First Post of 2017

Lo, it has been a long time since I've reached out with any news. Last time I was here I was comparing RuneQuest 2 and RuneQuest 6. Well, I've been away for personal reasons—namely, work has been exceptionally busy, we bought a home, and we had our first child. Weekends are completely dead to me due to parenting responsibilities, but I have been able to find a magnificent group to play RuneQuest 2 with. The main reason is that we only game for two hours, and it's on a weekday, which means I have a narrow window when I'm the only one awake. I might make future use of this window to try running my own game on a different weeknight, which leads me to my topic.

My RPG Goals for 2017:

Yes, here will be the space where I outline my goals for the coming year, and where I can turn my eyes in December to evoke substantial disappointment.

1. Run an actual campaign via G+.

I think that I need to decide what to run, then build up a group based on both my schedule availability and who might be interested in what it is I'm running. I feel like DCC might be the most doable, but I am actually considering a number of different systems.

• Dungeon Crawl Classics - For the slightly more off-the-wall play style, as well as the tremendous community that's been built up around the game. The only downside is I'd probably be running nothing but modules from Goodman Games. (Because I've purchased quite a few and I want to actually experience them).
• Swords & Wizardry - For the very flexible nature of the game, as was revealed to me by playing under both +Bill Webb and +Stacy Dellorfano at UCon 2016. Also has the benefit of having a lot of new material to work with, since I backed the Kickstarter at a substantial level. 
• Lamentations of the Flame Princess - For what is commonly considered the most streamlined, efficient incarnation of Moldvay's B/X Edition of D&D. Has some of the best adventure products available, in my opinion. Looking forward to reading and incorporating +Jeff Rients' Broodmother Skyfortress content, as well. I ran Tower of the Stargazer at UCon, although I feel like I didn't quite do it justice.
• RuneQuest - Has the advantage of being a completely different system while still counting as OSR. The downside is that everyone who knows anything about Glorantha knows more than I do. I would probably take the system and make a completely unique setting. Downside is that I still have to compare RQ2 to RQ6 in order to get a feel for which edition I'd want to run.
• Empire of the Petal Throne - Thanks to +Brett Slocum, I experienced my first ever Tèkumel game at UCon, and the setting intrigues me. Sort of like an Everything-But-Europe post-apocalypse, almost reminiscent of Legend of the Five Rings' Rokugan. +James Maliszewski is not helping things by posting about his very awesome-sounding EPT game. Sub-goal of 2017, now that I think of it, is to get to know +Victor Raymond.

Now that I see everything laid out in a list, maybe DCC isn't such a clear front-runner anymore. But whatever the case, I want to actually follow through once I decide on something, rather than constantly waffling about what would make the perfect game.

2. Run something in at a table that isn't a con game.

Since moving to a permanent residence last year, I've finally set up some long-term roots, and I really should get a regular table group together. I've started making some connections, but of course things are slow for a number of reasons. First, obviously, is our baby. However, she is also the reason that the "office" (and likely eventual gaming room) is still a complete mess. Then there is the lack of gaming spaces in town. I feel like if I were closer to Ann Arbor, I could weasel my way into a public space for a "D&D" game every couple of weeks. Nevertheless, I have been making a few local contacts via social media, so maybe I will use that as a starting point, along with a flyer at the local comic shop.

3. Produce something to contribute to the DIY/OSR community

Unlike last year's GaryCon, which was highlighted by frustrated attempts at joining games run by people I really admire, this year I will instead be focused on running games. Half of my scheduled events are for an adventure idea I have, which I am calling The Temple of Laserface and the Kung-Fu Masters of the Fourth Dimension. It will either be a really fun time, or I will be so unprepared that I will fall flat on my face and the con will be a disaster. Assuming the former, I have wild dreams of further developing it into an honest-to-god published adventure, which would be my first real contribution to the community. (It should be noted that one of the Laserface games is going to be run in DCC and the other in S&W. I'd have to look at legal consequences of deciding to tie a published adventure to a particular rules system.)

4. Blog more often

Let's face it: this blog has not seen a lot of action. Maybe if I pare back my expectations on my writing output, I can make posting things here a bit more consistent. If I can think up a good amount of gameable content, maybe I can even blend this goal with #3. Let's face it, there are a lot of great blogs out there that regularly post things you can take directly for your game. In fact, here's a link to a page that's collected some of the best content that's freely available for a modern take on a Dungeon Master's Guide:

Scrapbook DMG

The New Kid at the Old School - Part 1

As I sit and look at my bookshelf of RPG books, I'd say it's fairly well-balanced. There's a lot of GURPS hardbacks, as well as Legend of the Five Rings books and the Mongoose Publishing edition of the Traveller Core Rulebook. Then there's a divider in the bookshelf—it's an IKEA bookshelf that also houses my vinyl records.

On the other side of that divide is Swords and Wizardry Complete, the AD&D 1E PHB, the AD&D 2E trio (PHB/DMG/MM), then the 5th Edition trio of the same three books. Then sits the massive tome that is the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, a few published modules, then the smaller-format stuff: A Red and Pleasant Land, Lamentations of the Flame Princess - Rules and Magic, Fiasco and the Fiasco Companion, Savage Worlds Explorers Edition, Fate Core System, Reign Enchiridon, and Dogs in the Vineyard.

I have to move some of the smaller books because I just received my custom-printed copy of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, which I had made once I purchased the PDF document online from Wizards of the Coast. Soon to be added to the collection are a boatload more things published from Lamentations of the Flame Princess. (They'd be there already except that they're coming from Finland.)

Many of the games I've mentioned, and those which I'm most excited about—particularly Swords and Wizardry, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and the D&D Rules Cyclopedia—fall into a category known as "OSR." This stands for "Old-School Renaissance." Or maybe "Old-School Revolution," or "Old-School Revival." There's never been 100% consensus on what the "R" stands for, and perhaps that's appropriate.

The first RPGs I got to play used Dungeons and Dragons 3.0, followed by a very brief foray into 4th Edition, and eventually Pathfinder. I remember how Pathfinder seemed like a breath of fresh air at the time from the nearly-a-computer-simulation feel of 4th Edition. However, looking back on it now, I was still stuck in a system that consisted of massive amount of rules and numbers. Our Pathfinder group was fairly large—6 players—and every time we had a combat occur, I had to pull out my laptop to help keep my special abilities straight and tally up my modifiers correctly. I was playing a paladin, so I had a lot of bonuses bestowed upon me.

Also, despite the heavy focus on combat, it never felt as though we were ever in danger of having our characters die, either. Maybe the system is geared towards PC preservation, or maybe it was just unconscionable that we'd have to throw away a character we spent a few hours building. I can trace all the problems I had with the game being tedious to the fact that so much effort goes into building a character and optimizing statistics.

In short, the rules of the game were a more powerful entity than the game itself.

Many postmodern game systems* address the issues of Pathfinder and 3+ Edition D&D in different ways. Fate Core and the Fate Accelerated Edition are both very popular these days. In them, the narrative—including all its details—is built actively by everyone in real time at the table. You can spend the game mechanic's currency to declare a detail about a scene, or actively try to create advantages that you can use for the benefit of your character. Apocalypse World and its derivatives, in particular the popular spin-off Dungeon World, are built to systematically create a highly fluid but intriguing narrative. (In DW at least, the GM is forbidden from pre-planning a story, and has a finite list of actions s/he can take, although these can be broad, such as "reveal an unwelcome truth.") These postmodern games can vary wildly in their approach, but they all affect the narrative in different ways.

*—I've also called them "story games," which I've learned is a term that carries negative associations with a specific website with some bad apples, or "hippie games," which sounds rather pejorative. In contrast, "postmodern games" makes me sound like I might know what I'm talking about, so I'm going to stick with it.

The OSR philosophy of game design, speaking very broadly, is to revisit the era of gaming before there were rules governing virtually all of the possibilities that arise in gameplay. Earlier games had an array of ability scores, but not necessarily skills. Feats didn't exist. With a lack of rules governing every specific possibility, a lot more flexibility and freedom was in the hands of the game's GM. If you come across something there were no rules for, you made the ruling yourself. In these cases, the rules of the game are inherently pared down so that they do not overshadow the game itself.

My first time actually encountering "OSR" was the recent UCon 2015 convention, where I played, amongst other things, Swords and Wizardry. The game felt "old school" to be sure, because there wasn't a lot to the mechanics. Other than a few references to an unfamiliar character sheet to figure out attack bonuses and armor classes, I ended up playing my character, rather than my character sheet.

Furthermore, UCon featured an entire OSR track, meaning that every table in the room featured a game that would be considered "OSR." It was clear from watching the tables that everyone was totally immersed in the game before them. Contrast that with a few organized play tables (such as Adventurer's League or Pathfinder Society, for example) I saw later in the convention, when everyone seemed to be playing very distractedly, looking in their books or e-readers for rules or other details.

A common perception of the OSR community is that it consists of people who either regressed to earlier gaming editions after not liking new things, or simply never moved on from them out of nostalgia. I would argue that this is not true. Both the OSR movement and the postmodern RPG movement are reactions to the mechanics-supremacy and numbers-dominance of systems like D&D 4th Edition and Pathfinder. The postmodern RPGs tend to attack the problem from a standpoint of asking some of the most basic questions about what is needed to make an RPG. The OSR tends to correct the problem by shifting focus away from mechanics, taking out what is unnecessary and leaving the GM with a more adaptable rules framework than a complex and intricate rules machine.

Am I arguing, then, that the OSR method is a better approach? NO! In the end, my argument is that both the OSR and postmodern games are two sides of the same coin, which came about as a reaction to the rules-heavy trend that RPGs were taking. There are many gamers who can find RPGs in both genres that are fun solutions to the pitfalls of modern mainstream gaming.

Here's Matt Finch's Quick Primer on OSR Gaming (Free PDF), if you're looking for a more thorough introduction to some key OSR concepts.

I'm planning on a follow-up blog post in a few days where I discuss some of the different examples of OSR games, because there is actually a lot of variety.

A Level 0 Blogger Appears

Here we go, another blog. At least this time, I've chosen a subject that's not only got my attention, but seems to be holding it for quite some time—tabletop roleplaying games (RPGs). I've written about other stuff that hasn't held my interest as much (baseball), as well as my other passions like photography and chess. However, photography is a giant investment of both time and money, so my involvement occasionally wanes. I am on a long dry spell at the moment, especially since I want to focus on large-format portraiture, which only amplifies the amount of time and money involved. As for chess, I'm just not good enough at it to write with any authority.

The subject of RPGs, however, seems to be a topic that's well-suited to me. I'm naturally a creative person, and I've been involved with them in some manner since the mid-1990's, when I had a copy of the black-border AD&D 2nd Edition Dungeon Master Guide (TSR 2160).

Now, when I say I had a copy of the DMG, I mean just that. I didn't have a copy of the Player's Handbook or the Monstrous Manual because I didn't know I needed anything else to play. In fact, I didn't have any friends to play with either, so it was mostly me sitting at the kitchen table many evenings eating a bowl of cereal and flipping through the book, admiring the artwork and concocting adventures in my head.

Actually, my childhood was not entirely devoid of gaming. I also had the 1991 Black Box set, and I ran my grandma through Zanzer's Dungeon. Or at least the first few rooms of it. She was confused, but a good sport from what I can recall.

Anyway, I didn't get into a real gaming group until college, and that was over AOL Instant Messenger. (Yeah, remember when all that was happening?) With only two exceptions (plus a convention), all my gaming has been online. It's great to have a game, but nothing beats that at-the-table experience.  On a side note, please get in touch if the list of games below interests you and you live in or around Ann Arbor, Michigan.

My hope for this blog is to explore topics related to tabletop RPGs, as well as share my thoughts. I've done print publications (zines) for my photography work, and I'd like to explore a more traditional-style zine with my zeal for RPGs. What's encouraging is that the OSR (old-school renaissance) community seems to be quite active in this area. I'm hoping to get a lot of support, if I can think up enough content for such an endeavor. If that sort of thing goes well, I would eventually like to self-publish an adventure or even a series of them. If I sell them online, I could make tens of dollars if enough people like them!

Alright, this has gone on long enough. I wanted to conclude with a list of my RPG pedigree, so to speak, because it will give you an idea of what sorts of games I am likely to talk about on this blog, or at least what I'm fond of at its outset.

Games I've run:

• Fate Core/GURPS: Easily my most successful campaign, and the only one I've run in person. PCs are members of a travelling carnival freak show in a Steampunk pseudo-Europe. Lasted about 10 sessions before I had to move to start my career. We started in Fate Core, but switched to GURPS after I formed the opinion that Fate was too intrusive on the gameplay.
• Traveller: Online, and only two sessions deep (not counting character generation). Originally intended to be a gritty sandbox, but I learned that sandboxes aren't the easiest things to get off the ground. Needs work before resuming if I ever want to revisit it. (Which may or may not happen because I don't like sci-fi as an RPG genre, I've discovered.)
• Dogs in the Vineyard: Evening-slot con game at UCon 2015. Pretty well-received, it seemed. Never seen such intense roleplaying and player-on-player conflict.
• Legend of the Five Rings: Con game one-shot (Legacy of Disaster) at UCon 2015. Also well-received, albeit with a much different flavor than the DitV game.

Games I want to run (campaigns):

• Lamentations of the Flame Princess - gritty system based on B/X, with a heavy focus on weird fiction and horror. I am thinking of making an adventure or campaign set in 1500s Germany during the Protestant Reformation. 
• Legend of the Five Rings - One of the players of the aforementioned Legacy of Disaster one-shot expressed interest in a campaign. The L5R system is one that I've wanted to run for a long time, but haven't explored aggressively.
• Dungeon Crawl Classics - A fun game that highlights the more off-the-wall elements of the OSR genre. Huge online community makes this a very interesting and fun game. Not sure a campaign would be the best fit, but it's a system that's got my attention.
• D&D B/X or RC - I am waiting on a custom printing of the Rules Cyclopedia to arrive. I will digest it at leisure and may eventually want to run a loose game based on its rules.

Games I've played in:

• D&D 5E (ongoing campaign) - Fun game that's much better than Pathfinder/3.5. Still not sure if it's far enough removed from said system for me to want to run it, though. Our GM is awesome and that fact may be hiding potential system flaws.
• Palladium Fantasy 1E (ongoing campaign) - My first Hex Crawl sandbox game. Very old-school feel, although I'm not sure whether or not I like the skill system yet. The game itself really grabs me though.
• Dungeon Crawl Classics - A handful of adventures at a bookstore in Lansing, with a really fun group. Cementing my affection for anything you could call OSR.
• Dungeon World - Very well-run one-shot game that features a very transparent rules system. Has me interested in PbtA games.
• GURPS Horror - First game with my weekly online gaming crew. Although I joined halfway through, it was great because it wrapped up a nice little story arc.
• Pathfinder - interesting campaign with interesting ideas fell apart because it's Pathfinder. We also had a group that was bordering on the too-large (7 people)
• Swords and Wizardry - Con game one-shot. OSR system, but not enough info to determine whether I would like it, especially since I think there were a few house rulings going on.
• Call of Cthulhu - Two con game one-shots. Futility and despair in a crunchy candy shell. Not sure I like it. Feels too much like a haunted funhouse ride because what are you going to do, punch Yog-Sothoth?
• 13th Age - One-shot con game with a D&D-turned-free-form feel. What Pathfinder could have been.
• Star Wars FFG - Various one-shots at conventions. Neat die mechanic, but far too crunchy a system for me. I'm done with feats or anything that looks like them.

See you for the first real post later on.

-D.