G+ Gaming

Ages ago, I used to game with a group that had a member who was out of town frequently.  He drove an eighteen wheeler for a living, and would spend weeks at a time living in hotel rooms in one horse towns.  Like airline pilots, truck drivers can't drink when they're on schedule, and there were only so many days he could sit in a room and read or watch television.  So his friends, the great people that they were, jury-rigged a setup to allow him to role play with them.  They hung a microphone from the ceiling in the middle of the table, and sat a speaker on the table in front of the seat where he would sit when he was with them, and he would play right along with us.

These were less technologically adept days, the phone line was analog, we took his dice rolls on faith (although the general consensus was that he rolled a suspiciously high number of critical hits compared to the rest of us), there were lots of, "Wait, what did he say?"s from us, and even more, "Could you repeat that?"s from him, and the general feeling was more like sitting on a conference call than playing an RPG, but hey - it kept him sane, it kept the GM from having to come up with in-game reasons for the guy's character's absences every couple of weeks, and it kept the group together.  It wasn't ideal, but it pretty much kinda almost worked, most of the time.

Flash forward to the present, and I'm hearing about playing on g+, and the first thing I think of is all the nights spent shouting into the microphone and trying to figure out whether he said, "I hit it with my axe", or, "That pit is full of cats!"

I received lots of positive responses from my previous post regarding online gaming, so I've been keeping my eye out on g+ looking for games and my god, I had no idea there were games going on at such odd hours.  A good part of it is time zones, I'm sure, but it seemed like half the games were either happening while I was working or sleeping.  Then along came an opportunity too good to pass up.  Edgar Johnson and Adam Muszkiewicz run a game on Thursdays using DCC RPG called the Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad.  They were wrapping up the first adventure, the Crypt of the Lizard King.  Reading further into it, I discovered that it riffed off of Jim Morrison and the Doors, and I was sold.

Despite some technical difficulties (from what I've read online since last night, Roll20 doesn't always cooperate with the Chrome browser - switching to Firefox, check), I had a blast.  I was officially inaugurated into the ranks of the experienced when Michelangelo Aggrosong, the crowbar swinging cooper fell in glorious battle, followed shortly by Miff Sapsipper, the Elven Navigator.  Crag Beerbeard the Dwarven Blacksmith and Lardo Cutpurssian the merchant lived to die, er... I mean fight another day, and collected 5 xp each for their troubles, setting them on their way.  The highlight of the evening was a wonderful example of Death By Treasure when another party member discovered, to their horror, that a magic helm did one point of damage per round to non-chaotic characters who wore it.  He was lawful.  He only had 1 hp.  He died.

At three hours, the timing was just right, I had a blast, and I'm looking forward to the sequel, Slaves of the Silicon God!

Professionalism: a Rant

I'm a people person!

In what I affectionately refer to as "The Real World", I manage a product line for a company.  I have clients, both within the company, and the actual external clients that my company services.  I'm responsible for keeping the spice flowing, as well as making sure that everyone else who depends on the spice feels good about the way that it's flowing.

So let me preface this rant by saying, "I understand, I get it - customer service is a bitch."

You very rarely hear from happy customers, because they're off being happy with the product you've provided.  Unhappy customers, though, those sons of bitches will blow up your phone, hammer your IM, and email you back to back to back, over and over again.  Very often, there's nothing to be done about issues that they're unhappy about - shit just happens sometimes.  You can't tell them that, though, because they're your customer, and it's your responsibility to make them happy.

So yeah, I get it.  Customer service is the worst part of the work I do, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way.

But let me back up, and tie this into the point of this post.  Until recently, I did almost all of my shopping for RPGs at one a few different locations.  I'm lucky enough to live in an area that has over a dozen Half Price Books within driving distance, and their stock shuffles often enough that I can usually find something that strikes my fancy most of the time when I go there.  Other than that, eBay and Amazon.

Then came my introduction to the OSR, and small publishers.  Then came Kickstarter.  Then came the headaches.

Before I go further, let me be clear - I don't mind late product.  It's only late until it's delivered, and then it's there forever.  I would rather wait five years than get a half baked, crappy product that doesn't live up to the promises.

No, what drives me up a wall is lack of communication.

The first scenario that is currently driving me nuts is with not one but two projects being run by the same publisher.  Their Kickstarter's "Project By" lists a company, not a person.  You go to their website, and you find information about how the company was founded way back when, it's a professional looking website with a forum, etc.  You see, I do my research before backing a Kickstarter, and this one passed the smell test.  To my regret, I stopped at the smell test, and didn't proceed to investigate further.  So the first Kickstarter funds, and the owner releases a pdf of the rules, and all is well and good.  The books are on the way, he says.  Soon, he says.  In the meantime, he kicks off a second Kickstarter, for a companion book to the first one.  Fair enough, I think, I don't want half the game, let's get them both!  So I kick in for the second Kickstarter. The day before the end of the Kickstarter, the guy posts an update, announcing that a stretch goal has been reached.

And that's it.

The project funded the next day, and several weeks later, no-one has seen or heard from him.  Not so much as a "Hey we made it guys!" post on the second Kickstarter page, nothing.  I head over to the forum, where it appears he hasn't logged on for a month.

Now, we all want to give this guy the benefit of the doubt.  For one thing, he's got our money, so we don't want anything else to be true.  More to the point, though, I just try, as a rule, to give people the benefit of the doubt.  But we're confronted with a scenario where the best we can hope for is someone who doesn't understand their customer service obligations.  The worst case scenario... well, it's best not to think too hard about that one.

It's not endemic to Kickstarters, though.  I purchased a product from a publisher with a fairly large presence in the OSR.  I spent a not-inconsiderable amount of money on the product itself, as well as a good amount more on some supplementary items.  I received an email thanking me for the purchase, and that was it.  Shipping can be an issue where I live, so I always prefer tracking numbers when I order things (spoiled from my days of buying off of eBay/Amazon, I suppose).  I followed up with an email, asking if tracking was available, and offering to pay more if need be.  Several days passed, with no reply.  I sent a followup email, and after another couple of days, got a vague reply, stating that they thought they had mailed it out, and they would have to check with someone to see about tracking.  After another period of time passed without a followup, I sent another email, checking in.  To date, no reply (no product either, but it's only been 2 weeks since I bought it, so I'm not prepared to get antsy about it yet)

My point with all of this is that I really am a pretty understanding customer.  I don't mind waiting.  I don't mind delays.  I really don't.  I understand that most of these "companies" are just somebody working out of a spare bedroom in their house.  I get that they have lives and families and "real" jobs.  Hell, I wouldn't be happy, but I'd understand, if a project completely fell through due to unforeseen circumstances.  They wouldn't get my money a second time, but I'd understand - there's risk involved in any transaction, and the further removed the consumer is from the product, the greater the risk.

What I do not find acceptable is the notion that open communication is not an obligation of the publisher/designer/owner, and the right of the consumer.  In the case of an out and out purchase, you have my money, and until I have the product, you are in arrears.  In the case of Kickstarter, you have my money, and I am an investor.  Either way, communication is a necessity.

We need to expect and demand better from the people who are running the operations that we patronize.  When I went to the forum to inquire about the first issue described above, there were people on there saying, "Oh, he just does that sometimes - he's disappeared before.", like it was okay.  No, I'm sorry, but it's not okay.  If you're making something and giving it away for free, then absolutely, do it as you have time, at your own pace and communicate as you see fit.  But once you take peoples' money and say you'll have it by a certain date, you have entered into an agreement.  If you need to change the terms of the agreement, hey - you've got the product, and you've already got the money. Get it right, then get it to me.  But going dark, dropping off the grid, not responding to emails is unacceptable and unprofessional.

Dwimmermount is a perfect example.  Not long ago, people were calling for blood, until Tavis stepped up and started giving weekly honest appraisals of what was going on.  He was transparent, he was regular and timely in his communication, and (with some exceptions) the controversy surrounding Dwimmermount has subsided as we hunker down and wait for the finished product.  Tavis trusted in his product and in his audience, and at least in me, his trust has been rewarded - I will definitely trust Autarch with my money in the future.  He was open and honest, and more importantly professional, in his communication and he's gained a loyal customer.  Really, Tavis probably over-communicates a bit, to compensate for the lack of communication at the outset, but other projects and companies should take note - a little bit of communication goes a long way.  You don't need to write a novel for your backers ever day - like I said, I get it - you have jobs, you have families, you have things that come up in life.

But I have never, in my entire life, been so busy over an extended period of time, that I was unable to respond to urgent emails.

These folks want our money, we as a community need to make them earn it.

The Man With the Iron Fists and the Rule of Cool

The phrase, "Because f**k you, that's why" has become quite popular recently to explain all sorts of shortcomings in media, both written and visual.  It gets used because of times when it appears as though a writer is lazy, or because an editor has cut something that is a bit more essential than they thought.

Prometheus, I'm looking at you.

What this tends to make us forget, though, is that not everything needs to be explained.  Sometimes, not explaining just makes things better.  I remember my first time picking up an X-Men comic, back in 1986.  It was Uncanny X-Men #209.  On the cover, Nimrod and Colossus were grappling with each other, and in the inside, people died.  Some ended up coming back, some stayed dead, and mostly I had only vague ideas of who most of them were.  There were hints dropped at things that had happened previously, and more hints regarding things to come, but it didn't  feel as though it was an incomplete story.  Rather than being turned off by the existence of more to the story, it drove me back to the store, first to get back issues, then to keep going, keep following the story.

Obviously, that's harder to do in a movie than in a comic book.  It'll be a whole lot harder to bring me back to a Prometheus sequel, for instance, because as pretty as it looked, they strung me along for two hours, asking questions which they did not end up answering.

Which brings me to The Man With the Iron Fists.  On the one hand, you can see some similarities to Prometheus.  The story is that the RZA's original cut of this movie clocked in at over four hours, while the final cut is barely over an hour and a half so you know there's a lot left on the cutting room floor, and I honestly hope that at some point there is a Director's Cut released filling in as much of that as possible.

What was left, though, was a movie that functions much like Chris Claremont's issue of Uncanny X-Men.  There is obviously more to this story than what is presented in the film.  The difference between this and Prometheus is that MWtIF asks no questions, it simply exists.  Would I love to know how/why Brass Body can turn his body into brass?  Sure I would!  But see, here's the thing - I'm a big fan of the TV Tropes website, and I came across a page there recently called the Rule of Cool.  The idea is simply this  - the limit of the Willing Suspension of Disbelief for a given element is directly proportional to the element's awesomeness. So while I would like to know about Brass Body's backstory, I'm content to see him kicking ass on the screen.

All of this got me thinking about RPGs.  First of all, somebody should get the RZA to make an RPG.  The amount of world building that went into that film was phenomenal, which also helped it out when it came to the issues described above.  It didn't feel as though we were getting less than a whole movie, so much as we were peeking through the View Finder into a realistic, fully fleshed world filled with people who existed before the movie and would continue on after.  

More to the point though, we get tied down in the hows and whys of things very often.  We want things to be "realistic".  We want things to make sense.  And yes, to a certain extent this should be true.  There should be an internal consistency to things - I was perfectly satisfied with Russel Crow having a knife that spun around and also fired bullets.  I would have been less so had he pulled out a plasma rifle and started launching neutron grenades at his enemies.  But I don't need the answer to every single question, unless the movie explicitly asks them.  

Another good example of this is in the Wire.  If you haven't seen it, shame on you, go and find it and watch it.  There is a character in the show, I won't spoil who on the off chance that there are people who still haven't seen it, who is presented as an antagonist throughout the show.  In the last season, as a character is leaving a gay bar, in the background of a single shot, there and gone so quick you'd be forgiven for missing it, is this character.  Not once in the entire series is it mentioned that he's gay, it plays absolutely no role in developing any of the many plots in the series, it's just an, "Oh, by the way..." sort of moment.  

My point is, it's those sorts of moments that make a series more "realistic".  Not answers, but statements that generate questions, that let you fill in the blanks.  The moments that spawn discussion around the table after too many drinks - who'd win in a fight, Superman or Batman?  What happened to all the other people on the wheel in Conan?  Rather than frustrate the veiwer, they invite them to fill in the blanks themselves, letting them "own" the story in a small way.

WE NEED MORE OF THAT IN OUR RPGs!

It doesn't have to be, "Because f**k you, tha's why!", but rather, "Because it's awesome, THATs why!"

Not everything needs to be explained.  We don't need a rule for every conceivable action that a character might take.  We don't even need rules for every likely action.  We don't need every spider and caterpillar codified with stats and XP awards listed in the modules.  We don't need megadungeons, or sandboxes or hexcrawls. What we need is balls to the wall enthusiasm.  What we need is world building.  What we need are players who want to peek throug the View Finder to share in a world of someone else's creation who are willing to help breathe life into that world and watch it grow and evolve as they go.  We need players who ask questions rather than demand answers, who look for reasons why instead of why not.  We need GMs who are willing to be flexible, and willing to find a balance between fun and realism.  We need level-set expectations from all parties, but the freedom to exceed them, and the willing to figure out how to make things work even when they miss.  

Or maybe it's just what I need.

Apocalypse Watch: Here Come the Robots!

\While the article admits that most of the movement in military robotics is confined to drones currently, more and more, the US military is looking at ground based replacements for fleshy soldiers.

And we all know where that leads, don't we?

Strangely enough, the designers of the non-humanoid robots seemed to have taken their visual cues from the line of Starriors toys, that I love very much..

Anyhow, here's the article - run to your local store for some 2 million sunblock now!

Post Apocalyptic SteamPunk Fantasy

Okay, so I'm a day and a bit late with this, but I think I like this one better than the first one.  Again, the details of the Risus One Page Challenge can be found here.  It's been fun playing with the idea of steampunk.  I'm not sure how true to the tropes I've been, as both of these have been more genre mashups than orthodox steampunk, but it's been a fun thought excercise. 

Ozone-Powered SteamPunk!

As promised, this is the first of two possible submissions to the One Page Challenge for Risus: The Anything RPG.  The details of the contest can be found here.  I'll post the second one tomorrow.  Any thoughts or feedback would be greatly appreciated!

The Harrowing

So I've undertaken three new projects for this month, and they may be the death of me.

First the Risus One Page Challenge.  The challenge is to design a setting for Risus: the Anything RPG, and submit by November 7.  I've just about completed one setting, but have been struck with an idea for a second, so I may post both here in the next day or so and solicit feedback to see which one I should actually submit.  The one that's completed is a steampunk type setting, focusing on an alternate version of the early 20th century - a time of political upheaval in a society ravaged by man's obsession with ozone-powered technology.  The other is more of a traditional steampunk setting, although one spurred by the death of magic in an otherwise typical dungeons and dragons setting.  Decisions, decisions.

Next is NaGaDeMon - a friend and I have been tossing around ideas for a more geopolitical version of Axis and Allies, set in the cold war, and its time has come!  I've resolved to actually make, and hopefully play, this game by the end of the month.  We've figured out the hows, the whys and the wherefores, so at this point it's just a matter of hammering out  the rules and doing some playtesting to get the mix right.  This shouldn't be too hard, honestly.  I say that never having designed a board game before, of course.  So while I don't anticipate this taking up too much time, I fully understand that I base that on absolutely nothing.

Finally, the one that scares the crap out of me, NaNoWriMo.  I banged out my first 1700 words today with little difficulty, so uh... so far so good?  This is the one that I have the least confidence that I'll be able to complete, but I'm going to give it a shot.  I've had an idea rattling around in my bonebox for awhile now, and this seems as good a time as any to get it out.

Of course, I'm still planning on regular updates to the blog, and I still have The Clockwork Cave that I'm making fitful progress on.  I'm actually just about done with the writing part of it, I'm just stuck on how to close it out.  The Mayfly Queen has a tangential role in the module, so I hope folks really enjoyed that concept, because the adventure starts there and only gets weirder!

Oh, and my new wife and I are going on a roadtrip honeymoon later on this month around Thanksgiving, and I've got a fulltime job to fit inbetween the cracks of all these projects.

So my suspicion is that I've bitten off more than I can chew, but my hope is that if I can do half of what I've set out to, I can call this a very productive month!