I recently came to the conclusion that the Agora ruleset, while pretty tight mechanically, need to be rewritten with an actual voice rather than the dry, technical-manual presentation found in the most recent edition. I struggled with how to do this for some time, but then genius struck in the form of an assassin droid in the video game Knights of the Old Republic. What better voice to guide players through destroying their enemies and conquering the last remnants of humanity (oh, and rebuilding civilization) than good ol’ HK-47?

Mister Chris Perrin interviewed me a little while ago, and the result is now posted up in his new weekly article on RPG.net, “Small Press, Big Game.” The interview is actually about all my games, which was a bit of a departure from other interviews I’ve done before. It was interesting talking about how my games relate to one another — and interesting forming those thoughts as they spilled out of my mouth. In any case, I am Mr. Perrin’s second designer (somehow I’m supposed to follow Luke Crane and Mouseguard — no pressure there!), and I’m looking forward to seeing what other designers Chris lines up in the future.

Dev Purkayastha has posted some thoughts on the Story Games Boston playtest of Agora. I’m really happy that SGB — folks who tend towards game designs that are very different than my own — are giving Agora a crack, because I get some fantastic differing perspectives on how my game works. It also shows me what I need to explain better for audiences that aren’t me, my friends, and my design partners.

Early playtest feedback has been giving me a lot of good stuff to consider and mull over. One thing that I’ve been hearing a few times over, though, is a desire for a one-page cheat sheet for play procedures, which I can totally understand. Agora is a complex game, and the big picture of the beast would be a handy thing to have.

I took the six core procedures that players will encounter in a given turn and wrote quick bullet-point summaries of them. Then, with a little ghetto-hypertexting via text color, I came up with the following Agora Turn Guide:

At some point I’ll make an Incident Guide that handles Creating Incidents, Audience options, Burnout, and Fallout — but it’s my impression those aren’t critical right now, whereas the turn flow certainly is. The Turn Guide is in the playtest package, as well.

The local Los Angeles Strategicon was this last weekend. We attended (with little Prudence, her very first con!), and had a blast. I did not run the IPR booth at Gamex this time around, which was sort of awesome. It meant I had lots of time to just hang out, chat with friends, and play lots of games. I barely noticed not having a ‘home base’ to fall back to.

Friday night we checked in and all that and then I settled down to play Montsegur 1244, a structured freeform game which is getting a lot of play and buzz. I went into it expecting it to be not-my-thing, and I came out of it knowing that it was not-my-thing. Lack of strong character goals and a blindness to the parts of historical context that I really dig into were the big problems for me; I was also sort of an odd man out in our (randomly-generated) situation: everybody else was playing the sex-and-family bits of the situation, whereas I was the only one playing the religion part of the set. Which all sounds more negative than it really is — everybody else was having a blast, and it’s a nice little package of game-situation.

Saturday morning started off with In a Wicked Age, which Will calls, “The game I don’t like that I have fun with every time.” Which is pretty spot-on accurate. We played in God-Kings of War (best for cons) and ended with a giant naval battle determining the fate of an empire. Schweet.

Saturday afternoon I took the baby which Meghann had so kindly been entertaining while I was wicked-aging. She went off to play a Star Wars game; I played A New World: a Carcassonne game with Prudence strapped to my chest. The game is very neat and challengingly different than basic Carcassonne. After that was done, we all (myself, Meg, Paul, Ryan, Jesse, Will, James, Morgan… who am I forgetting?) sat down to a luxurious two-hour-long dinner slot, which allowed us to have a lot of casual social time. I really hope Strategicon retains the new schedule; I don’t mind getting to the morning game an hour earlier if it means dinner isn’t a big harried rush.

Saturday night I played in the Houses of the Blooded LARP, which I went in expecting it to be not-my-thing and was totally blown away by the awesome. John has devised a very, very slick conflict resolution system that is near-perfectly tuned to the LARP environment. It incorporates mechanics directly into the roleplay in a nearly seamless fashion. Yes, even combat — at the conclusion of the first (and only) duel of the night, John declared combat over and all the Vampire LARPers cheered because it was over so quickly and cleanly. The “private scenes” which are played out in public give the whole experience a great sense of pacing and introduce tons of information into the game constantly. Nobody walks around wondering where the action is — everybody walks around scheming on how to turn the action to their ends.

Sunday morning I had the baby again — I can’t recall what Meghann was playing — and so played Thurn and Taxis again with baby in the sleepy wrap. I love that thing; I don’t know how people raise babies without it.

Sunday afternoon saw me running the Agora playtest/preview, which succeeded on both fronts admirably — I got some good playtest feedback and also introduced the game in an engaging and entertaining manner. Thanks to Jesse, I even have an Actual Play recording of most of the game. Playtest feedback mostly centered around “selling” player actions, and will result in a couple new (small) procedures and some chunky Mastery player advice.

Sunday evening, my parents trekked out to the convention just to take the baby off our hands for a timeslot. While Meghann played Mouse Guard, I was able to just kick back with Ryan Macklin, who I don’t get to see often enough, chatting about game design but also just things-and-stuff. When they were done, Meghann returned spouting superlatives about Mouse Guard, so presumably there will be mice with capes and swords in our gaming future.

Monday morning I was literally the only RPG on the schedule, and so our game of Primetime Adventures had six players. We did a “Yes, and…” sort of series-building and came up with something truly spectacular. Running in perpetual syndicated reruns on TVLand, our show was “Trouble in PERL-dice,” a 60s-era sitcom-spoof (think F-Troop) about the Board of Directors of the international criminal organization PERL (pronounced ‘peril’). As the show was ostensibly in reruns, we played one episode out of a “marathon,” so started with the very end of one episode, including the “Next Time On…” segment. This allowed us to have a Next Time On list for the episode we played, and this worked marvelously. Our climax featured two flying aces in a dogfight using invisible planes — in other words, two guys in sitting position arcing and spinning around in the air. Fantastic stuff.

And then it was time for post-con Mongolian BBQ with almost the whole gang (Paul and Ryan understandably buggered off before then), completing a fantastic convention.

I’m on Ryan Macklin’s podcast Master Plan, in an interview about designing epic games that is so epic… (how epic is it?) …it’s so epic, it had to be split into two episodes.

Click the following to download Part One and Part Two.

I always have a lot of fun on Ryan’s show, and in this one I really enjoyed the opportunity to relax a bit, call myself on my own bullshit, and talk nuts and bolts rather than big, high-minded abstracts. In other words, I got to talk about game design fueled by my enthusiasm for game design and not some misdirected attempt to spread my brand or drive sales. Very refreshing, and very fun. I should also note that a lot of the podcast is also about Ryan’s upcoming game-in-development, Mythender, which was lots of fun to talk about and sort of counter-interview Ryan about.

So there’s been a big thing over the internets recently, and a lot of people have become very angry over some really stupid things that some other people have said. Specifically, those things have been about race and the depictions thereof in science fiction and fantasy. At this point, so many stupid things have been said that it’s far beyond my ability to itemize them. Suffice to say: there’s a lot of white guys in sf/f — both in the fiction and in the publishing industry that produces the fiction — and there’s a lot of other folks who’d like to see themselves in sf/f — both in and out of the fiction. Which you’d think would be a pretty straightforward proposition with some immediate support, even from white guys. Apparently not so much.

So this is my very small contribution to the thing (which cannot even be said to be a debate at this point). This white guy would like to see some more diversity in sf/f, and when I write and publish, there will be (and has been) characters who are not white guys who are more than token color in the background. I’m not going to wade into the crazy that is the blood-orgy internet dogpile that is RaceFail ‘09, because I’m not equipped to do much good there, so I will, outside of this post, confine my efforts to what I produce. That is, I wager, the most effective thing that I can do.

Once, there was a War. Then…

Shar of the Mulong rises up to reforge his tribe of plantation slaves into cut-throat corporate pirates.

The technicians and scientists under “Mad” Doctor Bones vow to peel away the mysteries that shroud the secrets of the universe… whatever the cost.

Justicar André and his army of penitent monks teach the ways of peace, traveling by way of the fist.

And from the crashed battlecruiser Kingsrook comes wave after wave of Admiral Wargrave’s space marines, intent on winning a war already over.

…or perhaps it happens a different way.

Agora is a roleplaying game where you will lead refugees crash-landed on the forgotten planet Agora, the last untouched world left in the wake of a galactic apocalypse. Played from the fiery descent to the surface, through turmoil, suffering, and hard-won victories, all the way to the dawn of a new age of humanity, the game offers an epic experience of unprecedented scope.

The task is nothing less than the rebuilding of human civilization. The story is the reconstruction of the human soul.

I have been working on Agora: how shall we live? for over four years and through many incarnations. Version 3.0.2 has finally reached beta playtest: the game is ready to be unleashed on the world… and vice-versa. In many ways, this is the game that I’ve always wanted to play and always wanted to publish, and you can help make that happen. Agora needs playtesters interested in pounding out their own future history of humanity on the treacherous world of Agora, and in pounding out the last kinks in the rules of this massive game.

You can download the playtest document here.

Agora is competitive and cooperative, GMless, and procedurally dense. In each of five stages, new game procedures, options, and tactics are introduced to keep players on their toes. Part of Agora’s appeal is the challenge of mastering the game’s system — and then using it to outwit, outmaneuver, and outplay the other players at the table, all to fulfill your goals in shaping the future of the galaxy.

The playtest opens now and will close July 31st, 2009. Yes, that is a five month playtest window, because Agora is a big, long, epic game. By my best estimates, a full game will take about eight sessions of four hours each, at minimum. That’s eight sessions of exploring, exploiting, and fighting over your own Agora, and if everything works, that’s eight sessions of awesome. Because this is a pretty hefty social footprint, I’m making sure all of you fantastic souls who’d like to help out have the time to do so. (Just don’t put off starting till July!)

All the procedures and mechanics you will need can be found in the playtest document; in addition, you will need:

• four to six players
• a pile of dice (10-15 of each size: d4s, d6s, d8s, d10s)
• a stack of about 100 index cards
• a handful of pencils
• eight to twelve sessions of four hours each

Playtest feedback is essential to making a game sing, refining new ideas, and creating innovative play experiences. Which is a lot of big words to say that games need playtesters as much or more than gamers need games. Your help is beyond value. As with my previous games, I will be gratefully including the names of playtesters in a byline to recognize their sizable contribution to the quality of the game. I really can’t do this without you guys, and I can’t overstate my appreciation.

If you’d like to take part in the next chapter of Agora, the future of civilization, and my latest game, download the playtest document now.

This will fall under the ‘totally incomprehensible except to three people’ category.

So in the car today, I was listening to Narrative Control when all of a sudden, a fix occurred to me for a problem I wasn’t until then aware I had. In Survival Stage, the players are trying on the lieutenant role and playing with lieutenants as you play your ideogogue. Also in Survival Stage, full-blown incident creation is introduced. My original thinking was that incident creation, with its attendant declaring of participants, was necessary for lieutenants. However, I was mistaken. What is necessary for lieutenants is lieutenants.

So the ‘fix’ — move the introduction of declaring participants to Synthesis Stage. In Survival Stage, you just pick an obstacle player (as you do in Descent, so nothing new there) and everybody else starts the incident as audience members. This nicely introduces audience members and what they do (turn into ideogogue, obstacle, or lieutenant players) before you have to actually decide on who to make an audience member. Basically, it allows players to understand their choices before they start making them — which is, in general, a good thing.

So there it is: a simple procedural shift that smooths both gameplay and the learning curve. One less hurdle to getting some fun play. Rockin!

The Descent is the final step of character creation in Agora. It’s like a little mini-scene, and is totally stolen from DitV. Here’s a full, top-to-bottom example of a Descent that I just wrote and am rather fond of. This is how you start a game of Agora:

Judson’s Descent, Start to Finish
Now it’s Judson’s turn to play his Descent incident. To his left sits Colin, who will be running the obstacle. Judson decides to play his character, Admiral Wargrave, through the Battle Above Agora.

He sets the stage: “Wargrave’s battle group, a handful of destroyers clustered around the command carrier Kingsrook, is laying waste to the ranks of Diamond and Uprising warships over the north pole of Agora. The battlegroup operates with pure military precision, with each part doing its job and every soldier putting Wargrave’s commands into effect. We have the last Alliance carrier in our sights when the transmission about the Peace comes in.”

Judson also rolls in his ideals and resources. First his 3d8 Legionnaire ideal, which rolls 2, 4, and 6, then his 2d10 Hierarchy ideal, ending up with 3, two 6s, 7, and an 8. By rolling in so many ideals, he’s making sure he’ll get to write the incident’s opportunity. He then rolls in the Kingsrook itself at 5d6, rolling a 1 as well as 3, two 4s, and a 6. He could narrate a bit more to represent these two ideals and one resource, but he’s pretty much covered all that with his opening narration.

He has, however, rolled a 1, which he must place immediately. Since he does have the largest ideals pool (his five versus Colin’s zero), he can define the opportunity now. He writes his goal, “Maintain command over Hierarchy forces post-landfall.”

He also needs spoils. Since Colin hasn’t assigned any of his dice, Judson may do so for him. He spends 2d4 of Colin’s unassigned dice and makes the spoils, “Blackfoot Mercenaries 2d4.” Colin immediately rolls 2d4 into his resource pool (a 1 and a 4).

Now Colin writes the opposing goal, and decides on “Kingsrook fusion core is destabilized in the aftermath of the fighting.”

Judson places his 1 on his side of the opportunity and narrates Wargrave putting out a broadcast to the entire system, simultaneously accepting the cease-fire and demanding all Hierarchy ships report to him.
Colin gets a chance to counter, and rolls in his only ideal, “Civilization deserves to destroy itself.” He rolls a 1, a 2, and a 3. He places his 1 on top of Judson’s 1 and narrates, “…but that Alliance carrier is jamming your signal. Whatcha gonna do about it, blow it out of the sky?” Since Judson doesn’t have another 1 in resources, the two dice are removed from the card.

But Colin also rolled a 1 when he rolled in the opportunity’s spoils, so he must also place that die immediately. He puts it on his side of the opportunity and narrates, “Oh, and you’re drifting into a minefield left by the Alliance forces. Explosions are bursting yellow fire all up and down the Kingsrook.”
Judson may now counter. He has already rolled in two ideals, so Colin will already get two credits out of this incident. Judson decides not to roll in another ideal. He rolls what he’s got and comes up with three 3s, a 4, and a 10. He narrates, “The damage control teams scatter, but there isn’t any direction from the bridge, since Wargrave is broadcasting his ultimatum, I mean, rallying call.”

Now it is finally Colin’s first turn. Since he already has resources rolled in, he elects to place instead of position. He drops the 4 on his goal of the opportunity and narrates, “And that’s when the damage control techs find the bomb the Blackfoots left. On your fusion drive.”

That sounds pretty bad, so Judson rolls his ideals to counter. He gets two 1s, a 3, and two 8s, but no 4s. He removes the two 1s (a d8 and a d10) from his ideals pool and makes a tallymark on the fallout diamond (for the d8) and fallout lozenge (for the d10). He explains that Wargrave is too busy taking aim at the Alliance warship to pay attention to panicking techs.

On Judson’s turn, he places one of his two 4s on his side of the goal. “We open fire on the Alliance warship to clear our communications channels,” he explains. Colin sees that Judson has another 4 to place if the first is countered, so he wisely lets this one pass. No need to waste both of his remaining ideals dice to prevent one die from being placed. He nods and adds, “And the Alliance ship just goes up like a fireball.”

Colin is out of resources dice, so he needs to position. He adds a resource to his sheet, “Diamond fighters out for revenge, 2d6” and rolls them in: a 3 and a 4. He also writes “Saboteurs on board! 3d8,” adds three d8s to his resource pool, and rolls the whole thing again. He gets two 1s, a 3, and two 5s.

Colin has rolled two 1s, so he must place them immediately. He puts one on his goal and narrates, “That Alliance carrier you blew out of the sky still had fighters out on sortie, and now they have nowhere to land, and nowhere to get more air. So they have nothing to lose as they turn and attack the Kingsrook.”

Now Judson has a hard choice to make. If he doesn’t counter, Colin will complete his side of the opportunity and Wargrave will not get his Blackfoot Mercenaries. He’s only got three dice in his ideals pool — he can add his 4d6 “Admiral” ideal, but that would give Colin another credit.

Judson decides to roll in his “Always take the high ground, 4d6” ideal, adding the dice to his current ideals pool and rolling the whole thing. He gets a 1, which he places on top of Colin’s die. “The point-defense cannons turn from shooting the mines out of the local space and start taking out those fighters.”

But Colin has another 1. He places that on his goal, as well. He knows this is probably the end of the incident, win or lose, so he goes for the throat: “That’s when the bomb strapped to your fusion core detonates.”

Judson picks up his ideals pool to counter. He needs a 1. He rolls… and doesn’t get one. He narrates, “The fusion core explodes, and that sets off secondary explosions too, most likely. So we jettison the ship’s core and start emergency damage control, but we’re already spinning out of control and the planet’s gravity is sucking us in. Wargrave commands all hands to prepare for atmospheric entry. And the Kingsrook goes down.”

Since he did not complete his goal, it doesn’t happen. Wargrave will have no command over Hierarchy forces beyond his own battlegroup. Judson also does not win the spoils on the opportunity.

Judson has 1d6 marked in burnout, so he rolls that. He gets a 2, which means he loses a die off of the Kingsrook. Since the carrier is crash-landing and has lost its fusion drive, he elects to rewrite the resource from “Command Carrier Kingsrook 3d6 + XO Henken 2d10” to “Crashed CC Kingsrook, 2d6 + XO Henken 2d10.”

He’s also got 1d8 and 1d10 in fallout, which he rolls and gets a 2 and a 3. He must change two words in his ideals. He rewrites “Life is a battlefield of winners and losers” to “Agora is a battlefield of refugees and losers.”

He writes his Descent ideal as “Always watch your back; there are saboteurs everywhere. 3d4.”

And lastly, since Judson rolled in three ideals, Colin picks up a cool three credits.