Friday, August 17, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
DNDNext English Translation Service
Yes, WOTC, I know it's just a playtest document. But does the writing have to be this awkward? I had to read it about three times before I could begin to follow it.
In the original:
"When you are in an area of civilization, you can find and take on bounties, allowing you to legally hunt down and capture or kill the subjects of those bounties. Additionally, as a legally recognized bounty hunter, sometimes the authorities will come to you with bounty hunting needs.
When you attempt to locate the subject of your bounty, if you fail to locate that quarry yourself, you always know where to go and from whom to obtain information on that quarry’s whereabouts. Usually this comes in the form of contacts you have cultivated on past hunts."
And now in English:
"You have the right to hunt down and catch or kill people with a bounty on their heads. You can find a list of bounties in any area that offers them. The authorities may offer you more work as a bounty hunter. If your quarry gets away, you can use your network of contacts to find out where the person is hiding."
A good editor could make the rules so much easier to understand. Please hire one. She doesn't have to know anything about gaming, just about writing with clarity and concision.
In the original:
When you attempt to locate the subject of your bounty, if you fail to locate that quarry yourself, you always know where to go and from whom to obtain information on that quarry’s whereabouts. Usually this comes in the form of contacts you have cultivated on past hunts."
And now in English:
"You have the right to hunt down and catch or kill people with a bounty on their heads. You can find a list of bounties in any area that offers them. The authorities may offer you more work as a bounty hunter. If your quarry gets away, you can use your network of contacts to find out where the person is hiding."
A good editor could make the rules so much easier to understand. Please hire one. She doesn't have to know anything about gaming, just about writing with clarity and concision.
Monday, August 13, 2012
12 Orcs
Sunday, August 12, 2012
DMing for 80
As a quaint form of communication, play-by-mail has joined the company of heliographs and messenger pigeons, but in the 70s and 80s, PBM games were a viable sphere of gaming activity. Some game magazines, like Steve Jackson's Fantasy Gamer, published monthly updates for popular PBM games, like Angrelmar.
It is 1984, you pick up the magazine and read:
Again the churchmen met on the Isle of Ara to solemnize the union of the four churches into the Imperial Church. Hildric of Dragona became primate of Angrelmar and head of the Council. He appointed Divor of Hatra to be Cardinal Bishop of the Imperial Church in Angrelmar. Many secular lords attended this council, including the regent, Rathal and Prince Vicor. Vicor used this occasion to denounce his cousin, Auerlus, for oathbreaking which Vicor believed cleared his own name at the same time. The council also accepted Lady Callizar's realm into the Empire as the Principality of Shalamar. That fall, at the Feast of Alfons, the lords of the South offered a crown to their Lady Callizar.
It goes on. And those were just the most significant events of a single turn in the game. At that point, Angrelmar had 80 players, each one a lord or lady with a fiefdom somewhere in a vast continent. The guy who ran the game, R., was in my wargaming group, and I played in the campaign for a bit. He received dozens of letters each month from players detailing how they were spending their incomes, where their armies were marching, and what alliances they had formed. Everything was plotted on the big map of Angrelmar, and each player received a letter from R. detailing the results of that turn's move, which represented one year of game time. And there was plenty of player-to-player communication too, via mail and phone calls. Schemes, deals, assassination atttempts...
It all added up to an insanely detailed living world of politics, economies, and war. It was so big that no one player could possibly grasp it all. You focused on your corner of the realm, your immediate neighbors, just like a real feudal lord must have done. Because a decade would pass by in a year of real time, your character would age, marry, have kids. The resulting narrative read like something out of A Game of Thrones.
Once a year or so, R. would host a council of the realm in which players would show up at a gaming con or at his rambling backwoods house to RP in person. Any big battles between players would be played out turn by turn, using lovingly painted armies of 25mm miniatures. The alcohol-fueled scheming and backstabbing would go on all weekend. Good times.
When email came in, these games continued for a while. Despite being easier to adjudicate with the help of Excel spreadsheets and instant communication, they yielded gradually to computer gaming, and have been all but forgotten. Even the laziest googler can find some that are still going, I suppose.
R. didn't do this for free, mind you. Each turn cost $3, which was fair compensation considering that running Angrelmar must have been a full time job. A monthly subscription to WoW is what, $12 now? So tell me, how much would you pay per month to play in something like Angrelmar? If I Kickstarted it, would there be takers?
It is 1984, you pick up the magazine and read:
Again the churchmen met on the Isle of Ara to solemnize the union of the four churches into the Imperial Church. Hildric of Dragona became primate of Angrelmar and head of the Council. He appointed Divor of Hatra to be Cardinal Bishop of the Imperial Church in Angrelmar. Many secular lords attended this council, including the regent, Rathal and Prince Vicor. Vicor used this occasion to denounce his cousin, Auerlus, for oathbreaking which Vicor believed cleared his own name at the same time. The council also accepted Lady Callizar's realm into the Empire as the Principality of Shalamar. That fall, at the Feast of Alfons, the lords of the South offered a crown to their Lady Callizar.
It goes on. And those were just the most significant events of a single turn in the game. At that point, Angrelmar had 80 players, each one a lord or lady with a fiefdom somewhere in a vast continent. The guy who ran the game, R., was in my wargaming group, and I played in the campaign for a bit. He received dozens of letters each month from players detailing how they were spending their incomes, where their armies were marching, and what alliances they had formed. Everything was plotted on the big map of Angrelmar, and each player received a letter from R. detailing the results of that turn's move, which represented one year of game time. And there was plenty of player-to-player communication too, via mail and phone calls. Schemes, deals, assassination atttempts...
It all added up to an insanely detailed living world of politics, economies, and war. It was so big that no one player could possibly grasp it all. You focused on your corner of the realm, your immediate neighbors, just like a real feudal lord must have done. Because a decade would pass by in a year of real time, your character would age, marry, have kids. The resulting narrative read like something out of A Game of Thrones.
Once a year or so, R. would host a council of the realm in which players would show up at a gaming con or at his rambling backwoods house to RP in person. Any big battles between players would be played out turn by turn, using lovingly painted armies of 25mm miniatures. The alcohol-fueled scheming and backstabbing would go on all weekend. Good times.
When email came in, these games continued for a while. Despite being easier to adjudicate with the help of Excel spreadsheets and instant communication, they yielded gradually to computer gaming, and have been all but forgotten. Even the laziest googler can find some that are still going, I suppose.
R. didn't do this for free, mind you. Each turn cost $3, which was fair compensation considering that running Angrelmar must have been a full time job. A monthly subscription to WoW is what, $12 now? So tell me, how much would you pay per month to play in something like Angrelmar? If I Kickstarted it, would there be takers?
Thursday, August 2, 2012
To Be Continued...
The blog will be quiet next week, but I'll be back! In the meantime, enjoy these icons I made:
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Unpacking Task Resolution Systems
Here's a tool you can use to tease out the mechanics of any RPG's task resolution/action system. It's based on attribution theory, which in layman's terms is the study of the factors that contribute to achievement. Google it if you're interested. Anyway, this is a simple matrix that defines each factor in a task resolution system as internal or external, constant or variable. Ability is constant. It's represented in most games as your skill level or ability score or ability modifier. Task difficulty is almost always set by the DM as the standard you need to reach in order to succeed. Effort usually appears only in systems that use dice pools or spell points or any other rule that allows the PC to buy advantage at the cost of some other finite resource. Luck is whatever the die roll adds to the PC's attempt. The first matrix is blank, for you to copy and print for your personal use. The second matrix I have filled in to give you an example. It's a way of standardizing how you look at game mechanics, whether you're designing your own or making a comparative study of other RPGs. Enjoy!
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