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.

Graham has announced the design parameters for “Little Game Chef” on story-games.com.

THEME
The theme is immersion.

INGREDIENTS
Write a immersive game incorporating three of the following ingredients:
* Burn.
* Horse.
* Midnight.
* Sea.

Submissions need to be uploaded to Graham’s server in one week, midnight (Britain-time) on the 29th.

So the game-after-this-one, the game that is gobbling up design-brainspace as Agora is retreating to the land of playtest-and-publish, is presently called Secret Project Bloodfire. It’s at that annoying stage where I have lots of pieces (lots of pieces) but not quite enough for it all to gel together. But I’m getting all hella excited about it, such that I’m getting rather impatient that I can’t get it written down and playable yet.

Here’s the thing that I like most about it right now: it doesn’t try to emulate a kind of novel or movie. The indie crowd has got a lot of mileage out of using the forms and templates from other media; it’s produced a lot of fantastic games, and it’s been a powerful learning experience for the designers. I’m excited, though, to try stepping away from an established framework and seeing what shape an RPG can take when it’s not aping something else.

Beware: crotchety old man ranting.

So recently, there’s been a lot of threads and podcasts and discussions about how various games (notably Sorcerer and In a Wicked Age [AKA Sorcerer 2.0]) do not allow you to change another character’s mind. Which is fine for specific games, especially Sorcerer, which is all about human choices. You can’t make my character choose something, because my character’s choices are my means of input to the story.

Which is fine when we’re talking about these games. The troubling thing to me is that this is increasingly treated, not as an idiosyncratic constraint specific to the games where the rule is presented, but heretical badwrongfun. Maybe it’s just yet another instance of internet overstatement, but it seems like a lot of folks are assuming that mechanics can never change another character’s mind, ever. Or rather, not that mechanics can’t, but that they shouldn’t.

Rant-within-rant: Ever noticed how things go to shit the moment somebody uses the word “should?” The thing of it is, the word “should” has meaning only as a conditional. That is, “You should wash your hands before you eat” is an incomplete statement. The complete statement is “You should wash your hands before you eat if you don’t want to get sick.” Or “…if you don’t want to get in trouble.” Or “…if you want to make a good impression with Aunt Mathilda.” And the thing of it is, that often-implied-and-not-stated clause at the end totally changes the meaning of the statement. So maybe, kids, you should use the word “should” only when you’re willing to actually complete your statement… if you want to actually transmit meaning. Otherwise, you’re just using “should” to mean “I think that this is the right way and you are wrong.”

Ahem.

So anyway, this specific way that a few games work is being treated like it’s canonical orthodoxy (orthopraxis, to be pedantic) and that you can’t ever play or design any other way. Ironic, given that this is happening in a community that prides itself on pioneering bold new ways to play.

Let’s complete the statement, shall we? You should not use mechanics to determine what a character chooses to do… if character choice is the only or primary means of significant player input. Well look at that! What about games in which character choice is not the primary means of player input? What about Primetime Adventures, with its dirty and now-unpopular stakes setting? There, your input is in your characterization of your character and your narration of the outcome when you have the high card. What about Beast Hunters, where the player’s input is how they confront a challenge (choices, yes, but in a very specific scope)? What about Polaris, where the player’s input is in negotiating outcomes? What about Inspectres, where player input is in winning narration through die-rolling and through the confessional? Amazing! In all these games, the mechanics can determine character choices without bringing about ragnarok!

Of course you can formulate the “if…” clause that completes the statement in a number of different ways. You shouldn’t use mechanics to force character choices if you want players feel in control of their characters. You shouldn’t use mechanics to force character choices if your game is about the futility of human interaction and the unsurpassable sovereignty of the human spirit. You shouldn’t use mechanics to force character choices if Jerry is playing, because he hates that. And every way you complete the statement, it reveals counter-examples and new avenues, new ways to play in which mechanics to force character choices are not only acceptable, but they are essential.

Imagine that. New gaming experiences. Who’d have thunk it?

In the light of getting my new price-adjusted iPhone, I have a request for the podcasters out there:

Get some art on your podcasts! My podcast line-up is a long row of black squares because only the Sons of Kryos have got themselves some art. It’s very sad.

Thanks!

At Gamex, I got interviewed for Have Games, Will Travel by the inestimable Paul Tevis. I would say that I sound funny and that I don’t normally sound like that, but I think it’s mostly just how you never sound like you think you do. So apparently I sound like a nebbish. Good thing to know.

Paul and I talk about Full Light, Full Steam, the Sons of Liberty playtest, NerdSoCal.com, and… a whole lot of other stuff.

So the other day I went to France, right, and let me tell you, I couldn’t understand anything that anybody was saying. It was all fromage this and quel horreur that, and no matter how much they said, they just kept saying more, and let me tell you, it made no sense whatsoever. A few times I tried to get them to clarify what they were saying to each other, but they only looked at me funny and kept blathering on using their terrible, opaque words.

So finally, I quite reasonably told them, “Look. I’ve got an idea. How about you stop using all those silly words that you’ve built up over the last few thousand years and use the words that I’m more familiar with? Wouldn’t that be so much better? Then I could understand what you were saying to each other!”

Sadly, they kept speaking French. I wonder why.

Greetings, fellow roleplayers.

Over the last few months, there has been a series of discussions about how “geeky” roleplaying is and how roleplaying is ostracized from the respectable adult world. Folks have been trying to identify what exactly is geeky about sword-and-sorcery or space opera or pulps, what parts can be used in roleplaying, and what parts will drive away “non-gamers” like garlic waved in a vampire’s face. The relative merits of roleplaying’s geeky core have been debated: is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Is it interfering with spreading the Good Word of roleplaying across the globe and making every human being a roleplayer just like us?

Many times over, I’ve debated wading into these discussions, but I have abstained. You all seem to have been having so much fun. The discussions seem to be diverting little bits of self-identity, cotton candy for the geeky soul, as harmless as a cute furry creature. However, the discussions are reproducing like tribbles. If this goes on, we’ll be up to our eyeballs in them, and they’ll suck up all the air. I’d like to talk about something that isn’t how geeky you think our hobby is. Therefore, I’d like to take this opportunity to make the one contribution to these discussions that I’ve long refrained from making.

Roleplayers, please: get over yourselves.

You think roleplaying is considered geeky by outsiders? The adult world does not waste its time contemplating the geekiness of roleplaying. In fact, it does not waste its time contemplating roleplaying at all. The adult world has far more pressing matters to concern itself with, chief among them being who will be voted off of American Idol this week. Why would anyone spend half a moment’s thought on an activity whose existence they’re probably only dimly aware of when they could be figuring out how to afford a giant flatscreen television on which to watch sports, impress their friends, and keep track of their fantasy football team? The outside world does not care how geeky roleplaying is.

The only people who care about the geek-factor of roleplaying are roleplayers. I’m not even sure why. It certainly isn’t a valid concern over the hobby’s image: the hobby doesn’t have an image, any more than quilting has an image. Instead, it really must be something within roleplayers themselves that makes them obsess over their own geekiness. Is it the lingering effects from being snubbed at school for playing D&D? I think it’s about time to get over that. Is it because your parents don’t understand your hobby? Join the club called the Rest of Humanity. Seriously: are you not getting laid enough? Is that the problem? I assure you roleplaying has absolutely nothing to do with you not getting any.

What is all this sound and fury about? Why are we spending this much time talking about our own geekiness? Are any of these discussions improving the quality of your gaming? Designers: has your current game design developed because you discussed how nobody outside of gaming understands pulp? Indulging in a little self-centered identification is nice now and then; making an entire hobby out of it seems a little, well, narcissistic. In fact, for all the talk deploring how unfortunate the geeky label is, discussing that label ad nauseum is one of the best ways to make sure it sticks. Which is, quite frankly, the most probable reason so many folks jump into these discussions: establishing geek cred, and distinguishing oneself from the monsters of the outside world, who are themselves too busy watching Deal or No Deal to notice that you’ve taken your leave.

Me personally, though? Your obsession with your own badge of pride is getting on my nerves. You know what? You’re a member. Congratulations: you’re one of us, and not one of them. Now sit the fuck down so we can actually talk about roleplaying. Let’s talk about the games we played last night, the techniques we discovered, the book we just bought, the system we’re designing, the house rule we’re testing. Let’s talk about what place roleplaying has in our lives, rather than what place our lives have in roleplaying. Just, please: get over yourselves, already. This hobby is much more fun to participate in than to talk about. Go Play.

Doyce played The Princes’ Kingdom with his 6-year-old daughter, and she produced the Cutest Character Sheet Ever.

Awwww.