Monday, January 17, 2011

She's Evoking!


 An ILLUMINATING history bearing on the everlasting struggle for world supremacy fought between the powers of TECHNOLOGY and MAGIC.

Mom and Dad stuffed me in the car and drove to the seedy side of downtown Houston.  I was eight years old.  The fire hydrants still had their fading coat of bicentennial paint.  My mother nervously looked out the window of the red beetle as we passed dilapidated buildings.  Finally a neon marquee came into view, attached to a molding theater.  It didn't look like a place that that showed cartoons.

The theater was dank and sticky and musty, but the red velvet, gold tassels, and exquisite balcony hearkened back to better times.  They were showing a double feature.  We were late, but were really only there for the second show.  We saw the tail end of the first picture, which was confusing and disturbing - a little gem called Phantom of the Paradise.  It was a mix between Rocky Horror, Phantom of the Opera and Faust.  Needless to say, at eight years old, I didn't get it.

Finally, the main feature began - Ralph Bakshi's Wizards.  Honestly, I don't remember anything about that viewing.  It was too overwhelming, but the feeling of 'wow' stayed with me the rest of my life.  My mother spent a good deal of the time with her hands over my eyes.  She swears to this day that there was a scene in the movie where the wizard Avatar was running around pantsless with his penis hanging out.  I've watched the movie countless times - and even looked for a more mature version - with no luck.  But it was basically an indie style art house film at the time with a very small release, so we very well may have seen a cut of it that never made it to the present incarnation.  Later I learned that my father had seen Fritz the Cat some time earlier in the same movie theater, so penis may very well have been a recurring theme at the place.

By the 80s they were playing Wizards on cable, and I saw it many times.  It's great.  I was enchanted by Avatar's Peter Falk-like speech, Elinore's bubbly nipples, Peace's soulless eyes, and the narrator's airy, wistful voice.  It's incredibly emotional stupid and funny and sad.

     "Where's daddy?  What's he doing?"

     "He’s guarding our home son.  There's been a war and this land is lost."

     "Why can't we fight and win mommy?"

     "Because they have weapons and technology.  We just have love."

I never was into a mix of fantasy and science fiction as a kid - especially for role playing games.  I didn't like the vanilla to mix with the chocolate either.  Wizards was wonderful to watch, but I would have never run an RPG in the setting.  But these days I have a more mature palate, and I wonder what a game would be like based in the lands of Scorch and Montagar.  I'll have to ponder more on that.

Looking back on it now, some of Wizards is hard to watch.  The pacing is clunky, the art styles sometimes don't mesh well, and the roto-scoping can be atrocious.  We take for granted so many visual technologies.  The road between Bakshi's Avatar and Cameron's is a very long one - just about the same length from a boy to a man.

- Ark

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Moonlighting


My son and I trucked on over to our friendly local game store Saturday morning and played some 4e in Living Forgotten Realms.  We had a blast.  He plays a seven foot fighter named Regdar and I play and annoying little halfling Ardent named Chicory Chives who taunts monsters during combat.  Or outside of combat.  Or wherever.  Our favorite tactic is for Chicory to use a power that triggers Regdar to attack.  So Regdar can attack all day long while Chicory basically just shoves Regdar back into the fray over and over again.

Yeah, I bitch about 4e and it sucks on so many levels.  But anything my kid and I can do together and have fun with is worth a billion dollars in my book. And my son gets to interact with guys (and girls) from his age, all the way up into their gray years.  The average is probably 17-20 or so. 

So during the game, I go up to the counter to grab me a drink.  (They have a coke machine in back, but the Coke Zero is all in a little mini fridge back behind the register.)  One of the game store employees is having a serious faced discussion with one of our game organizer, who is somewhere around my age.  The employee was saying something to the effect of:

". . . and the hygiene.  I know it's embarrassing to mention to them, but some of these kids need to take a bath.  The smell is offending other customers."

The organizer nodded politely and said that he’d mention it.

" . . . and the language.  It can get disrespectful.  They shouldn't be saying anything here that they wouldn't say in front of family members."

The organizer nodded politely and said that he'd handle it.

" . . . but worst of all is the mooning."

The employee had a very serious look on his face.  The organizer cocked his head.  I cocked my head too.

" . . . not once, but several times has a customer walked in through that door and been greeted by the tops of two cheeks and an ass crack.  The kids are standing there with their pants almost on the ground and their backs turned to the door.  I can't have customers seeing that the first thing they walk in through the door.  This is a business."

I'm about to die.  Really.  Just crawl on the floor and laugh until I die.

The organizer nodded his head calmly without missing a beat.  "I'll talk to the boys about belts."

I calmed down a tad.  "Suspenders," I piped in after a second.  "We could hand out suspenders.  They hold up pants with a lot less wardrobe malfunctions."
 
I don't think they appreciated my input.  I almost  mentioned to them that when I was my son's age, I was running around in rainbow suspenders with Mork from Ork buttons pinned to them.  It's probably a fact that I shouldn't tell anyone at all though.

- Ark

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Investment Mulligan

Tim from Gothridge Manor commented on my last post about investments in D&D encounters.  I was somewhat confused by his response until I realized that I had not said what I thought I had said.  In a fit of editing, I lopped out clarity.  Oops.  Do-over.

So, to cut out the cutesy clever crap and get to the point, when the DM plops down the battle-mat and minis - the players get ready for combat.  It's an almost Pavlovian response to the smell of a dry erase marker.  It's a welcome response to many players - because they don't have to think.  They attack.  It's easy.  The DM said they could attack by pulling out the friggin box of dungeon tiles in the first place.

With earlier version of D&D, there were no cues.  The DM just said "You open the door and there are some orcs.  What do you do?"

The players don't know what they are going to do.  They need more information.  How many orcs?  Three?  Twelve?  Makes a big difference.  Should they shut the door and maybe barricade it and be on their merry way?  Could the PCs perhaps want to infiltrate the dungeon quietly and not get into a fight until they have to?  There are a lot of factors here and things don't have to end up in a fight.  Encounters were in no way balanced or fair, and traps could be just plain sadistic.

I much prefer the "What do you do?" method.  Now a DM in 4e can ask that question before she gets her supplies out.  But it the last few years of playing 4e, I've noticed that any hint of combat was a subtle clue that the DM has a whole batch on minis already laid out and ready to do battle with, so you might as well just get on with the fight and stop boring everyone else.

In old D&D, you knew that the DM had a whole friggin dungeon full of monsters in that manual of hers and that if you didn't fight the room full of them in front of you, you'd find some elsewhere, and it was important to go about things in a smart way and grab as much loot as you could with as little bloodshed.  Death was at zero hit points in Basic D&D!  Staying alive meant only fighting when it was important and you knew you had good odds.  Running away in a Sir Robin style was by no means dishonorable and was a very useful, pro-survival skill.

So hopefully that cleared up my last post.  Fourth edition has the players invested in fighting, while 0e and 1e did not.  The combat system in 4e is really beautiful and can be great fun.  Beyond the combat - well - there is no beyond the combat.  Skill challenges are a weak attempt at forcing role-playing at gunpoint.  The game designers, dungeon masters, and players invest in the combat system and encounters with money and time.  That investment system, or lack thereof, makes a world of difference in how the games are played.

- Ark

Friday, January 14, 2011

Investment



invest: to use, give, or devote (time, talent, etc.), as for a purpose or to achieve something.

 As I've been digging through old AD&D books, Labyrinth Lord, and even LotFP to reacquaint myself the way things used to be.  Comparing 4e to 0e or 1e, I think I've hit upon an important difference that forces players into one mindset or another - investment.

In 4e, the DM designs an encounter, follows the rules and formulas for force strength and treasure packets.  WotC has made it quite easy to create a well balanced encounter, and it's pretty comfortable to use. 

When the players get to the encounter, the DM describes what is there, pulls out a map on paper or vinyl or some tiles, positions everything correctly and sets up the monster minis.  Then the DM has the players put their PCs down in a specific place, and the players analyze where their minis should go as to be most effective for the set-up, etc.  The order may differ, but time and thought go into both sides of preparing for an encounter.

Then the DM says "Roll initiative."  Wham.  The DM is invested.  The players are invested.  They are going to what thy are supposed to do - which is fight and maybe do some sort of skill challenge while fighting.  It's all laid out right in front of them, and it took some effort.

In many ways, this is railroading.  It's a welcome railroading, I've found, as players know what is expected and know that the DM has used all those little balancing formulas and the whole game is designed so that they will most likely win, they just need to pay attention and not blow too many rolls. 

The old way was that the DM came up with an idea for an encounter, then during the game, described the situation and asked "What do you do?"

There was no investment.  The players then could then do whatever they wanted.  They could try to engage in a conversation with a bugbear.  They could run away screaming.  They could even draw their sword and fight.  There was no apparent investment by a DM into any particular outcome, so the players never felt pressured in doing any particular thing except surviving and grabbing loot - or whatever else took their fancy.

Nothing was expected.  No little toy soldiers were lined up for war.  No battle lines were drawn.  It was just "What do you do?"

Maybe I'm exaggerating and simplifying, but I do think that if you are invested in an action, you are more likely to complete that action to it's end.  So that is my big thought of the day. :)

- Ark

Thursday, January 13, 2011

The Talk


So I had "The Talk" with my ten year old son in the car going to school this morning.  It went something like this:

"Son, since the Savage Worlds campaign really never took off, I'm thinking about running an original D&D game.  A whole campaign, not just like the stuff we do in game store."

He tilted his head.  "You mean the one we started on - the one before Essentials?"

"Eh - no.  That's 4th Edition.  I mean the one way before that.  The one I played when I was about your age."

He looked at me as if I was a bike thief.  "I don't know."

"The one I told you about before.  You don't need minis because you do everything in your mind.  You don't have all of those powers.  A fighter would make their basic melee and that's that - but you'd get to describe it how you like and pull off special things not in the power description.  Combat goes a lot quicker that way, so you can have a lot more fights."  I hastily tried to sell the abstract combat system in the school drop-off lane.

"I like the old way."

I shrugged.  "Well, I'm thinking of pulling together a game, and if you'd like to play, you can."

He thought silently as the car behind us grew impatient.  "I guess so, but if it sucks, can you run a real D&D game?"

I smiled.  "Sure.  But it should be fun."

He eyed me as he got out of the car.  "We really need to talk more about this when I get home."

I chuckled.  "Sure thing.  Now get going before you're late."

Sheesh - the trials of being a parent.  I swear. :)

- Ark

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Changes

I'm going though some changes here, so bear with me.  I've added some art that I had commissioned a while ago and didn't quite know what to do with.  Well, now I do.  (Yeah, I paid for them, so hands off.) The demonic looking guy on the title bar is by Angel Urena.  He's a great artist.  Go see his stuff here.  The poor succubus to the side was drawn by Matthew Humphreys.  His awesome gallery is over here.

Other changes are occurring in my brain takings me places I don't quite know yet.  I've been reading through the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide.  The original ones - you know - those thirty year old musty tomes.  Okay, maybe you don't.  I never thought I's say I missed AD&D.  I ran screaming from TSR in the mid 80s to other gaming systems and never looked back.  It was a bit of nostalgia that brought me to 4e, but really, the fact that it was D&D that wasn't D&D was the thing that interested me.

Hell.

I want to play D&D again.

The way I used to describe D&D to people was it was kind of like a board game but the board was in your mind.  Frankly, it's been a while since I saw a role playing game like that.  As a teenager, I used to dream of being able to afford lead minis and paint and having the skill to make them look pretty and use them in a game.  Well, dream come true - and BLEECH.  I'm rather sick of minis.  I'm sick of tiles and maps and dry erase markers.  I'm sick of fighters with spells - er -  POWERS.  I'm sick of opportunity attacks and TWO HOUR LONG COMBATS.  I'm sick of skill challenges.  I'm sick of a flat saving throw of TEN.

WHERE IS MY PAD OF BLUE LINED FOUR SQUARE AN INCH GRAPH PAPER?????

I actually understand what Zak and Jeff and Alexis and James have been moaning about with the whole Old School Renaissance thing.  Ugh.  I do.

Dear God.  Now I have to go start up a campaign, now don't I?  I have to dredge up some players who don't think I'm crazy.  I have to decided whether to use my old, musty AD&D books or hunt down some Holes or Molday or just go with something like Legend Lord.  Holy Hell, I'm going to have to READ!

Crap.

- Ark

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Alignment Languages

Nostalgia was the driving force behind me cracking open the old AD&D reference manuals a few days ago. Amidst Gary's loquacious prose, I saw something that I did not remember from 30 years ago in the Player's Handbook:

" . . . all intelligent creatures able to converse in speech use special languages particular to their alignment."

Back then, I think I paid that as much attention as I paid the rules for encumbrance and morale.  But the concept of alignment languages is very interesting.  Like-minded people can communicate better, and in the fantasy word of AD&D, even have their own languages.  But Gary goes on:

"If a character changes alignment, the previously known language is no longer able to be spoken by him or her."


I was always fascinated about how AD&D's Outer Planes were based on alignments, but looking at this effect on the creatures in the Prime Material Plane puts a different spin on things.  If I change my alignment from True Neutral to Neutral Good (in essence caring a bit more about other people,) I either have a chemical and biological change in my brain that allows me to speak a new language and forget the other, or I am suddenly in tune with some frequency of a universal harmonic that gives me the power of a new type of speech and understaning.

Now that is very odd and very hard to explain.  It's probably one of the reasons whey I tended to ignore the alignment system in my campaigns as well.  My view of the universe, even made up ones, never included such things.  But it is interesting to ponder now.

- Ark