A Message from Steven Schend

Kickstarting a Publishing House,

or, “How are Secrets like Dragons Anyways?”

I’m Steven Schend, a former coworker of Jeff's from TSR and Wizards of the Coast, and I'll admit that Jeff taught me a lot over the years as a game designer, editor, writer, and publishing professional. I owe Jeff enough already as a mentor and friend that I need large trucks in which to haul all the beer with which I repay favors and kindnesses. Today, Jeff’s been kind enough to invite me in and grant me his blog space to talk to you about something a block or two off of Grubb Street.

I’m launching a new publishing house—Vistag Media—and the new world of Kharndam via an initial fiction collection entitled Secrets, like Dragons... In a nutshell, Ed Greenwood, Jaleigh Johnson, Rosemary Jones, Joe Martin, and I are co-authoring a fantasy novella collection that’s quite a departure from our usual Forgotten Realms novels or other shared world fantasy works. Clicking on the book title above takes you to the Kickstarter pitch page with a short video of me talking about the book followed by the initial book trailer for Secrets, like Dragons...

Why fantasy?
I wanted to publish a fantasy work first as that’s where I cut my teeth as a writer and storyteller. Also, my approach to this world is darker than my usual work. Kharndam’s stories won’t provide obvious moral compasses for readers; hat or flag colors won’t reveal who’s a hero or villain, though actions will…as will magic. Fantasy tropes allow us ways to get at the real truths too often inaccessible in our mundane world. Magic even exposes hidden secrets a character or narrator might choose to keep hidden, and secrets lie at the heart of this world and this work.

I’ve planned Secrets, like Dragons… to encompass 350 to 400 pages of fiction and side matter from five different authors, and it’s available as a PDF, trade paperback, or hardcover book. I want as many folks as possible in on the ground floor of this new world and new company... There are a number of benefits to donating early at Kickstarter, and we'll be revealing a few more over the last week of our project, so please check back as often as you can.

On May 29, 2011, our Kickstarter fund-raising drive ends, and I truly hope we can meet its financial goals. The funds allow me to pay authors and artists (and others behind the scenes) solid professional rates for their work. That’s a no-brainer for me, as both a creative and as a publishing professional, even if it makes the start-up more costly. The start-up budget also accounts for producing the physical books and mailing them to early patrons and benefactors (and a few reviewers, to be honest). 

Whatever the outcome of this project and drive, please know that I appreciate any and all attention and time you can spare over at Kickstarter.com or at my own site where there’s a few more posts about the project.

Thanks again to Jeff for allowing me the space and time to speak with you all here; I hope some or many of you take a look at the project and join us in support of new creative endeavors,

Steven

PS: Only now did I realize that I never answered the sub-titled question. Here goes….

• Secrets, like dragons, grow more powerful when hidden…at least in fearful minds.
• Secrets, like dragons, can sleep for decades before wreaking havoc with their revelation.
• Secrets, like dragons, are at least as deadly as those what spawned them. 
• Secrets, like dragons, may mitigate the damage they unleash if treated with respect.
• And, at one of our author’s suggestions….Secrets, like dragons, are more noisy in taffeta.

Ceding the Floor

Nope, not Raptured. Just very busy at the moment, with the day job, the not day job, and a trip back to visit family.

However, I want to cede the floor to a long-time friend and fellow writer, Steven Schend, who is trying to Kickstart a project. Kickstarting is an old thing made new by the Internet, where people pledge funds to get a project off the ground, and only have to kick in if the project is becomes fully vested. Steven's project has less than a week to go and needs the support. Go check it out.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, Steven Schend.

More later,

On Beyond Zebra

And furthermore ...

Aces & Eights, AD&D, Aeon, Aftermath!, Agone, Alma Mater, Alternity, Amazing Engine, Amber, Arcanum, Aria (Canticle of the Monomyth), Ars Magica, Avengers of Justice, Battlelords of the 23^rd Century, Big Eyes, Small Mouth, Blue Planet, Blue Rose, Brave New World, Buck Rogers High Adventure, Buck Rogers XXVC, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Bunnies and Burrows, Bureau 13, Burning Empire, Burning Wheel,  Cadillacs and Dinosaurs,  Call of Cthulhu, Castle Falkenstein, Castles & Crusades, Chainmail, Champions, Chill, Conan, Continuum, Crimefighters, Cyberpunk (all incarnations), Cyborg Commando, D&D (all incarnations), D20 Modern, Dallas, Dangerous Journeys, Dark Conspiracy, Dark Matter, Darksword Adventures, Darkurthe Legends, DC Heroes, DC Universe, Deadlands, Delta Green, Diaspora,  Doctor Who, Dogs in the Vinyard, Dragonquest, Dragonstrike, Dream Park, Dune,  Dying Earth, Dyvil.

(Takes deep breath)

Earthdawn, Elric!, Encounter Critical, Empire of the Petal Throne, (including Swords & Glory, Gardasiyal, and Tekumel), Engel, Exalted, Fantasy Hero, Fantasy Trip, Feng Shui, Fifth Cycle, Flashing Blades, Fringeworthy,  FUDGE, Gamma World (all incarnations), Gear Krieg, Gemini, Ghostbusters, Godlike, Golden Heroes, GURPS, Hackmaster, HARP, Heavy Gear, Hero Wars, HeroQuest, Hollow Earth Expedition, Houses of the Blooded, Human Occupied Landfill, Humanspace Empires, Indiana Jones, Iron Kingdoms, Ironclaw, Ironhedge, It Came From the Late, Late, Show, James Bond 007, Justifiers, Kult, Labyrinth Lord, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Legacy: War of Ages, Legend of the Five Rings, Legionnaire, Leverage, Lord of the Rings, Lords of Creation, Macho Women with Guns,  Mage: The Ascension or Awakening, Marvel Super Heroes, Marvel Universe, Masterbook, Mecha, Mechanoid Invasion, Megatraveller, Mekton, Men In Black, Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes, MERPs, Metascape, Monsters! Monsters!, Mouse Guard, Mummy, Murphy’s World, Mutant Chronicles, Mutants & Masterminds.

(Takes ANOTHER deep breath)

 Nephilim, Ninja Burger, Nobilis, Noir, Orkworld, OSRIC, Pandemonium, Pathfinder, Pelicar, Pendragon, Pokemon the RPG, Powers and Perils, Price of Freedom, Primal Order, Prince Valiant, Privateers and Gentlemen, Rifts, Rise of Aester, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Rolemaster, Run Out The Guns!, Rune, RuneQuest, Rus, Sandman, Savage Worlds, Serenity, Seventh Sea (yeah, its 7^th Sea, but I’m not doing numbers), Shadowrun, Shatterzone, SLA Industries, Smallville, Sovereign Stone, Space 1889, Space Opera, Spirt of the Century, Spycraft, Star Ace, Star Frontiers, Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate SG-1, Stormbringer, Super Squadron, Superhero 2044, Supernatural, Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies.

(Turning blue now)

Tales from the Floating Vagabond, Tales of Gargentihr, Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles,  Teenagers from Outer Space, The End, Thieves’ World, Thousand Suns, Timemaster, Toon, Top Secret, Top Secret/SI, TORG (The Other Roleplaying Game), Trail of Cthulhu, Transhuman Space, Traveller (Many incarnations),Twilight 2000, Underground,  Unknown Armies. Vampire (Masquerade, Requiem, Dark Ages, et. al.) Victoriana, Warcraft, Warhammer FRP, Weapons of the Gods, Weird Wars, Werewolf, Wheel of Time, World of Darkness (in all incarnations), World Tree, Wraith, Wyrd is Bond, X is STILL available at very reasonable rates.

On the other hand, I COULD just do Monsters, or Novels, or Comic Book Characters next time.

More later,

Play: iEat Meat

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs created and performed by Mike Daisey, Directed by Jean-Michele Gregory, Seattle REP through May 22

I'll explain the blog title later on, but it is going take a bit to get there. Because this is a tough show to review. It is also the most passionate and dramatic performance on the Seattle REP stage this year (and this year included Of Mice and Men).

First off, Mike Daisey is my favorite monologist (why yes, there is competition). I first caught him doing 21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com, a show about his experiences at the online giant, and have made it a point to catch him ever since, which has gotten me to the bulk of his other shows (including three out of the four of his Great Men series he did up on Cap Hill).

Mike Daisey is the spokeman of Generation Geek. Heavy-set, sweating, with a delivery style that echoes Sam Kinison and John Goodman, armed with a neatly-folded kerchief to dab his forehead and a glass of water, seated at a table, notes in front of him, he talks. He tells a story. He embodies his story and he makes it your story as well. He's very good at that.

And Mike Daisey's story is about technology - the cult of Apple and Steve Jobs. And he is telling two stories, from two different ends of the supply chain.

The first story is the history of Apple (in general) and Steve Jobs (in particular) and how Apple almost collapsed and then returned in iGlory, and very much about our consumer mindspace about the new shiny item on the shelves and how we take a Gollum-like possessiveness to it all. We don't think about the way the paradigm has shifted (example - Who owns the song on your iPod?) and how the future has changed. And here Daisey is riding the crest of the wave in a friendly audience of tech geeks and Seattle Rep regulars, who know the stories of tech support and have read their Bill Gibson and turned off a plethora of phones before the show started (One of the audience, before the show began, was taking multiple pictures with his iPhone of the nearly-bare stage, to be stitched together later on his computer). Daisey does this well - he comes from out of the tech trenches. We understand and laugh.

The second story is about someplace we haven't been. It starts in the cyberpunk Disneyland of Kowloon, and descends into Shenzhen, an instant metropolis larger than New York City, and its Special Economic Zone. The Special Economic Zone is a fief of huge Foxconn factories where all of our high tech toys are assembled by hand by workers reduced to component parts.It is a Kafka-esque domain that combines the worst features of communism and corporatism to produce a gulag of lives monitored, regulated, and burned out. And by burned out I'm not talking about that Friday afternoon when you stare at the screen and you're looking forward to the weekend. I'm talking the burned out that happens when you have to do the same task repeatedly, standing for up to 18 hours a day to make a quota until your spine fuses, and at the first sign that you are unable to do so, you are tossed out. Or, in the case of Foxconn, you jump off the roof of the four story factory because it is easier than living (Foxconn's solution to this fatal disobedience? Install nets on the roofs).

These, then, are the true slaves to our machines.

Daisey weaves the two stories back and forth, and the second tale soon takes precedence over the relative comfort of the first, as we get the stories, as we get his story of getting those stories that come out of the Special Economic Zone. And it creeps up you, that fact that everything has a price, and forces you to recognize that price and who is paying it.

So should I be consumed by recognition? Confronted by it, yes, but not consumed. You see, a while back I had to come to terms with my carnivorous lifestyle (or rather the carnivorous portion of my omnivorous lifestyle). I eat meat. To be more clear, I consume the muscle tissue and flesh of living things slaughtered expressly for that purpose. That recognition, and the pain that the animals suffer in life and on that trip to my dinner table, is enough to make a lot of good people swear off meat entirely. Good for them. I instead choose to reduce but not eliminate, to seek out more cruelty-free options when available, and recognize and honor the animals whose lives my life has ended. (I owe this analogy in part, by the way, to the fact that the REP was staging an "iBBQ" the evening of our attendance. I did not partake, but saw the irony).

Similarly, here, People are suffering under inhuman conditions for my toys. Not just for the computers and iStuff. When I was working for WizKids, I was very aware where those plastic, pre-painted miniatures came from. The disks that install the computer games I've worked on were not created by pixies. The Port of Seattle's largest importer for many years has been Hasbro. There is a price, and we must both be willing to face up to that there is a price (not talking dollars, here) and to work to improve the lives of those who pay that price.

And it is not just China here. It was Korea and India before that and Japan before that and Mexico and the American South before that and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory before that. The delivery chain has gotten longer, and the people who are paying for this are further away. No one you know. But they are still there and if we can simply get people to be as concerned about their well-being as we would be about free-range beef and cruelty-free veal, then we've made a needed step forward. Which, I think, is the place where Daisey is going to.

The audience was shaken. We had sat down as geeks, listening to Jonathan Coulton sing "Welcome to my Secret Lair on Skullcrusher Mountain" and got up a little more humbled, a little more chastened, a little more aware, as theater volunteers passed out lists of action points as we quietly exited (Item one - drop Steve Jobs a line). We had come expecting Martin Luther to tear the Catholic church a new one and ended up finding our own sins examined.

This is Mike Daisey's most political monologue, and his darkest. He opened a door that most would not even think of as a door, and found what was beyond it. He has rattled a few cages, and in doing do, has wrapped up one of the strongest Seattle REP seasons in years.

And excuse me, I have to write to Steve Jobs, now.

More later,

[Addendum: Other Mike Daisey notes on Grubb Street]:

21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com
Great Men of Genius: Bertholt Brecht
Great Men of Genius: Nikola Tesla
Great Men of Genius: L. Ron Hubbard
Mike Daisey Deals with a Critic
How Theater Failed America

Z is for ...

Zero.

Zero is a dark dystopian SF game where you play former members of a hive mind living in a contained, post-apocalyptic society, who are suddenly cast loose from the collective, and hunted by the mad ruler of that society, Queen Zero. If it sounds like Paranoia run straight, you're not the first to come to that conclusion.

But that's not why Zero is on the list. Instead there's a story involving the game:

One year,  about the time that WotC purchased TSR (I'm guessing August of '98), Peter Adkison and Richard Garfield hosted a Game Designers' Conference a couple days right before the GenCon in Milwaukee., It was pretty cool - a small group of hobby game and computer game folk gathered together for some roundtables. Over the course of the event, several of those present admitted that they had never played an RPG.

Lester volunteered to run one, in particular a new game he had written (with artist Steve Stone) for Archangel - Zero. I was commuting to the convention from Lake Geneva at that point, so I didn't stay for the session.

But when I showed up the next morning, everyone was talking about the game. Lester's a good GM, and it was his game, so it should have been a good experience. But the guys that were MOST excited about the game, and insisted on sharing the story of what happened, were the designers who had not played RPGs before. It was an epiphany, and pretty cool one, for them.

And that's the power of RPGs. If you can get people to play them, the chances are they will enjoy them. And with that we draw to a close this challenge. There will be a couple afterwords, but that the bulk of it all. Hope you enjoyed it.

More later,

Y is for ...

Ysgarth.

This is one that tests the limits of memory. We had a copy at TSR. and I remember a few things about it, but this is from years ago:

1) It was texturally dense. A lot of type of the page without a lot of white space in the form of margins or leading. If the type wasn't just a courier font, it was darned close.

2) It was mechanically dense. It was part of that "fix D&D by adding more stuff" school that was common at that stage.

3) It was one of the early games to ask for a "character concept" before you start finding out your stats. And here's the part that drive me crazy about character concept. You don't really know what kind of character you really want to create until you understand something about the world and your character's role in it. That works for some genres (You're an investigator who will find out about the Mythos), less well for others. Generic fantasy is one of those where you need a little more information on what your world is like before you decide how you fit into it. So while character concept works as a player retention strategy, it is not so hot as an acquisition strategy.

Other than that, I don't have a lot. From later digging, it has resurfaced a couple times, but has always been a favorite of a small but devoted group. And that may be the fate of a lot of Old School Revival games, but that's not the worst thing in the world.

More later,

X is for ...

Xerxes.

Xerxes is an interesting animal, an Indy domain game set in 480 BC. You are one of the leaders of the city states along the fertile crescent under Xerxes I, also known as King Ahasuerus in the Book of Ester. Like your king, you are a Zoroastran, and your city's divine ahuras appear to you with a warning - a new power is rising in the west, and unless you bind together and launch a major invasion, a boy-king from that land will rip your empire to pieces and its barbarian gods will destroy your pantheons.So you have to work together but still maintain your position in court, dodging your allies assassins while trying to get their forces killed on the battlefield (without letting the Greeks win the war).

And, um....

Um ....

OK, I'll fess up. I've got nothing. I have no "X" RPG to cover. I could have done XCrawl, but I was horribly unimpressed with it when I first saw it - not horrible enough to mock, but not good enough to give it its own entry. And I could have done something like the X-men boxed set for MSH or An X-cellent Death pick-a-path book, but that was bending the rules a bit too much. I suppose I could bemoan the lack of an X-Files license.

I was going to say that "X is available for a low monthly fee". The Lovely Bride suggested "Xerxes" as a name, but thought it was about Egyptian gods (which was wrong). I said it was about Greek gods (which was also wrong), but then came up with a story by which it WAS about Greek Gods, and how you could mobilize your city-state against the onslaught of a more vibrant culture.

But just to be clear, there IS no Xerxes. But if you create one, be sure to thank me in the credits, and send me some copies.

More later,

W is for ...

The Whispering Vault.

I normally hate games which start out asking me what my "character concept" is, but I really like Whispering Vault. Part of the reason this escapes my wrath is that Lester Smith was GMing the session, but also because WV does an excellent job of portraying its setting, and of telling me what my character's role is in the world.

Why yes, I am going to tell you about my character, but let's talk about the game first.

The Whispering Vault has a high and limited concept. You are a Stalker. In life, you fought against the dark parts of the universe. Now, for all eternity, you are charged with keeping reality (The Realm of the Flesh - yeah, it has a lot of Significant Capitals in the game) intact, seeking out Enigmas that don't belong in the sane world and sending them back to where they came. It's where your Call of Cthulhu investigator is recruited to become an arcane superhero to fight the mythos. And you get super powers, a true (often inhuman) form, and the chance to create your own demiplane or domain. It is a horror game, but one where you get to play the Spectre, the Phantom Stranger, or the Neil Gaiman version of Sandman.

So my character was Angel Ball, a 60s burnout that turned into a spherical smile button with a rainbow mohawk. My domain was San Francisco as drawn by Bob Crumb, and populated by grey corporate minions in grey suits with TVs for heads. Her character when she manifested in the real world was a tough biker. She was a lot fun, and the rules funneled in nicely to let me run with her.

Now what made Whispering Vault cool (Indy game fans may find this familiar) was that it had a definitive format to its story. It was a method of play as stylized and as ritual as an episode of Iron Chef. You would become aware of something wrong in the Realm of Flesh, you would gather the other stalkers, you would summon the Navigator and face the Guardian between the Realms of Flesh and Essence, you would identify and confront the Unbidden and remove the Enigma. You would heal reality. That was a structure right off the bat. No "Well, you hang around in the cyberbar until someone offers you a job" thing. You know your place in the world, you find the threat, you neutralize it. There is a goodly (but not limitless) amount of wiggle room within this plotline. And the fact that it is enjoyable shows that limitless is sometimes overrated.

The game mechanic is a nice tweak on the "roll to hit a target number" mechanic. In this case, you roll a number of dice, and add together the duplicated dice to get your result (if you roll five dice to get a 5,5,4,3,3, you would have a result of 10 from the two fives). You can reroll certain dice. I've called this Yahtzee-style task resolution, and it actually works pretty well.

The version I still have was a single small ringbound booklet, marked only by the symbol, and noted as a "convention advance copy" but what we would call today a Beta version. Later drafts were more in the standard squareback shown in the illo here, but it retained its heart as a beautiful niche product. It could be run for long campaigns, but it excelled at one story at a time, with a group of creative players.

More later,

V is for ...

Villains and Vigilantes.

V&V is one of those "Ampersand and Alliteration" games of the early RPG era - Tunnels and Trolls, Bunnies and Burrows, Powers and Perils. On a list of game titles, it tells you right off the bat from whence it takes its gaming DNA. V&V was an early super hero RPG where you had a wide variety of powers culled from the comics.

And I love this game, if for nothing else a single super-power -

Mollusk Control.

It could be also Control Mollusk or Command Mollusk (I don't have the books at hand), but that one little grace note to fit in with Animal Control and Fish Control is just one of the things about the game that makes me smile, and sets the game up as a more light-hearted and adventure-oriented of the early super-hero games.

There were two big guns back in those pre-MSH days - V&V and Champions. Champions was very much about defining superheroics - their min/maxed character points put a lot more emphasis on character creation and tweaking it to just right. V&V was much more swingy - you could "play yourself" if you so chose (converting you into a baseline hero) and then adding super powers. Random super powers. You were given a bag of stuff, and challenged to come up with your own superhero as you emerge from the irradiated burst that created you. Including Mollusk Control.

Most genres get one big initial success and the others following. The fact that Champions and V&V were contemporaneous was, I think, due to distribution. Champions was a west coast thing, while V&V belonged to the east coast and midwest. So long before rap there was a coastal rivalry going on. But while Champions wen through numerous revisions over the year (plunging into MMOs most recently), V&V fell into that ethereal plane was Fantasy Games Unlimited, neither living nor dead. Only recently did the original designers regain control and will be launching a new version.

And I really hope it has Mollusk Control.

More later,

U is for ...

Universe.

[1.0] Game Description
[2.0] Character Creation
[3.0] Character Role
[4.0] Recognition of Cool Things in the Game
      [4.1] Cool Map
      [4.2] Delta Vee
[5.0] Where it all went wrong
      [5.1] Traveller Comparison
      [5.2] Changing Nature of SF
      [5.3] Modified Case Format 
      [5.4] How SPI didn't GET it
[6.0] More Later statement

[1.0] Game Description:
Universe was an attempt by wargamer publisher SPI (Simulations Publications Inc) to get into the increasingly dominant role-playing wing of the hobby industry. It came out the year after the more successful Dragonquest, and shortly before the company was purchased by TSR. While Universe did not kill SPI, it did little to provide the much-needed rescue, and it remains one of the worst games I've ever played (yes, I called out Synnibarr and Spawn earlier, but I can cheerfully admit that I never played them, their awfulness being clear to all at the first blush).

[2.0] Character Creation
I think the big reason for this failure is a character creation system that reads like a tax form and takes about as long to fill out.  I think I spent a couple afternoons putting together a character, as I had to deal with matters like the gravitational force on my home planet in order to determine my abilities (sorry, potentials). It was big on formulae, and had more granularity than a beach in Hawaii.

[3.0] Character Role
The greater problem is what did you do once you had your character. The universe of Universe was a very small place. I don't remember any obvious theme or metaplot or even long-term history that gave me factions or opposition or sense of purpose. There was a lot of low-level combat (ship-to-ship or personal melee level) but nothing that seemed to pull everything together. After a few rounds of combat, everything went back into the box and eventually passed out of my life.

[4.0] Recognition of Cool Things in the Game.
But the game did have some cool things to it.

[4.1] Cool Map
It had a cool map, showing real-space around our the Sol System, and should have been a great launching point for earth-centered campaigns.

[4.2] Delta Vee
Its space combat game was also pretty nice, and was inserted into an issue of Ares magazine. It tried to deal with the reality of space combat and setting vectors and thrust as opposed to transposing WWI dogfights into space. I think it still had, as Spock would say, "two-dimensional thinking", but it was playing to SPI's strengths there.

[5.0] Where it All Went Wrong
So what went wrong?

[5.1] Traveller comparison
If Chivalry & Sorcery was an attempt to "Fix" D&D and make it more historically accurate, Universe was an attempt to bring more hard science to bear against Traveller, which was the SF roleplaying paradigm. Unfortunately, most people would put Traveller on the harder end of a spectrum that includes both Star Frontiers and Star Wars, so flanking on that the science end made it appear even dryer than it was.

[5.2] Changing nature of SF.
The game also came out post-Star Wars and post-Empire Strikes Back, and with it we saw the popularization of more "space fantasy" than the harder popular SF of, say, 2001. The New Wave had opened up another front on the old "Rivets and blasters" school of SF, and Cyberpunk was just about to break loose. Not a place for a "traditional" SF game, especially one that was also avoiding that old-school "Buck Rogers" stuff as well.

[5.3] Modified Case Format
Most damaging to the case, I think, was the way the rules were presented in a structure called case format (or to be more accurate-  modified case format). This was an outline form that you could summarize easily at the start, and made it easy to find complex rules relatively quickly. However, it bled the life out of the game itself, stood in the way of people getting to play the game, and occupied a lot of space (particularly as all headings are repeated, and master headings need text underneath them), so that the rules got longer and more intimidating.

[5.4] How SPI didn't GET it.
Universe is used as an example of how SPI, a wargaming company, just didn't GET RPGs and somehow deserved its fate as TSR took command of the gaming hobby. Yet Dragonquest was actually pretty good, and where the company was comfortable with its subject matter it did quite well - its War of the Rings was a good simulation of the LOTR Trilogy, and Freedom in the Galaxy had that goofy Star Wars feel of Empire versus Rebels (plus the greatest bad-girl name in histroy -Thysa Kimbo). Ultimately, Universe's format, presentation, and lack of purpose created a joyless game. With a little work, it could produce something interesting and rewarding, but I could say the same of a bookcase from IKEA. That's why I put it down as one of the worst games I've ever truly played.

[5.5] More later statement

More later,

ERRATA: [5.5] More later statement should be [6.0] More later statement.

Play: How I Slept With Your Mother

this. by Melissa James Gibson, Directed by Braden Abraham. Seattle Repertory Theatre, through May 15th.

I've said it before, but the good thing about season tickets is that you end up going to plays that you would normally never go to. Billed as an "unromantic comedy", this. (note the period) is more of a sit-com, and by that I want to get back to the full use of the word situational comedy. Humor arising from familiar characters in situations. It is funny in places, touching in others, and well-acted throughout, and would not be out of place on NBC's Thursday night lineup, except for the fact that there is real character development.

The core is the group of friends in their late thirties. Marrell (April Yvette Thompson) and Tom (Hans Altwies) are the brittle, exhausted couple who haven't slept more than fifteen minutes since the birth of their child. Jane (Cheyenne Casebier) and Alan (Nick Garrison) are the old friends from college. Jane's husband died a year ago and she is struggling as a single mom. Alan is the gay jewish wacky friend - in sitcom language, he fills the role of Barney or Phoebe. He gets to be broader and larger than life. Here, his character has perfect memory (making it the second play I've seen at the Rep with such a character, the first being the 39 Stairs). Ryan Shams is the guest star, as Jean-Pierre, the doctor without borders that Marrell and Tom are trying to set up with Jane

That's where it starts, with a party game that goes wrong (Edward Albee is stalking this entire season), and then moves in fits and starts through emotional baggage, hidden secrets, and the nature of relationships. This is New York and these are Urbanites who see plays and do the crossword puzzle in the Times and so there is a lot of wordplay and language and arguing about punctuation and how you pronounce things like a Brita water filter. But the thing is, there is character advancement, and while some of the endings have the traditional feel to them (I have no doubt Alan will be back to normal by next week), there is the feeling of character challenge and growth here.

Contributing the comfortable feel of the play is that there are a lot of Rep regulars here. And that is one of the great things about a Repertory theater - you get do actors in many roles. Han Altwies does the frustrated husband well that we've seen earlier. Cheyenne Casebier digs in a bit deeper with Jane, and the play is ultimately about her. Nick Garrison gets to be more snippy and sniper-like with Alan. Ryan Shams I want to believe is actually French, since his accent and mannerisms line up so well with some of my French friends. And April Yvette Thompson holds her own with the others, and yes, you believe that they have been friends for years even though the discussions veer into race, gender, and morality.

And the set. OK, I'm trying not to hit the "sitcom" hotkey too many times, but the well-furbished set does well as Tom and Marrell's apartment, with the second act scene change as the club Marrell sings in and with various doors for spot scenes. Yes, the components are all there, and the play strives to rise above it all.

One bit of pedantry, from the fact that so much of the play is about words and usage. The cover of the playbill calls the play this (lower case, no punctuation). But title page calls it this. (all lower case, but with a period at the end. And the website gives him This (capped, but no punctuation). So what's the deal with this?

I liked this. Not every play deals with deeper issues, and this. occupies a space higher a tad higher than traditional TV fair and Romantic comedies.  It is a good "date play". More later,

T is for ...

Talislanta.

I know Talislanta first and foremost as a world, not a game system. It came into my life with The Chronicles of Talislanta, and as a collection of squarebound books known as the Cyclopedia Talislanta (not to be confused the Cyclopedia Harnica).

These volumes, collectively unified by the incredible art of P.D.Breeding, created a very different world than either the traditional D&D-crafted universes or the more medieval creations of C&S or Harn. Talislanta's world is set in a culturally and genetically diverse realm with non-standard races. As the ad copy said - "No Elves", at a time when Elves were part and parcel of what fantasy was.

Talislanta, more importantly, had no humans. Or rather, no race that one could point at as a human analogue. Each nation had its own divergent culture, some working with its neighbors, some warring against them. And while you could create a spectrum with the Arimites and the Mandalans at the more human end, and the bestial Mogroth and the scale-plated Vajra at the other, there is no "typical" universal human race that is everywhere. Skin hues move through blue and green, we have scales, feathers, and rainbow tattoos. There is no dominant culture, and while you can say that this race is "Asian fantasy" and that race is "Melnibonean" or "Drowish" in apparent origin, there is precious little that you put down as default. In modern SF terms, it is less like the bridge of the original Enterprise and more like Quark's Bar - a place where bipedal, laterally symmetrical races thrive.

Vance gets invoked when talking about Talislanta, but I would also add Edgar Rice Burroughs, in particular Tarzan and John Carter of Mars. The latter in particular was a world filled with a huge number of different diverse peoples that had their own cultures apart from one another. The "Lost World" trope of racially distinct tribes comes down to us through a number of sources, and is going great guns in Talistanta.

The fantasy itself was tuned up a few notches as well. We have traders in dream essence and ice schooners and dune ships. It evokes a lot of old Yes covers by Roger Dean. It delighted in its off-beat strangeness, or the fact that it was a world that snubbed grandfather Tolkien and the western traditional fantasy to find its own path.

I found the rules for the original game later, but they seemed unnecessary for the core of the world, which was the diversity and interaction of the races. I will admit that I have a particular fondness for the WotC edition as far as codifying and putting everything together, but the play experience was not what I got out of the game. Rather, it was the fantasy world itself, and the reading experience of Talistanta that was its own reward.

More later

S is for ...

two of the worst games in the history of gaming: Spawn of Fashan and Synnibarr (actually The World of Synnibarr).

The thing to remember with both of these creations is that they were quite obviously labors of love, created, much like Chivalry & Sorcery or Quest of the Ancients, with an eye to "Fixing" D&D, or at least to providing alternatives to it. Yet both went horribly astray, and now are legends in their own time - they are the gaming equivalents of "Manos: the Hands of Fate".

Of Spawn of Fashan, its very rarity has added to its legend. I've seen a copy, though do not own one. The mechanics were complex and as twisted as a web spun by a spider on LSD. I remember is a map that said "North, where Melvin once stood", a highpoint that might once have meant something in an original campaign but merely seems like something out of Bored of the Rings (and became a battle cry among designers for years afterwards).

Oddly, it was a tiny print run, and only attained it true goofy awfulness by way of a review in DRAGON magazine which the reviewer ultimately determined that it was all a cruel joke. Alas, it was not, and the designer tells his tale of woe and intrigue here, many years after the event. Given all the embarrassment suffered, I have a tendency to give Spawn a break - to beat on it is like a merciless review of a straw-hat theater production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Synnibarr I am less sympathetic towards, as Spawn at least had the virtue of conciseness in its poor showing. Synnibarr was a massive tome created by DTP software and cheap paper rates (I am starting to think that 1991 was a watershed year in game design - a number of games on this list were out that year). It was everything and the kitchen sink, plus several alternate kitchen sinks and a futuristic kitchen sink which is powered by a cloned mammoth from the Flintstones.

The rules were deep and convoluted, but it was the setting that truly set Synnibarr apart in awfulness. The campaign setting was the hollowed-out interior of Mars turned into a starship populated by fantasy creatures, but it went through more changes and dark ages than even Tekumel could stand. And it had the glory of a seventeen-page "example of play" in which the heroes meet in a bar after school, then go off to fight a paradrake, only to be pulled over at the end by the cops, who wish them on their way. (Lemme actually dig this out to double-check -Yep, that's right - makes you want to wash out your mind with lye). The end result was a 494 page testament to excess - it is easy to bad for a couple signatures - such marathon awfulness must be recognized.

But this thing to remember is that these clumsy children were the creations of an act of love, spawned in an era where no one knew what was right and wrong. Nah, we knew, but in Spawn's case there wasn't enough of a support network to warn them off. Synnibarr lacks that excuse.

Good luck finding the old classic Spawn, which lives better as mythology. Synnibarr can be still found at the Half-Price Books, and there may well be still people playing it (we were looking at buying a car from a guy in Bellevue who claimed to be one of the original playtest crew - we bought the car somewhere else). Every genre has its fandom, and every game is someone's first and/or favorite.

More later,

R is for ...

Ringworld. And maybe a little Runequest as a cameo.

Ringworld was an RPG based on the Larry Niven novels set his his Known Space universe on a huge ribbon-like structure orbiting a star. Halo old-school. At the time of its publishing, two of the four Ringworld novels were out, and I don't know if the information here would jive with what Niven eventually did. I remember this game primarily from it being in the TSR Library, along with Elfquest, which is a related game.

Ringworld is a good representative of a product for a universal game system. This was a holy grail for a while, and I suppose still is. The big practitioner has been GURPS, but the Basic Roleplaying System (BRP) from Chaosium has been another contender. Other games related through the BRP include the indominable Call of Cthulhu, the aforementioned Runequest, Superworld, Elric, Hawkmoon, and Pendragon. It is a pretty impressive family tree, and, looking at them over the years, you can see that they shared the same earthy loam. While GURPs presented itself a GURPS (name of genre or license), BRP presented itself as Name of Genre or Licence (using BRP).

The trouble with universal games is a basic challenge - which is more important, the mechanics or the world? A world (or license) has different virtues, strengths, and requirements, so bending the world to fit the Procrustean bed of set mechanics is a bad fit. However, a universal system has the advantage that, once someone understands product A, it is a shorter leap to product B, which has a similar system. And the ultimate goal of such systems, in theory, is the ability to take characters from World X and put them in World Y.

BRP, a creature of its age, creates entire systems which are glued on or jettisoned as appropriate for the game. A pretty smart move. Call of Cthulhu has its insanity, Superworld its super powers, and I think Pendragon pulled up everything but the floorboards. Its game family is so diverse that it makes world-hopping a little more problematic, but you can see the connecting tissue.

As for the Ringworld game product, only the cover and a few memories remain. I don't remember a whole lot of additional mechanics, or if those mechanics served the purpose of supporting the world it was supposed to portray. I do remember that the the data on the universe felt a little light - not a lot of parallel support (as opposed to West End's Star Wars, which practically ran lateral development and continuity for LucasFilm for many years), and I don't remember any mysteries being resolved. Further, the scope of the Ringwold was so big (the planet Earth in the novels was portrayed as a map on an island at a 1:1 scale, that the place ultimately had the problem of many "super-dungeons" there was so much there that it was hard to embrace it all.

But it and similar universal systems were a major step in RPG development. In trying to create a system that could be plugged into several genres, it helped push the entire concept of licensing, where turnaround time was vital and striking while the iron/movie/book was hot was ideal. And that's good enough for R.

More later,

Q is for ...

Quest of the Ancients.

OK, there's not a lot of competition for "Q", but this is actually worth examining.

Quest for the Ancients shows up relatively late in the RPG timeline, but is a great example of the games which feel like they evolve out of house rules and attempts to "fix" D&D.  The fixing continues until enough of the genetics are changed that it feels like a related species, like those pygmy elephants you find on Mediterranean islands (well, you USED to find). There are nine stats, and they are generated by various combinations of dice but still in the area where a character created by 3d6 could be among them. The classes are a grab-bag of Fighter classes (Cossack, Gladiator, Knight, Legionnaire, Rouge, Saracen, Viking, and Woodsman), Tricksters (Assassin, Bard, Cutpurse, and Gypsy), and Spellcasters (Druid, Earth Prist, Necromancer, Sorcerer, and Witch). A core combat system that uses a d30 (other options are, mercifully, presented as well).

And, in the true tradition of D&D-derived RPGs, it has halflings, though not as a main race, but an example (the "furfoots") of a race that the DM can create.  It also has a dedication to Stevie Nicks (the inspiration of the Witch class) and a thank you to yours truly (apparently, from a note I found in the book, for the Sigiltry spell, which sounds like a parallel evolution to the tattoos from Azure Bonds).

It is big, squarebound and a labor of love. As I said, it shows up late in the evolutionary tree, contemporaneous with Nightlife, at time when showing up with a big book full of classes and spells was what you needed to establish yourself with a market tired of the same old D&D.

And looking at it 20 years later, it does not feel horribly dated. Rather, it evokes the spirit of of the current Old School Renaissance that is sweeping through the fields of blogs, DTP and self-publishing. In the wake of the OGL, old predecessors like this one have been forgotten, but this is one of the destinations possible for those games that are currently trying to "re-think" D&D.

Look upon this, old-schoolers, and know that this path has been tread before.

More later.

[Update:] Fellow A to Z blogger Tim Branan ALSO wrote about Quest of the Ancients (told you that it was a tough letter). Check out his writeup!

P is for ...

Paranoia.

It is the future. You are a living in an underground civilization after something horrible happened outside. You are a Troubleshooter, working for the Computer that controls all parts of your life. The Computer is your Friend.

The Computer, however, is also nutso bananas. You hunt down mutants (oh, by the way, you're a mutant). You hunt down secret societies (oh, by the way, you're in a secret society). You hunt down traitors (everything you do can be considered traitorous). You deal with a color-coded bureaucracy where everyone is desperately, desperately trying to avoid being the next victim of the nutso bananas Computer. You are continually setting up your allies for the fall (and they are measuring you up as a scapegoat as well).

Did I mention this was a comedy?

It's a comedy. An INTENTIONALLY funny RPG that goes after the madness of top-down, nutso banana bureaucracy and conspiracy. Over the Edge deals with some similar issues, but with a more ironic and educated take. A wry smile. They play it straight. Paranoia does it with a cream pie. An exploding cream pie. An exploding cream MUTANT pie. Provided by the Computer. Who hates pie. Pie is treason, citizen.

The mechanics are pretty straightforward, as befits a game where your life expectancy can be measured in hours. Oh, and you get some clones that can sub in for you when you die (and you will). It is pleasantly lethal in its combat resolution, and a simple matter of finding the correct form or opening a door can lead to casualties. The Holloway art is just a big fat bonus, and sets the mood of the game. Also bonus points to the spot illos, which are simply a computer screen with different jokes written for it ("Screaming? I don't hear any screaming.").

This is funny game and a fun game, which is both playable and enjoyable to read. In play, there is often a strange moment with first-time players when it all sinks in. In Call of Cthulhu, it's that moment when you suddenly realize that the old stories about creatures coming down from the stars are real. Here, it is the discovery that your boss IS nutso bananas, and your co-workers ARE willing to throw you under the hoverbus at any moment. And when that moment comes, and the players realize that they're NOT in D&D anymore, they aren't expected to work together to a common goal, and the alignment governors have been removed, THEN the fun begins. I've had a couple sessions that didn't get out of the mission briefing without a TPK (Why yes, you do have clones).

It is an office comedy. With lasers. If it was redone today, they could get the Better Off Ted license for cheap. It was a brilliant take of what you could do with RPGs that wasn't being done with ten-foot-poles and paladins.

More later,

[Update:] One of the authors of a later edition of the game sent me a note to the effect that Paranoia remains a on-going concern, and that Mongoose publishing has released a 25th Anniversary edition based on the 2004 edition of the rules. Yeah, it was a surprise to me as well. When I  am going through these, I am not usually dealing with reprints, revisions, expansion, extensions or new editions, and tend to concentrate only on the original versions because, well, they were the ones I played (though the entire subject of such revised versions would be great grist for the blog mill).

Still think if you revise it again, you could get the Better Off Ted license for cheap. I see synergies here.

O is for...

Over The Edge.

Imagine, if you will that the ur-text of FRPGs is not Tolkien's Lord of the Rings but instead is The Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs. Instead of the traditional multi-racial quest tale sprung out of European folklore you instead get a swirling mass of free association, rival agendas, conspiracies and general philosophical debauchery. That's what you have here.

Over the Edge feels like two parts experiment and two parts gaming manifesto. It has a lot of cool bits and mechanics (particularly for its publishing age) and how they are intended to use them, presented in an accessible, almost conversational format. My favorite is a small one - if you do the same thing round after round in combat, your chances of success diminish. This strongly reduces the "I hit him with my sword" repetition nature of most combat and breathes life into what is otherwise (and oddly) one of the most sterile mechanics in the game.

But the bulk of the book is a presentation of the island of Al Amarja, off the coast of North Africa - you can see Albert Camus' house from there. It is Bill Burrough's Interzone turned into Waterdeep, a gumbo of factions, counterfactions, revolutionaries, counterrevolutionaries, agents, double agents, and triple agents, all with a healthy admixture of aliens, mutants, demons, drugs, mind-controllers, and a quasi-fascist government (who, among other things, have their own "Language Police" who are heavily armed).

The game is worth playing, if only to see how it unspools with dedicated players. The book itself is worth consuming, and it is of a class of RPG product that is meant to be read and enjoyed as work itself as much as translated onto the gaming table.

More later,

Norwescon Schedule

So I'll take advantage of the Sunday-off feature of this A to Z challenge to mention that next weekend is Norwescon, at the Doubletree in Seatac. I've been asked to contribute to a few panels this year, and hope to break free of my deadlines to see people!

Friday   10am     Cascade 9            How Game Mechanics Cross Platforms

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games have revolutionized computer gaming, and become the dominant mode for computer role-playing games. They certainly learned a thing or two from pen-and-paper (PnP) RPGs. Now many PnP games today are “borrowing” a concept or two from video games. Board games and RPGs even incorporate elements from card games. Join our panel in a discussion of the increasingly blurry lines of game development.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Rodney Thompson, Jeff Grubb, Andy Megowan  

Friday   4pm       Evergreen 1&2  Writing and Story Development for Computer Games

This panel of writers of both fiction and games will explore the overwhelming appeal of computer games and the importance of writing and story development in world building and player immersion. From pitch to production, from pen-and-paper and live-action to multi-player worlds, the panelists discuss the process of fantasy world building for original concepts or licensed properties. They elaborate on how story development can affect game system design, character design, and environments.

Marc Laidlaw, Wayfarer's Moon, Ted Kosmatka, Kate Marshall, Jeff Grubb  

[New Addition!] Friday   7pm       Evergreen 3&4  The Continued Viability of Epic Fantasy

How has Epic Fantasy evolved in the 50-plus years since Tolkien hit it big?  What are the archetypal elements that keep people reading epic fantasy?  What's new and fresh in this arena?

M.H. (Maggie) Bonham, Spencer Ellsworth, Jeff Grubb

Saturday   10am                Cascade 4            Freelancing 101

One of the best, sure-fire ways of writing for the gaming industry is by doing freelance work. Great!  But how does one do that? What are the benefits and drawbacks to freelancing? Our panel of freelancers and the people who hire them, will share their stories and give advice on how to be a successful freelancer for the gaming industry.

Jeff Combos, Liz Courts, Randall N. Bills, Jeff Grubb  

Saturday   Noon                Evergreen 3&4  Crunch vs. Fluff: FIGHT!

Gaming, especially roleplaying games, have essentially two elements. The “crunch” is the rules that define the game system, and dictate how to simulate real-world actions. The fluff is the fiction that gives the game its setting, and aids in the players roleplaying within that setting. Not surprisingly, gamers are often divided as to which element is most important to a game, and those divisions can be strong! Our gaming panelists engage in a civil discussion on realism vs. roleplaying, rules-heavy wargames vs. rules-light/theater-based games.

Bruce R. Cordell, Jonathan Tweet, Jason Bulmahn, Erik Mona, Jeff Grubb, Stan!  

Saturday   4pm  Cascade 9            Table-top gaming is DEAD....or is it?

With the continued impact of electronic gaming against traditional gaming, do people still want to play our games? It seems that young kids today are playing more video games than tabletop games, right?  Yet, despite the annual doom-and-gloom bloggers, the hobby seems to be flourishing. Why?

Erik Mona, Jeff Grubb, Jeff Combos, Sean K Reynolds

More later,

N is for ...

Nightlife.

Here's a game where you play monsters but you have to keep your humanity. You can play any of a number of diverse, nigh-immortal "Kin" in a modern urban setting who prey on the "herd" and engage in their own inter-group politics. You have a large number of superpowers but also compulsions and feeding habits that force you to create your own subculture. You hang out at night clubs. Your world is one of darkness.

Oddly enough, I am NOT talking about Vampire: the Masquerade, which showed up a year after Nightlife hit the streets and bodychecked it into the boards like an SUV driving a SMART car off the road. Nightlife feels closer to the games of the 80s, and is pretty much what VTM would have been if it had followed a more traditional route.

The game itself is ability and skill-based, with your breed of kin determining your early super-powers (sorry, edges). Vampyres (with a Y), Werewolves, Ghosts, Daemons, Wyghts (also with a Y), Inuits (so we get that West Coast vibe) and Animates (Frankenstien). Yeah, that seems like the marketing plan for White Wolf, but it is also the casting call for horror movies from the 1950s on. Both games are mining the same rich vein of lore, out on the old Annie Rice claim. But VTM was taking drama classes while Nightlife was watching a lot more cheezey movies on USA Up All Night.

Yet for declaring itself a horror game, in fact dedicating itself to splatterpunk, the game is relatively bloodless. Save for a couple paragraphs on how deep the knife sticks in and mild-R-rated art that flirts with the borders (all but now erased) of good taste, its mechanics are as tame as regular D&D, and that puts a wall between the player and the horror. The opponents are reduced to a bag of hit points to remove, the powers to a group of toggles to throw. Mind you, this is pure D&D adventuring from the old school, where the color and the gore is brought to the table by the DM and imagined in the minds of the players. But its more detailed mechanics put it at a disadvantage to the more visceral and dramatic (though lest precise) mechanics of its World of Darkness follower.

In the end, the game stayed true to its roots, doing a musical version that would make the Vampire Lestdt happy, and a couple post-apocalyptic expansions that felt like Gamma World as presented by Troma films. If an Old School Revival hits the Vampires (and it is only a matter of time), then this is one of the foundation stones they should look at for how they got where they are.

More later,

Self-Portrait

I didn't really expect to come back to talking about the Tacoma Art Museum so soon, particularly after going on at length about the Norman Rockwell show, but such is the nature of life.

In addition to the Rockwell show, the museum had in one of its smaller galleries a show called "Mighty Tacoma" (through 24 April) which had art (photos and original art) about Tacoma as well. And part of the presentation involved taking pictures in the gallery, the subject seated (and unified) by a pair of oversized red chairs.

OK, it a little cheesy and a little boosterish for the town and the museum and most of the pictures were of smiling, happy people delighted to have their pictures taken at the museum. Nothing wrong with that. Families on a day out, clustered in typical portraiture as taught by innumerable family reunions and Christmas card shots. And there were those who would sit upside down in the chairs, or turn them around and peek over them, but they were in the minority (and the whole bloody lot of them can be seen online here.


And I thought about it for a moment, and realized that in a lot of pictures I have taken of me, I have little control of my own image. Candid shots are taken at conventions all the time, along with posed photos for others, but usually I am with others, and am just moving where I am told. There are exceptions, like the "Iron chef" shot that I use at the start of the current Grubb Street blog, but that's an indulgence of the cameraman who was supposed to take "real" shots of me for the website.

So I asked the cameraperson at the TAM for something particular, and she accommodated me. I asked for a specific shot, and we did it, and we cropped it to make it exact. And when I got it on the Flickr site, it was uncropped and less effective, so I recropped it for here.

And I have to say, it is a new favorite picture. A picture is worth a thousand words, but only tells half a story (so the average story length should be 2000 words). I like the negative space and the encompassing of the ubiquitous red chair to provide unity. The logo wear and message shirt are not part of the discussion. And I am not smiling for the camera. I am being.

So I made a little art, where a lot of people were just taking pictures.

TAM is also important at the moment since they want to bring the Hide/Seek exhibit to the PNW. This exhibit caused a dust-up when it was shown at the Smithsonian, when a conservative agitated and got one of the pieces pulled, and liberals in turn elevated it to a cause celebre, which raised more awareness on both sides than the show would have gotten if it had simply been presented. So yeah, I'm curious, and would go if they decide to put it one here (and the Keith Haring piece is excellent).

More later,