Category Archives: talk

Alternate Reality Gaming – Is LARPing Cool Now?

Posted on March 13, 2008 | Leave a comment

LARPing (Live Action Roleplaying) has always been on the far, far geek end of the spectrum, even in the normally geeky realms of fandom, exceeded only by cosplayers or, God forbid, furries.  

However, I’ve been hearing more and more about what’s being billed as “Alternate Reality Games” or, more daringly, “Alternate Reality Design”.  I heard about it first at last year’s Web 2.0 Expo in California, and now I just saw another keynote presentation on it at South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) in Austin by Jane McGonigal.  Here’s an artist’s rendition of her keynote address.  Examples of ARGs include the “I Love Bees,” the game/viral marketing campaign for Halo 2, and “World Without Oil,” which won an award at SXSW.  It’s involved with positive psychology and “happiness science.”  The slides from her keynote are up on Slideshare.

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DriveThroughRPG GM Day Sale

Posted on March 6, 2008 | Leave a comment

In honor of “GM’s Day”, DriveThruRPG.com (aka RPGNow.com) is having a pretty decent sale.  If you haven’t used them, they sell a huge variety of RPGs in PDF – you can get old out of print D&D, Traveller, etc. as well as the newest releases from a wide variety of game companies.  Goes through tomorrow, March 7th.  What did I get,  you ask?

  • Issues of Buccaneers & Bokor, a zine for Skull & Bones and/or other semi-historical piracy games, from Adamant Entertainment
  • Against the Reich, for the indie game octaNe – the “psychotronic game of post-apocalyptic trash-culture America”

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The Turku School

Posted on March 6, 2008 | 1 comment

You’ve gotta love those crazy Nordic types!  I was reading through some links on roleplayng theory and came across the “Turku School of Roleplaying!”   It uses quotes from the Communist Manfesto!  It has a Vow of Chastity!   I expected it to mention Swedenborg Space but it didn’t.

I generally sympathize with its aims, which is the promotion of immersive roleplay and simulationism over the dramatist and gamist approaches.  (I personally am simulationist with a side of dramatist, but find gamism gauche).   If you don’t know what I’m talking about, these are terms from the Threefold Model of roleplaying developed by John Kim and others.

My favorite quote: “In the United States the gamists are trying to de-evolve role-playing back into moving little pieces of plastic on a board, but even in that world of darkness the Turku School sheds light to the eläytyjist movement.”

True, so true….

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Gary Gygax Passes Away

Posted on March 4, 2008 | 1 comment

Unfortunately, D&D co-creator and gaming luminary Gary Gygax has passed away.  Our thoughts and prayers are with his family; my family and gaming group are saddened by his passing.

This may seem strange to some folks because I have certainly not been a fan of his later era work; I’m firmly of the belief that RPGs have evolved and though AD&D 1e was seminal, it isn’t something I want to play today.  I didn’t think much of his endless retreads of it as “Danjerous Journeys/Lejendary Adventures/Pjining for the Fjords” or even the other non-Gygax 1e nostalgia stuff (Kalamar, etc.) and have been outspoken about it.  For his part, he called me “fatuous and jejeuene” on his mailing list for my views.  (Yes, I had to look it up.)  But regardless of all that, he started D&D and carried the torch for RPGs, and the hobby wouldn’t be around, most likely, without him.  So props, Gary Gygax!  

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Chris Pramas Reviews D&D 4e

Posted on March 4, 2008 | Leave a comment

One of the game designers I respect the most reviews D&D 4e.  His short summary – “It’s an interesting system that didn’t so much feel like D&D in play; nonetheless, the brand power of D&D all but ensures this will be a success and it may even redefine what D&D means for the next generation.”  Yeah, I think that’s about what I figured.  He compares the game play to more akin to a CCG than the “sounds like an MMO” critiques. 

And, of course, WotC is still screwing around and hasn’t made the GSL or new rules available to third party publishers yet, even those waving $5k in the air, despite their announcing it on January 9th…

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Attack Force!

Posted on March 3, 2008 | 2 comments

Whoa, what a blast from the past.  My five-year-old daughter was rummaging through an old cabinet and came out with the game that started me on the path to roleplaying when I was a kid.  It was a minigame called “Attack Force” that TSR put out in 1982.  I even found a pic!

Attack Force

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D&D 4e Reviewed In Depth by AICN

Posted on March 1, 2008 | 1 comment

Massawyrm, one of the reviewers on Ain’t It Cool News, the premier geek media review site, was a playtester for 4e.  Now that “D&D Experience” has happened, there’s huge amounts of 4e rules info available out there and also the playtesters are released to speak. 

The review is maniacally positive.  I hate to be negative, but I worry about the subtext in a lot of the bits he talks about.  From flavor (is it appropriate to call one of the monster roles “artillery” in a medieval fantasy game?) to too-obvious WoWisms (“elite” monsters?) to game mechanics (at epic levels you rez all the time and have powers like “once per day when you die, you…”)?  Well, I hope he’s right I reckon.

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D&D Insider – Ugly As Expected

Posted on February 27, 2008 | Leave a comment

Now, no one would be happier than I if Wizards of the Coast put out a piece of D&D software that wasn’t plug-ugly.  However, the new screen shots of the D&D 4e character builder, virtual tabletop, etc. indicate that, in the words of Aragorn at the gates of Mordor, “But it is not this day!!!”

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Warhammer RPG Lives Again (?)

Posted on February 26, 2008 | Leave a comment

So very recently I talked about the news that Games Workshop had closed down their Black Industries RPG bramch, which had been working with Green Ronin to publish great new Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay books and the long-awaited Dark Heresy RPG based on Warhammer 40,000.

With barely a pause, Fantasy Flight Games has announced that they now have the Warhammer licenses for board games, card games, and RPGs!

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4e Rogue Unveiled

Posted on February 26, 2008 | 2 comments

In a new “Ampersand” column on the Wizards site, Bill Slavicsek shows, in its entirety, the new 4e rogue class writeup.  Go read it!  Now, my thoughts.

 1.  I don’t like the new PC roles and don’t like their prominent placement as the very first thing in the writeup.  You’re class X, therefore you are expected to fill role X.  It’s too constraining.  Welcome to the “new alignment”, where you’ll be embroiled in endless arguments about “that’s not a striker feat,” “that’s not what a striker would do,” et cetera.

2.  I like the fixed hit points and the simplified skills – just trained or untrained, no ranks.  My gaming group is using a similar house rule already in 3.5e to minimize fiddliness.  Intelligence apparently doesn’t affect your number of skills, which is odd.

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Gen Con in Trouble?

Posted on February 22, 2008 | 1 comment

In quite a bit of drama, Lucasfilms is suing Gen Con LLC for not paying them the money due them from the auction  at the Star Wars Celebration show in 2007.   Shortly after that, Gen Con filed for bankruptcy.  Gen Con CEO Peter Adkison claims that this won’t impact Gen Con Indy at all.  I hear that besides Lucasfilms, they owe large sums to other folks including the Indiana Department of Revenue.

My thoughts.  One, it seems fast for the lawsuit.  The con was in May 2007 and the suit was filed by January, which is unusual.  Also, it seems unlikely this won’t affect Gen Con Indy – the cost reduction pressure will be immense.  Chapter 11’s not a ‘get out of jail free’ card like Adkison seems to think it is.  I have been to a couple Gen Cons, and though I haven’t been in a while I was contemplating going this time for the 4e launch since I was at the 3e launch long ago.  Should I?  Should I bail?  Anyone out there with an opinion? 

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RPG Superstar Selected!

Posted on February 20, 2008 | Leave a comment

Congratulations to Christine Scheider of Neu-Isenburg, Hessen, Germany for emerging victorious in Paizo Publishing’s RPG Superstar contest!  It’s well deserved, her entries were all bad ass!  Check ’em:

As the winner, she’ll get a GameMastery Module published by Paizo.  I’m eager to see it!  In fact, they’re already listing it as a product – S1: Clash of the Kingslayers.

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