” article where I revisit the original writing prompts ((These were originally published on my Google Plus account.)) and seeing if my answers still hold true, one year later. In the afternoon, this year’s daily prompt. Speaking of:

Day 6 of #RPGaDAY2015: What was the most recent RPG you played?

Sorry, but I just had to change it from that horrible pink color. Click through if you want to grab the color-shifted fullsized image.
Sorry, but I just had to change it from that horrible pink color. Click through if you want to grab the color-shifted fullsized image.

Unfortunately, it’s Shadowrun, 5th Edition.

cat27000Why “unfortunately”? Well, you know how when a new RPG comes out, the first thing people ask are “Can I play Star Wars in it?” The second question they ask is “Can I play Shadowrun in it?” Why do they ask that? It’s because the setting of Shadowrun is amazing. But the game system is such a complicated mess. Just a few hours ago, I posted my answer to last year’s topic, “What’s the most Old School RPG you own?” and the answer was Shadowrun 5th. There’s a few things about it there, but to explain further:

Shadowrun, 5th Edition, is a continuation of the overly-cumbersome rulesets the game has always had. In order to do anything in the game, there’s a system of rolls in place, and it always seems like there’s two or three steps involved too many. As an example, let’s have a mage cast a spell at a punk-ass bitch. Let’s count.

1. We’re going to cast Lightning Bolt, a simple zap and knock ’em out spell. So step one officially is to select that spell, but we’ll give that to the player for free. “I’m casting Lightning Bolt!” she says. Okay, let’s choose the target. We’ll give that to player for free, too. Our first real step is to see if we can link to the target. That requires line of sight. Can we see him? Yes.

2. Choose the force of the spell. The mage says she’s casting at force 8, which is higher than her Magic ability. Cool.

3. Cast the spell: She rolls Magic + Spellcasting (9 dice total) and gets 3 hits.

4. The opponent resists: He rolls Reaction + Intuition (7 dice) and gets 2 hits.

5. Subtract resisting hits from casting hits, and we have 1 net hit. It’s greater than 0, so the spell hits.

6. Determine the damage value of the spell! Force + net hits = 9. Armor Piercing modifier is -8.

7. Punk ass resists with Body + Armor – AP from step 6! He rolls 3+9-8, four dice, getting 1 hit!

8. Actual damage! Step 6 – Step 7 is 9 – 1, or 8 points of physical damage!

9. Now, it’s an elemental spell (Lightning), so we go to page 170 for what I’m assuming is three more steps.

12. Resist drain! But first, we have to determine it. Drain target is force – 3 for the spell, so our drain value is 5. She got 3 hits in step 3, which is less than her Magic ability, so the drain damage type is Stun.

13. Roll to resist drain. Our mage is rolling Logic + Willpower (10 dice), against 5S damage. Three hits.

14. Determine drain damage. Step 12 minus Step 13 = 5 – 3, or 2 points of stun damage. We’re not sustaining the spell (can’t with the spell type), so we’re good to go. Done.

Holy crap. No wonder it’s taking four game sessions to find a girl that’s been kidnapped in the steam tunnels beneath a university campus. Guys, she’s in the steam tunnels. Just go, already!

There’s a few other things that bother me with the system, such as the time sink about planning the mission (which inevitably gets thrown out the window the first time something goes wrong), or how I feel like I can’t really hurt the protagonists in the system. ((The only time I’ve really damaged the runners was when the shaman cast a super powerful spell and took damage from drain. Technically, none of the NPCs in the game injured him.))

thumbnail-technoirThe game system is still struggling to be the same game that it was in previous editions, yet it doesn’t seem to embrace anything new in RPG game design from the past decade. It’s pretty much the same game as it was in the 80’s, but with a similar, elaborate resolution system for all the game’s systems. No wonder there are several games out there that try to do Shadowrun better. There’s two different Apocalypse World systems out there. ((The Sprawl, which I backed on Kickstarter, and Sixth World, which I didn’t.)) Cortex Plus’ Leverage RPG is a near-perfect solution. ((Especially with the flashbacks taking place of the two hours of planning that always go horribly wrong.)) Will Hindmarch’s Always/Never/Now (and the upcoming Dark|Net setting for his upcoming Dark game). Mark Richardson’s Headspace. Jeremy Keller’s TechNoir. Joshua A. C. Newman’s Shock: Social Science Fiction. John Harper’s Ghost/Echo (and the Null Vector setting for his upcoming Blades in the Dark). Eric Provost’s Sombra Console. Stras Acimovic’s World of Cyberpunk. And that’s just all the strictly cyberpunk things I can think of.

Lots of people want to play Shadowrun, it seems. Just as long as it’s not Shadowrun.