Revised Dice Mechanics

A post about Real20: The Game with Balls!

Previously I described die mechanics for Mojo and Hutzpah. After a first round of playtesting these mechanics have been tweaked a little and Hutzpah has been changed to Divine Favor.

Mojo
Mojo worked very well in testing. It didn't often result in a lot of extra successes, but it occasionally changed the situation quite dramatically and losing Mojo proved to be pretty devastating, which I think is good for the concept of this game. A few things about Mojo needed some work, however, so this is the present version of the rules I will use for Mojo.

Mojo is no longer directly linked to the new attribute "Divine Favor". Mojo still affects Divine Favor, but when you get to 10 Mojo you do not increase Divine Favor as you did Hutzpah. Getting to 10 Mojo now does something else.

Mojo is ranked in points between 0-10. Every character has a starting threshold, which they will begin at and which effects them in several ways. Every point of Mojo a character gains above their starting threshold is temporary Mojo. Temporary Mojo goes away over time at the rate of 1 point per hour until you get back to your starting threshold. Every point of Mojo lost below the starting threshold is a -1 die penalty on all rolls. Thus a high threshold means you routinely have more Mojo to work with, but it also means you have more to lose if things go badly for you. The default starting threshold is 2. If a character gets their Mojo up to 10 in any scene they may opt to spend all of their Temporary Mojo to raise their threshold by 1 point. Once again, this offers the advantage of having more Mojo on hand all the time, but the danger of serious penalties if that Mojo is lost.

What I imagine this will accomplish in effect is that really high Mojo characters will be very dangerous, but also very sensitive to losing their Mojo. Once Hercules has been emasculated he is worse than your average warrior because his penalties are so high.

Divine Favor
I changed the name of this mechanic from Hutzpah for a couple of reasons. Since it is based on luck of the dice it doesn't seem to represent actual effort or daring on the part of the character. Also, I think it is appropriate to represent the fact that heroes of legend are usually blessed by fortune in some way (though cursed in other ways).

Testing revealed a few interesting things about this mechanic. First, couples and threesomes are more common than the statistics would lead you to believe. Almost every roll had a couple or two, and every few rolls came up with a threesome. Foursome's came up maybe 3 -4 times in the whole session and there were no orgies. What this meant is that people were able to double their rolls several times in the session. Everyone got to triple their roll at least once. No one got to quadruple or quintuple their roll, but in an ongoing campaign I'd expect a quadruple about every other session if the same patterns played out.

A few rules clarifications about Divine Favor.

Mojo dice do not count in terms of recording couples, threesomes, foursomes or orgies. Only use the normal die pool to check in these boxes.

Do however, add the Mojo you rolled into the total before multiplying the result by Divine Favor. Thus, if you rolled 6 successes normally and an additional 3 with Mojo you multiply 9 successes by whatever level of Divine Favor you are using.

You cannot use Divine Favor on any roll that you don't risk Mojo on. The Gods only favor heroes who put their balls on the line. No guts, no glory. This also means that if you have lost all your Mojo then you can't use Divine Favor at all!

The Road to GenCon 2008

That's how I'm thinking about my progress toward self-publication. I've decided that I will be published by next year's GenCon - either through the game proposal going through (I'm still waiting to hear about that) or by going with one of the projects I've been posting about here.

Right now, the front-runner seems to be the Horror! system. The first reason for this is that it is simple overall, but is a strong concept. The second reason is that a friend of mine seems interested in helping me with the process, so that tips things in its favor as well. Its a lot easier to work on something with someone else.

So, in light of these decisions, and assuming that the game proposal does not go through (I give myself a 20% chance I'd say), I want to have an idea of what is ahead of me and how I need to proceed.

General Production Tasks
(these are in rough chronological order)

1. Finish writing a full playtest draft of the game. This will be a rough copy that includes all of the major rules that I'll hopefully be able to playtest myself and also farm out to any other interested groups.

2. Recruit people. This includes people in the categories of art, web design, graphic design, and editing. Ideally, these will be people who are in the project for the fun or are friends who will help me out for free, but I'm also willing to pay if necessary to get quality help.

3. Playtest. And then do it again. And again. As I do this, and as I get reviews (if I'm lucky) from other groups running the game, I'll continuously modify the playtest draft and then send it back out for more testing.

4. Research technical details of self-publication. Formatting. Costs. Setting up a system to sell the book online (I'm looking at pdf/print-on-demand with online sales to start). Getting a POS of some kind to run credit cards for when I go to Origins and GenCon with the game. Etc.

5. Complete a rough draft of the game. This will be post playtesting with rules I'm happy with and everything else I think the game needs. At this point, graphic design will have to be together and art will basically have to be together.

6. Get the rough draft copy-edited and content-edited. I can't do these things myself for my own game. I'll be blind to the problems, as will most who have worked on it with me. So I'll need to find at least one copy-editor and at least one content editor who will almost certainly have to be people I don't know personally.

7. Publish the final copy. This will also involve setting up all of the details of how I am going to sell it and deciding on a price (I'll err on the side of cheap in the hope that it will get the game out there faster, but will still seem like it is significant. It's hard to respect a $2 game.) Right now I'm looking at having two options - a cheaper pdf option for download with light art, maybe pared down in general, and then a somewhat more robust option for purchase on a print-on-demand basis.

8. Go to Origins and GenCon 2008 to pimp the thing.

Thankfully, I spent a lot of time at Origins this year at seminars in the area of game design and publishing, and I've done a bunch of research on both and will continue to do so. I've got a general idea of how all of these things will work, as well as some specifics, and some people I might be able to turn to for help in the future.

As always, any comments are welcome.

Epic: Stories and Marks

(Bear in mind that Stories and Marks are definitely optional systems for Epic. They are designed for groups that want the players to be more involved than usual and for GMs who enjoy sharing narrative responsibility. They aren't necessary to the overall system at all.)

Stories are a system for rewarding player buy-in regarding the Template described previously, as well as for spreading the duty of narration and conflict creation around the table. Stories are a player resource.

Marks are a system for enabling players to define the outcome of tests that their character fails while giving the GM a method for introducing new conflicts in the lives of the characters. Marks are a GM resource.

First, Stories. Stories are gained through a player putting effort into building the Template during character creation, tying her character into as many group goals and conflicts as possible. I will need to playtest what kind of balance is best here, but the idea is that players with greater buy-in (and time to spend) will be able to take more control over how the story develops overall by using their Stories to influence it.

Stories can also be 'earned' through extra work from a player that enriches the game. In my previous Mage game and my friend Aric's current BESM game, we are involving a lot of player-created material to enrich the setting and the narrative. Players are encouraged to write and contribute as much as they are willing to. I've found that this absolutely adds to the enjoyment of a game for most players, and doesn't detract from any of those who are less involved as long as nothing really significant to the game happens "off camera" on a blog or over email - unless that's how you've all agreed the game is going to run. How often Stories are awarded will have to be a balance that every game group strikes on its own.

A Story can be used to set a scene or to introduce a new character or conflict into a scene. A Story can also be used to influence a "set piece", such as the weather or the natural world. What it cannot do is specify particular actions or motivations to any given character. A Story could be spent to say "the city guards show up", but not to say "the city guards show up and arrest my enemies."

It is possible to set scenes at various points in time, from the narrative "present" back into the past. This gives players the chance to work out scenes and conflicts from their past. This shouldn't usually be a time for one player to create a scene that involves only their character, however. The point of Stories is that more than one character is participating. This will vary from group to group, but the goal of this system and the Character Creation system in general is to get everyone involved in the game and the story as much as possible. Background stories that involve only one particular character can simply be narrated or built into the story by the player in question where appropriate. "I once faced something a lot like this when I was in the Imperial navy..." and so on.

Stories are regained through Reckonings, Achievements and Losses. Everyone involved should get at least one (since these should be very significant events) and those most involved might be awarded more.

Marks are an outgrowth of the idea that the loser in a given test narrates what happens. The purpose of this is to give people who roll poorly something interesting to do, but it is not intended to let players get their characters off easily. When you're having a test at all, something significant should be at stake - otherwise, why have a test at all? When a player narrates her character's failures, she should make them hurt.

This is where Stories come in again. Players who are extremely active and have a lot of time on their hands will tend to accumulate a lot of Stories, particularly at the beginning of the game. The player with the least STories, however, also has a special responsibility (and this player will change over the course of a game as Stories are spent and regained). The player with the least Stories determines whether a given narration has earned a Mark. If the failure didn't cost enough, especially if the character in question lost nothing for her failure, then the GM is given a Mark for that character.

At any point later in the game, during any scene, the GM can spend a Mark to incorporate some difficulty or challenge into the life of the Marked character. Marks enable a GM to single out a particular character for trouble, which normally should not be the case. Ideally, the group faces difficulties together and is tested by them in most circumstances. But when you're Marked, you can be sure that trouble is coming.

D&D 4th Edition - Pros and Cons Thus Far

If you've been following the information on D&D 4th Edition from GenCon this year, available from WotC themselves, as well as other sources, you no doubt have some opinions about the game already forming. Here are mine thus far:


Pros (in no particular order)

1. It has been confirmed that the rules set used for Saga Edition is the closest one yet released to D&D 4th Edition. This will probably include the simplified Defenses, simplified Skills, and lack of iterative attacks in favor of a single attack roll per round with a damage bonus based on level. I think all of these are good changes that will make D&D a better game while it remains D&D. I am also looking forward to something like Talent Trees in D&D 4th Ed - another way to customize each class in interesting ways.

2. They have also talked about making low-level characters as fun to play as high-level ones, and also making high-level characters as simple to run as low-level ones. I'm not sure, of course, that they'll succeed, but this is a noble aim. Saga, for example, starts you off with 3x the base Hit Points at first level as previous editions, meaning its less likely that a single shot will kill you outright, and you can also endure a few encounters in succession without breaks between them.

3. Developers have discussed openly that they are moving away from a system where power is mainly based on magic items and equipment toward one where power is based on class abilities. This is fantastic news. Magic items in 3rd Edition and 3.5 were one of the aspects of the game that I enjoyed least. Everything becomes a scramble for loot, and DMing turns into a process of doling out magic items which are quickly bereft of any meaning or real interest beyond "ok, now my attacks do one more damage."

4. The Open Gaming License will continue for 4th Edition. I don't personally own much of the third-party material that has come out for d20, but I'm really happy that it will continue to come out. I like the opportunity for more writers and artists and designers to make money in the hobby and keep it alive and vibrant.


Cons (in no particular order)

1. I think everything they've shown about the internet functionality for the game, especially the online dungeon software, is pretty disappointing. If I want to play D&D online, I'll play D&D Online. I've heard its a fun game. If I'm going to play D&D, however, I want it to be with human beings who are sitting across the table from me. I would only game online in the way WotC depicts as an act of desperation.

2. I understand why WotC is moving toward a subscription-based service to replace things like Dungeon and Dragon magazines, to provide errata, and the like. I don't like it, but I understand it. It is the model to make lots of money in games, and I'm actually ok with D&D making lots of money. It means that D&D will hopefully continue to improve and expand, growing the hobby and all that jazz. I honestly don't know if I'll actually pay for the service - that remains to be seen. At the moment, it looks like paying for one or two things I want and having to pay for a dozen things I don't care about at the same time, which doesn't appeal.

3. It seems like much of the development team for 3rd Edition has disappeared - folks like Monte Cook, who were longtime gamers and lovers of the hobby who were brought in to design the new edition. My impression is that the current team is somewhat more geared toward the marketing end of things. This may be more effective business-wise - that remains to be seen - but I personally prefer the hobby to be in the hands of enthusiasts, for it to be a labor of love. This is of course idealistic foolishness, but what can I say? I want games for geeks, by geeks.


Conclusion - for now

I'll continue to follow the emerging stories about D&D 4th Edition. I still expect to buy the basic set, and when I move away from graduate school there's a good chance the first game I start playing with a new gaming group (or maybe, if I'm lucky, an old one) will be D&D 4th Edition. I hope they do a good job. It looks like the new Edition will be a concrete improvement on the old one (as far as I'm concerned), but we'll see.

Epic: Character Creation

Rough work on Epic continues...

I've been thinking about character creation for a while now, and today during my lunch break at work I took another shot at thinking about what I think character creation should be, what it should accomplish in effect, and then reverse-engineering a system to achieve that purpose.

What I came up was five things I think character creation should accomplish: developing a background, coming up with a character concept, building a group template, outlining how the character (and the group) is likely to develop as the game progresses, and applying all of these things to the particular rules of the system. To discuss these things, I'm using sets of three sub-categories for each broad concept.


Background involves Birth, Childhood and Youth.

Birth ("Where were you born and what was your family like?") includes the family and ancestry of the character in question - particularly in the Epic system where lineage and ancestry is so important for the setting and the rules. Birth also includes the things about a character that are determined at birth, including any Traits that pertain to caste or other aspects of the character. Nature, in effect, as opposed to Nurture.
--> At this stage, you choose Birth Traits and you develop your family history and current family configuration (parents, siblings, surviving elders, etc.)

Childhood ("What was it like for your character growing up?") includes how your character develops as well as the conditions of her early years. It is a combination of nature and nurture, as it were.
-->At this stage, you choose your base starting Attributes - at this point, they will be quite lackluster, but will reflect nascent talents and shortcomings that become evident as the character ages.

Youth ("As you got older, what did you learn to do?") also includes what we might call young adulthood. This often includes basic training in whatever the family trade is, as well as skills that the character needs to get by in her environment and society.
-->At this stage, the character gains her starting basic skills.


Concept involves Profession, Passions and Problems (I'm not married to the alliteration here)

Profession ("What do you do for a living?") this might be your family's trade or it might not - as a player-character, you are extraordinary, and go against the grain of the ancient world. Here, you choose intermediate and perhaps even advanced skills.

Passions ("What drives you?") this isn't as involved in rules, but rather just lists the character's main motivations and drives - positive ones at least. What does the character value? What does she believe in? What are her virtues? What are her dreams for herself?

Problems ("What do you struggle with?") on an individual level, what holds you back? Lost loves? Grief? Self-doubt? Bitter rivals? Physical handicaps? Debilitating fear? Look at your passions, and answer the question - why haven't you achieved these things already? What keeps your passions from being realized?


Template involves what is Shared with the group, Conflict in the group, and the Strength that a particular character brings to a group. This is another step that is crucial but which doesn't have specific rules effects in most cases.
(Group Template have been discussed in the past here)

Shared ("What do you have in common?") describes, in brief, what the group of player-characters has in common, or will have in common if they have not met yet. If the answer is nothing, then you need to put in more work. Even a group of misfits thrown together by misfortune will have to find things they share, or else there isn't much of a story as soon as they find a chance to escape each other and return to their lives.

Conflict ("What don't you have in common, or what conflicts are likely to arise in the group?") should not be game-ending in scope, but a group that gets along perfectly isn't very interesting. No collection of people have exactly the same values, desires, and motivations. Part of this process is talking about what is likely to come up so that everyone at the table agrees that the conflict will be interesting and will add to the game experience and be fun. Conflicts that don't fit these criteria probably have no place in your game.

Strength ("What do you bring to the table?") is just shorthand for talking about what each particular character will add to the group and to the story in general, perhaps. This might be as simple as the fantasy gaming tropes of "healer" and "tank" and "dps", if that's what you're looking for, or more complex ides like one character being a dramatic foil, or another being the conscience of the group, or conversely, the corrupter. Strength need not be moral strength, after all.


Development plots how characters and groups will advance in the game by outlining the Achievements they hope for, the Reckonings they will have to face, and the Losses they are willing to suffer in order to grow. Answers to these questions will determine what has to happen for the characters to grow in influence and power.

Achievements ("What will you accomplish as a group?") bearing in mind that you might fail (or else it isn't much of a challenge), outline what the group is aiming for in the larger sense. In other words, what is the story pointing toward? What is at stake? What is the conflict over?

Reckonings ("What will you have to face in order to prevail?") these could be making amends for past misdeeds or epic battles with recurring villains. A Reckoning is the point in the movie when the heavy music kicks in and everyone gets goosebumps. There is a slow-motion scene when the heroes (or villains) arrive, and then the proverbial shit hits the fan.

Losses ("What will you sacrifice, or what will be taken from you?") victory without loss is shallow. When important things are at stake, people suffer and die. Things are destroyed. Ties are severed. Bridges are burned. How will your character hurt, and what will she do about it, if she can do anything?


Rules involves putting numbers and specifics to all of the things done above by assigning Abilities, Skills, Traits and Relationships

Abilities include Attributes and Skills - things a character does to get things done. Based on her Childhood, a character divides 20 Attribute points between Vigor, Reflexes, Clarity, Influence and Anima, as described in this post about Attributes. Skills are assigned based on the kind of Youth a character had, as well as a character's Profession and Passions.

Traits are assigned at Birth, and then are determined by future choices a character makes in life. The Traits assigned at Birth are caste traits or other traits such as inheritance of the Blood Enduring, special abilities and disabilities which are present at the beginning of life, and so on.

Relationships can be derived from any stage of character creation. Relationships with other player-characters are not handled by rules at all - they are assumed and played out in-game. Relationships which are advantageous are purchased as Backgrounds. Relationships which are filled with conflict, such as enemies or rivals, are simply derived from the character's Concept, the Template, and so on. Relationships include connections to other individuals as well as status in any groups, positive or negative, from something vague like reputation to something concrete like military rank.

Finally, Relationships also cover the spiritual connections from which magic derives in Epic. The most basic is a relationship that every hero and villain in Epic posesses - the relationship with one's ancestors, which grants at least one Ancestral Gift. There are also relationships with Spirits, powers of the natural world, which grant Spiritual Gifts - more costly than Ancestral Gifts but also more powerful, enabling a Summoner (my working term) to influence the forces of nature. Finally, there are relationships with the Deities of one's culture, very costly relationships which potentially grant great, but somewhat narrow, power in the form of Divine Gifts.

This makes a decent segue to more on the Magic system - we'll see how long it takes me to get to it...

Changeling: The Lost

Changeling: The Lost is the most recent game released by White Wolf. It is Changeling for the NWoD, and is actually quite different from the original Changeling: The Dreaming.

In Changeling: The Lost, you play the part of mortals who were taken to Arcadia to serve the True Fae but who have escaped, returned to the mortal world, to find that the world has moved on without them. The game seems to be about finding your identity in a world you no longer quite fit into, finding a way to return home, while avoiding the notice of the forces of Faerie which would like nothing better than to find you and capture you again - or worse.

Like Requiem and Forsaken, character creation in Changeling begins with creating a mortal and then adding the Changeling template. This comes with some advantages, of course. Wyrd is essentially the power of your Fae magic - similar, actually, to Blood Potency in Requiem, because Wyrd determines how much Glamour (magical energy) you can hold and how quickly you can spend it. Clarity is the 'moral' attribute for a Changeling - it is the ability to tell dream from reality, essentially. High Clarity sharpens perceptions and allows kenning - discerning what is magical around you clearly. Low Clarity means you are essentially a lunatic.

Instead of Arts, Changeling magic is expressed through Contracts. Each Changeling has one special affinity Contract based on her Seeming (Beast, Darkling, Elemental, Fairest, Ogre, Wizened) as well as her Court (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter). Contracts have Catches - things that must be done in order to use them that are special limitations - having thread from someone's bedclothes to affect their dreams, for example.

All Changelings also have affinity for the Contracts of Dream, Hearth (traditional blessings and curses), Mirror (changing appearance), and Smoke (stealth). When using your Contracts, you roll Attribute + Wyrd in dice, and even may high-level Contracts are pretty subtle.

New Merits include: Court Goodwill, Harvest (allows you to gather Glamour), Hallow (special housing, including the sub-Merit Hallow Amenities), Mantle (connection to a particular Court), New Identity and Token (magical objects).

If you're looking for similarities with Changeling: The Dreaming, there are many to be found. Beasts are somewhat like Pooka or Beasties, animalistic fae with nature-attuned powers. Darklings are similar to Sluagh, nocturnal lurkers. Fairest are similar to the Sidhe, beautiful manipulators. Ogres hearken back to...well, Ogres, as well as Trolls. The Wizened are artificers somewhat like Nockers.

The similarities are not very direct, however - Lost is very much a new game. The book, of course, is absurdly beautiful and well written. On first reading it seems easy to use, though like any WoD book the rules are spread out and interspersed with flavor text and examples. The game is dense with setting and tone, and it needs to be. It is quite evocative - reading it, I feel like I get a sense of what the designers and writers were going for in the game.

There's a great deal I won't get into here - Fetches and Hobgoblins and Goblin Markets, Entitlements. There is also the Freehold in the second Appendix, which is in this case Miami, presumably the iconic city for the Changeling setting - an interesting choice. Really, I need more time to read the book again, and ideally, I need to run a Changeling game, or play in one, to really get a handle on how everything works together. Just reading the book, however, gives the strong impression that this is an excellent game. It definitely, in my opinion, lives up to what I expected from another edition of Changeling.

Without even playing it yet, I give it 4 out of 5 stars, and that's partly because I actually prefer the dice mechanic of the Old World of Darkness. This game is dense with story, and is probably the best of the NWoD thus far.

D&D 4th Edition Announced

Well it was bound to happen and no matter how unhappy the gaming community gets about it Wizards of the Coast is going to charge on, because at the end of the day we're all pussies and we'll buy the new books even as we grumble. That's right, D&D 4th edition was announced at GenCon this year and they're beginning to put the previews up on their site right now. You can watch the official presentation at GenCon on YouTube.

Here is part 1, part 2, and part 3.

If you want to get involved in playtesting and rules discussions before the release date (which is May 2008 for the PHB) you can register for D&D Insider on the WOTC site.

Exploring the D&D site you can already see where they're going with 4th ed. They've decided to push hard in the direction of an online community. It's easy to understand why - it gives you a built in group of people who are going to swallow your marketing whole day and night. Rather than just sell books, they can sell little upgrades, tidbits of information, various networking "services", and meanwhile charge you a monthly subscription fee.

They haven't released too much about the game itself yet (though I suspect Doug is right that they foreshadowed some of the changes with Star Wars Saga Edition). Instead of talking about the game, they keep talking about these peripherals like the character generator and the online dungeon builder. I think this is a mistake on their part. Graphically they won't ever be able to compete with video games, so they're not going to gain market ground on that front. And for the rest of us - we LIKE the face to face aspect of roleplaying and the limitless bounds of the imagination as opposed to the mechanical restrictions of a computer. Why would I want to add this new computer tool to my game preparation, which won't be able to do what I can do in my head, and takes 10 times as long to do it? Mind you, I'm assuming about the time, but I've never seen a world-builder that wasn't ridiculously laborious. Even if they've got this application screaming it will still be limited by what it is programmed to do, whereas the human imagination is much more liberated. As for the ability to create visuals of characters, that hardly makes me want to play the game.

WoTC is making some of the right noises. 3rd ed is ridiculously clunky. There are many better game systems out there than D20 - it tries to be both a tabletop wargame and an RPG system and it kind of half-asses both, but making it much more complicated. So they could hardly go wrong by streamlining the system and making it more intuitive. The stuff they describe in their design column about making races important throughout a character's career as opposed to just at the beginning, and making fighter's weapon choices more significant is interesting, but mostly I'm not interested in whether they can come up with more peripheral mechanics. Mostly I want to see if they can resolve some of the core mechanics. Get rid of the Base Attack Bonus. Combine Saves and Defenses. Simplify Skills. Use a better system than Hit Points. Banish Attacks of Opportunity. etc... etc... these would be good things to tell us about.

High School Drama

Last night I was treated to my first game of High School Drama! by Shifting Skies. It was quite a treat. I can see why it was nominated for the Origens Award. I'm surprised it didn't get it.

High School Drama! is a competitive card game for 2-5 players. When you open the box you find a series of different card decks, a score board, and a variety of colored tokens. The art on the cards is bright and fun. The quotes on each character card range from entertaining to laugh-out-loud funny. Overall the designers have captured the mystique of every American High School cliche and distilled it into a highly amusing little game.

To play High School Drama! each player chooses a character card to represent themselves. Each card has certain stats, but I recommend you choose a role you would find enjoyable to play rather than the character with the biggest advantage. Your goal in representing this character will be to collect the most Yearbook Signatures by the end of Senior Year. You do this by hooking up with other students and organizations in the High School and building bonds with them which you can trade in later for signatures. Meanwhile everyone else is trying to build bonds faster and better than you and going around stabbing each other in the back, spreading rumors, and making fellow student's lives hell. Winning is a combination of strategy, luck of the draw, and not becoming a target of other player's wrath.

The stats each student has deserve a little mention because they are very clever. Each student has a rating in "Cool", "Cruel", and "Heart". These represent exactly what they sound like. In addition, each student has a background color which tells you what category they belong to: Athlete, Popular, Geek, or Artsy. Some students and organizations are divided meaning they belong to two of these categories and relate well to either. In order to hook up with another student or organization you must have a "Cool" rating at least equal to the target. If you are both the same color (ie: both athletes or both geeks) your "Cool" rating is considered double. You can build on that bond adding tokens to represent how strongly those two students are connected up to the sum of both card's "Heart" ratings. Increasing bonds is important because the other players will be trying to break up your relationships. You can only negatively impact a relationship that has a bond strength equal to or less than your "Cruel" rating. So the higher the "Cool" the easier it is to make friends. The higher the "Heart" the stronger those relationships will be. The higher the "Cruel" the more ability you have to break other people up. As you can imagine some people are cool, but shallow. Others are sensitive and vicious. Others are a balance of all three.

The mechanics of this game are extremely simple. It takes no time to learn and the gameplay itself is straightforward. This is both a strength and a weakness. It means that HSD is a great game for mixed groups and non-serious gamers, but it also means that the novelty of the game might wear thin after repeated sessions. The game could be improved by the addition of a slightly more complex, more in-depth strategy ruleset for advanced gamers.

However, the real fun of this game is not in the rules. The most fun will be had by people who get into playing their characters and are willing to narrate their actions turning the whole game into one long string of he's going out with her, but she's secretly lusting after him, and that clique is ostracizing this person because they hang out with that guy and so on. Memorable moments from our game last night include Emo Boy discovering that it is fun to sell out and joining a pretty successful pop band; a Japanese exchange student ping pong champion getting involved in a threesome with the Head Cheerleader and the Quarterback; the head of the Yearbook Committee wielding sinister influence to ostracize L33t Haxor from her friends...

Overall I give this game a 3.5 out of 5 stars. It's solid and it offers up lots of laughs. It would be even better if it was a tad crunchier, but Shifting Skies has hit upon a great concept here. Afterall, among gamers, who wouldn't love to go back and redo high school, but this time as the one wrecking lives instead of as the one getting wrecked.

D&D 4.0 - a.k.a. Star Wars Saga Edition

I recently had a chance to read through Star Wars: Saga Edition by Wizards of the Coast, which sports a revised d20 rules set that I think will become D&D 4th Edition. I'll just write briefly about some of the changes - I haven't played the game, but I skimmed/read the entire book with an eye for new mechanics I'd heard about and wanted to see for myself.

The class sytem has been pared down to only five base classes: Jedi, Noble, Scout, Scoundrel, Soldier. Compared to the previous edition of Star Wars d20, these classes are mostly the same - at first glance.

Skills are streamlined - you have a number of trained skills and your skill bonus is based on your level plus your ability modifier - no spending skill ranks at all. Another interesting change is that you have fewer skills. For example, Use the Force is your skill for using any Force powers. Acrobatics combines Balance, Tumbling and Escape Artist, and so on.

Saves and Armor Class have been combined into your three Defenses - Reflex Defense, Fortitude Defense and Will Defense. I like this decision - if only they'd gotten rid of the attack bonus, it would be even more reasonable, but you can't be perfect.

Talent trees have been added to all classes, making them somewhat similar to classes in World of Warcraft. Every level, each class gets either a new Feat or a pick from the Talent trees, and it is through Talent trees that you are able to customize your character, essentially resulting in 5 base classes and 20 modified class options. I loved the talent trees in WoW, and I love them in this game as well. They mean that, especially combined with Feats, that you can have four very different Jedi, for example, or four very different Soldiers.

Hit points are retained, unfortunately (I was a fan of the Wounds and Vitality system that the previous edition used), but they are made a bit more interesting by two things: Second Wind and Threshold. Second Wind is the ability to essentially recover a portion of lost hit points quickly when you have a chance for a brief rest - making them somewhat similar to my preferred Vitality. Threshold is a portion of your hit points which measures the amount of damage you can sustain in a single hit without being threatened. So, you might have 40 hit points but a Threshold of 17, meaning that a shot that does 18 hit points of damage is threatening. This is similar to the Wounds system, and is preferable to hit points a'la D&D.

I'm sorry to report, Attacks of Opportunity are retained.

On the more positive side, Destiny is an element that I think is a great addition to the d20 system overall. Each character has a Destiny, and Destiny points are awarded for actions which further this destiny. These points can be spent in a similar way to Force points for temporary boots in-game and help to mitigate the effect of unlucky rolls.

I haven't played the game, but having read it I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars. If they dropped Attacks of Opportunity, the score would go up .5 right there, but the rating is for the game as it is written. About a year ago I played in an excellent Star Wars d20 game, and I think that this system would have made the game even better.

At the very least, if D&D 4th Edition goes this way, I think it will be a solid improvement on 3.5. I'm not sure I want to spend $100 to get the core rulebooks for another incarnation of D&D, but I can't promise I won't end up doing so against my better judgement...

P.S.

For the record, I think Wizards of the Coast will announce D&D 4th Edition at this year's GenCon (a good way to mark the convention's anniversary) and will have a year-long countdown to 4th Edition, to be released at GenCon in 2008.

My First Game Proposal - Rough Draft

This is my proposal I'm sending off to a game company to compete for a job as a freelance game designer for them. This job would entail writing the base system and rules-book, as well as at least three or four supplements. Obviously, if I get the job, my head will explode.

by Douglas Hagler

August 8, 2007

Based on our brief conversation at Origins, as well as the documents you sent to me, I’ve spent some time making notes and brainstorming on the kind of system that would suit the setting and the feel that you prefer for it best. From my notes on our conversation I get “gritty, lethal, smooth and simple, not too high-tech”. From the documents you sent I got a lot of information that I’ve tried to allow for in the system that I’ve come up with.

Obviously, this is a very rough draft, un-playtested and whatnot. I figure, you’ll look at this, and the writing samples, and think “this guy can write the game” or you’ll think “someone else is a better choice.” Hopefully this will be enough information for you to make the right decision.

The Basics

First, the dice mechanic. I went for a pretty simple d6-based mechanic that has three variables. The first is the number of dice rolled, and this is based on the core attributes of the character (or ship – we’ll get to that a little later) plus or minus situational modifiers, which always come in the form of adding or subtracting dice.

The second is the way you determine whether a die rolled a success or not. This is determined by skill – so a highly skilled character can count 3’s or higher as successes, while someone trying something they’ve never done before can only count 6’s as successes.

The third variable is how many successes were rolled – tasks will have a difficulty equal to the number of successes needed to complete them. In general, one or two successes is marginal, three is a ‘normal’ success, and four or five mean that things turned out better than expected. This success range also applies to things like how bad a wound is in combat. For harder tasks, then 2 or 1 below the target is marginal, the target is normal, and 1 or 2 above the target is better than expected.

Second, we have the basic attributes a character has. I decided to come up with a system where characters and ships would have the same attributes, though they will mean slightly different things in each case, which I’ll describe below.

Attribute	For a Character	For a Ship
Power	Physical strength, as well as how energetic a character is. Power is what determines melee and hand combat effectiveness and can also be spent for extra effort on physical tasks	This is the amount of energy a ship has available to be committed to various tasks, including powering weapons, maneuvering engines, life-support, and so on. In combat, Power is represented by tokens which are moved around on a card with a picture of the ship on it, representing how energy is being utilized in a given round
Mobility	The easy and speed with which the character moves. On a battle map, it will be the number of squares or hexes the character can move in a turn, for example	The maneuvering capability of the ship in question, especially in tactical situations – how quickly it can reorient, turn, reverse, alter course, accelerate and slow down
Precision	Not only hand-eye coordination, but also the precision with which a character thinks and reasons. This is the root of many technical skills as well as ranged combat	The sensitivity of the ships’ instruments, as well as the effectiveness of its weapons, HUD, targeting-assist software, etc.
Connectivity	In a near future context, I thought that it would matter less what a character had memorized in terms of information, and more how quickly the character could access and correlate information effectively. Connectivity is how quickly a character can find information and find specific people over available data networks	For ships, this measures how easily a ship can travel from port to port based on its record. This also measures its communications capacities when it encounters other ships, port authorities, etc.
Appeal	This is how the character comes across when meeting someone face-to-face, or over a video connection, etc. It is a combination of looks, charm, the way they present themselves, confidence, and their ability to manipulate others	For a ship, this is the ship’s reputation, either positive or negative, insofar as it makes it easier for the crew to do what it does. So the infamy of a vessel preying on trade ships would count, as would the fame of a particular bounty-hunter’s ship, and so on.
Resilience	This is general toughness, both physical and psychological. How well the character resists injury, torture, humiliation, manipulation, and so on	Basically, this is a combination of durable construction and plating and other retrofitting that makes a ship more durable in the face of the perils of space travel, as well as the weapons carried by other ships

As mentioned above, the Attribute in question determines the base number of dice rolled in a challenge. In the case of ships, it is the ships’ Attribute which determines this dice pool, while the character’s skill still determines the target number for successes. So, a pilot maneuvering her ship would roll the ship’s Mobility in dice, plus or minus situational modifiers (damage to the ship, debris around it, etc.) with a target number determined by her Piloting skill.

Which brings us to the third thing, the skill system. Skills are categorized and loosely bound to each of the attributes described above. I say “loosely” because I can see situations where you would roll different attributes modified by the same skill, and the rules will account for this without any trouble.

I haven’t sketched out exhaustive lists since I wanted to get this to you relatively quickly, but here’s an example:

Power: Grappling, Striking, Melee, Lifting, Throwing

Mobility: Acrobatics, Orientation (i.e. in zero-G), Running, Swimming, Climbing, Evasion

Precision: Repair, Small Arms, Gunner, Programming

Connectivity: Research, Cryptology, Networking, Hacking, Social Dynamics

Appeal: Intimidation, Seduction, Deception, Command

Resilience: doesn’t have skills associated with it – it functions a little differently, with categories of things a character might try to resist functioning as skills – more on that later

For a shorthand way to describe rolls, I’ve decided on a format of Xd6@Y, where X is the number of dice (attribute) and Y is the target number (determined by skill). So, someone might be rolling 6d6@3, meaning they have six dice on which 3’s or better count as successes.

Character Creation

I like the lifepaths system used by games like Burning Wheel. Essentially, you work out your character’s history and back-story as a method for character creation, making choices about your character’s past which define your character’s present.

I prefer a simpler method than I’ve seen in most games, where each player chooses five lifepaths for their character at character creation.

Birth: this lifepath defines the character’s birth status and early childhood. It says a lot about what kind of family the character came from, and might also involve certain genetic traits (depending on how much biotech you want to incorporate into the game – I personally like it, and its definitely a technology that we’ll see a lot more of in the near future)

Education: this lifepath can cover any number of things that happened during the character’s adolescence. It might have been education at a school in the normal sense, or education living on the streets in some backwater colony, or education as a conscripted child soldier. In some cases, it will be a formal apprenticeship in a given trade.

Profession: this lifepath has to do with what the character does, or has done, for a living as a young adult.

Hobby: this lifepath is a chance to add some extra color to the character, to give her a source of interesting skills that wouldn’t necessarily fit with her professional background but which might prove useful.

Passion: this lifepath has to do with the character’s core beliefs, perhaps, or could also represent the character being madly in love for a long period of time. This is the glimpse into what the character is really about, deep down, behind the profession and the hobbies, the circumstances of birth and where she went to school (or didn’t).

Each lifepath will modify the character’s starting attributes and will also provide a list of skills to choose from when the character is finally put to paper on the character sheet. They are also a concrete way for the character to develop a backstory that may include some surprises of odd choices – just like a real life does.

Lifepaths will also help determine what equipment the character might have and what kinds of relationships the character has as the game begins.

Ship Creation

In keeping with the sense that ships are characters, ships could also have “lifepaths” (I would like to find a better term that is more appropriate for ships). These would help characterize a ship and describe it, and also gives it a history. People who see the ship might remember it from some other famous, or infamous, event. It might have old owners who lost it at poker who want it back. Etc.

Build: this determines what the ship was originally built for, its size and basic specifications, etc.

Upgrades: these are modifications made to the ship to make it better at what it is intended to do – faster drives, better weaponry or communications or scanners, upgraded software, etc.

Retrofitting: these are modifications made to the ship to make it capable, or better at, doing things it was not intended to do – cargo ships altered to carry refugees, military vessels altered to contain secret compartments for smuggling, etc.

Abuse: if the ship hasn’t been used for its intended purposes, what has it been used for? These uses will leave their marks, both in the ship itself and also in the ship’s registry and official history. It might also have a reputation.

G-Combat

This is combat that takes place in a situation that has near-Earth gravity, or at least gravity that is significant enough to have a definite “up” and a definite “down”.

Combat takes place at three basic ranges – grappling, close, and long. At grappling range, the combatants are wrestling with each other, standing or on the ground. It is difficult to bring weapons to bear at all, and larger weapons are out of the question. The advantage that firearms give can be neutralized by a skilled grappler. If weapons are not involved, then the combat will tend to end with one side unconscious rather than dead.

At close range, small arms and hand weapons can be brought to bear. Clearly, firearms have an advantage here, but the shooter is in range of melee weapons or even unarmed strikes. This is the deadliest range because cover won’t come into play, evading or dodging is difficult, and downed opponents will be within easy reach.

At long range, only firearms (or other ranged weapons) will matter, but cover will be an option. Fights at long range will tend to end with one side dropping and being unable to continue, though not necessarily being killed.

I have ideas for things like suppressing fire, but wont’ spell them out at the moment. I think that if the overall system looks good, it becomes pretty easy to iron out the details (time-consuming and work-intensive, but not very complicated).

I also see this combat system as rewarding surprise and positioning a great deal. Having cover will be the difference between life and death, and a combat can easily be over in the first round if one side is taken completely off-guard. I like this because a lot of the game becomes tactically choosing how and when and where to fight, as well as deciding if the fight is actually worth the danger it entails. It would also have to be managed by the GM, because NPCs bent on ambushing and killing the PCs would have a potentially high success rate unless the PCs are paranoid and ceaselessly vigilant.

Based on our conversation, I would want to find ways for combat to result in serious wounds pretty easily – to be gritty and realistic in that sense. But for the sake of the game, I would like to have actually killing someone require an extra decision.

With advanced medically technology, I would also like relatively quick recovery to be an option. Ideally, characters downed in a fight shouldn’t spend months in an ICU and rehab. They will have scars and perhaps disabilities from severe wounds, but can re-enter play in some capacity.

I’ve sketched out some ideas that can accomplish this, but they’re not very fleshed out, and those are definitely the kind of ideas I have to playtest to really get a feel for.

I would like a damage system that tracks wounds individually. This accomplishes a lot of things at once. It makes each wound unique and individually threatening. It also makes the player identify more with what is happening to their character. It also makes recovery have more story possibilities – “We stitched you up, Captain, but we couldn’t remove the round. Too close to a major artery. You’ll live, but you’ll have that limp from now on.” Then, maybe every time cabin pressure changes, the leg throbs and reminds the character of that memorable fight…

Zero-G Combat and Space Combat

Here, “Zero-G” assumes it is personal combat and “Space” combat assumes it is between spaceships. I would like to use the same basic mechanics for both, though the space combat mechanic will be more complicated (and, I hope, interesting).

In any three-dimensional combat, there are some design problems that have to be dealt with. I wanted to handle these as simply as possible, and I tried picturing a bunch of ships whirling around each other in a dogfight, for example. I realized that if there are only three ships, or three groups of ships perhaps, then it is reasonable to assume they are all effectively fighting on the same plane. That is, three points make a plane – so it isn’t necessary to keep track of relative location in three dimensions, but only in two.

(In situations where there are more combatants or factions than three, I would recommend using a more abstract combat system I’ll include. I haven’t come up with an efficient way to keep track of multiple ships moving in three dimensions relative to each other.)

In these modes of zero-G combat, a lot of familiar things will be going on. Characters or ships will use their Mobility to maneuver relative to each other, trying to get themselves into the best position and at the best range to use their most powerful weapons, and so on. I’ll just point out the things I have in mind that are somewhat unique.

The first is for ship combat – power management. The Power score of a given ship is the amount of energy it has available for all purposes. I like the idea, common in science fiction, that energy can be redirected from one use to another temporarily depending on what is needed.

I imagine the ships represented by cardboard cutouts which present the basic layout of a given ship, with the cockpit, turrets and fixed guns, engine room, and so on. During a space combat, the crew of the ship will be able to move around tokens on the cutout representing how they are directing power in a given round. This could be the job of the engineer, for example, since I want to have interesting jobs for multiple kinds of characters on a given ship during a battle.

How this power is committed will help determine a number of things – the power of the jamming signal the ship is sending out to prevent its opponent from calling for help, the force of its maneuvering engine(s) as it tries to position itself, and the damage and rate of fire of many of its weapons. I think this adds a really interesting aspect into a ship combat with a simple mechanic that is intuitive to learn and use.

The second idea is for any kind of zero-G combat – orientation. I imagine cubes representing each of the combatants. The cubes have words on each side of them representing part of the character or ship in combat.

For characters: front, back, legs, head, right side, left side

For ships: face, tail, dorsal, ventral, starboard, port (I was playing with the idea of using anatomical terms for parts of a ship – but mix them with nautical for now)

Essentially, every round, part of the maneuvering tests would be how you will orient yourself to your opponent, twisting in three dimensions to exploit weaknesses while presenting your own best side to the enemy.

For example, for human beings, you don’t want your back facing your opponent, and I imagine a lot of zero-G combat will involve trying to ‘take the back’ of your opponent (to borrow a term from jiu-jitsu). For ships, if one part of the ship has sustained heavy damage and is threatening hull-breach, it is wise to turn another side to the enemy or risk being vented out into space. Similarly, if most of your weapons are mounted on the front, or on the sides, then you want to have those sides pointed at your opponent.

It is possible for this combat system to take place on a combat map or at an abstract level. For the abstract level, each round can begin with a contested maneuvering roll and a contested orienting roll. The winner of the maneuvering roll is at a range that they prefer for their weapons. The winner of the orienting roll can shift their opponent’s cube one step in a desired direction.

What’s the Damage?

In general, a damage roll is a weapon-skill roll versus an evasion roll, and then a damage roll versus a Resilience roll. Wounds or damage are tracked individually, and ranked according to a few simple descriptors:

For characters: Bruised, Injured, Wounded, Crippled, Killed

For ships: Burned, Scarred, Breached, Shattered, Destroyed

Basically, each level describes a state that is significantly worse than the one that preceded it, and each will have progressively worse penalties and consequences associated with it.

Wounds, while tracked individually, will also stack in effect when they are located in the same area. Two Bruises are an Injury, two Injuries are a Wound, and so on. So, on a ship for example, you’re hit with a heavy barrage and start venting air and other materials into space through a hull breach. Alarms sound and red lights flash and suddenly everyone is remembering where the space suits are, or at least oxygen masks. Everyone is thinking – one more hit like that, on that part of the hull, and we’re goners.

What’s the Game About?

Reading the documents you sent, I tried to get an idea of what overall themes the game would deal with and what kinds of conflicts the game would be centered around.

I came up with a few conflicts that seemed to stand out:

Authority vs. autonomy – with a world government, coupled with the incredible freedom granted by FTL travel via Baeder drive, there will be a frantic effort to enforce Earth authority over an incredibly large area. There is also the fact that cutting edge technology will often give one the upper hand against the government’s agents, who will be more numberous and perhaps better-funded, but still hampered by bureaucracy.

Identity vs. anonymity – I think that a major struggle in the modern world is the struggle for identity. I think this will only intensify when borders begin to be erased and as homogenization continues on Earth. Every city will look the same, and the same corporations will employ the same kinds of people at the same jobs wherever you look. In this milieu, how do you define yourself?

Agency vs. powerlessness – it’ll be difficult to accomplish things on your own in this setting, and growing technology will also expand the various methods of control available to the rich and the powerful. The general social forces will probably still want to produce mindless, predictable consumers, and being something else while not starving will still be a challenge.

Some conflicts will come from the ambiguity built into these terms. Some problems can be solved best by authority, and some by autonomy. Some problems will be created by each of these aspects, and the characters will probably end up coming down on opposing sides now and then (at least if the GM is doing her job).

Narrative Aspects of the Game

A good game probably won’t be all space combat and travel to distant systems and exotic locales, and there’s more to a character than their bare-bones background and their basic skills and attributes.

I have four categories that cover a great many character aspects that will help drive the game’s narrative forward and also help define what a particular game will be about. They are also things that will not be obvious at first glance, and which may be surprising when they turn up in a given character. Finally, they are aspects of a particular character’s identity – they are what a character will use to develop herself further. These categories are Passions, Goals, Obstacles and Secrets.

Passions: obviously, this was already touched upon in the lifepaths section, but here is a chance to expand on that simplistic presentation. Passions are deep drives which propel the character forward and which inspire her to do what she does. These are what motivates a character, and should be behind most of what she does in a given game.

Goals: these are refined Passions, expressing a character’s aspirations for herself. Goals help tell the GM what this player wants the game to be about, and these should be discussed with the entire group present so that they overlap in meaningful ways. Goals are a way to built a group template which binds the group together for a particular story – not so that there is no internal conflict, but so that everyone has a reason to be there in the first place, and so everyone has a better idea of what the game will include as it progresses.

Obstacles: these should also be discussed with the entire group present. (Especially interesting are situations where one character will be an obstacle for another character’s goal!) These obstacles could include enemies or competing groups or organizations, as well as psychological difficulties, a past that haunts someone, or moral problems with what achieving a Goal might entail.

Secrets: there are two schools of thought here. The first is that secrets from other characters should also be secrets from other players. The second is that all secrets should be known to all players. In the first case, it can be exciting to have a secret suddenly revealed in-game that surprises the characters and the players. In the second case, it is possible for other players to use their knowledge of a particular secret to built tension in a scene or to make a situation more entertaining. I think each group should just decide which way they want to go, since both seem to have merit.

In general, Secrets are also Passions, Goals or Obstacles, but they function in a different way. They are intended to help the story develop as it progresses through time.

From a rule standpoint, I like the idea that Passions, Goals, Obstacles and Secrets all grant a few bonus dice in situations where they come into play. Passions help drive a character to try harder and push themselves beyond normal limits. When Goals are at stake, everyone will put their greatest effort into a task because they all have a stake in how things turn out. When facing an Obstacle, the character has the weight of narrative behind her. No one wants to play a game where the PCs fail all the time and never achieve anything. More importantly, this encourages players to face Obstacles head-on, which makes for a more interesting game. Finally, when Secrets are at stake, all of the above things apply, and there is the extra risk of consequences when the secret becomes known (which it should, at some point, because otherwise why have one?)

In Conclusion (?)

I have more notes on more systems and ideas for the game, but this is the bare-bones presentation of what I have so far. As I said at the beginning, hopefully what I send will be enough for you to make the best decision, whatever that decision is. I really appreciate the opportunity to send you my ideas, and I hope the game is a success.

What I'm Listening To - Part 2

I'd like to take a moment again to mention the podcasts that I'm listening to lately, if for no other reason than to funnel some possible listeners their way.

All Games Considered - what I'm listening to right now in fact. Funny and informative, including special segments like Gaming For Cheap Bastards and Games You May Never Have Heard Of. They mostly talk about running and playing games, rather than, say, game-design or game theory.

Fear the Boot - is awesome. I love them. They are intelligent and hilarious and talk about all aspects of gaming. Check out their forums and listen to their podcast. It is excellent, and is up for an ENnie Award at this year's Gen Con.

Godzilla Gaming Podcast - started out as a podcast put together by two friends and expats living in Tokyo. They discuss what they're playing, with a focus on story games and indie games, and they also talk about the particulars of gaming in J-land. Now their podcast spans the Pacific Ocean, since one host has moved to the SF Bay Area, but it continues going strong.

Master Plan - a podcast specifically about game design which focuses on interviews with indie game designers. The belief is that anyone can design games - and should.

Shakespeare and Dragons Worldbuilding 101 - this podcast is about worldbuilding from a literary point of view. The host is an English teacher and gamer who brings his expertise to bear on world-creation for comics, fiction, gaming, etc.

Secrets of the Lord of the Rings - A Catholic priest talks about the Lord of the Rings Online as well as aspects of Tolkien's works that come to mind. This is one of a few podcasts the he does, including Secrets of Harry Potter. I think this is very accessible to non-Catholics who are Tolkien-fans (like me for instance...)

The Sons of Kryos - Jeff and Judd still bring it with their high-quality topical show about the gaming table and what happens when you sit down there. Highly recommended, and also up for an ENnie I believe.

The Voice of the Revolution - the Indie Press Revolution that is. Character classes getting you down? Prefer story games? Heard of Dogs in the Vineyard or Burning Wheel or Mortal Coil? Wanna know what's at the bleeding edge of rpg design? Join the Indie Press Revolution!

Dual Posting

This post is also up on my other major blog, here. I thought it would be interesting to connect them, since they're huge parts of my life and have been for a long time...

For theology-blog readers: "Danger, geekiness ahead!" (Skip this if you buy into this garbage)

For gaming-blog readers: "Danger, religion ahead!" (Skip this if you're not into religion)

For readers of both: "Wow, you're awesome!" (Seriously, we should hang out sometime!)

I was about the same age when I preached my first sermon and when I started playing roleplaying games. In this case, the sermon was a pre-prepared one, a sort of scripted conversation with another churchy kid called Feed and Seed wherein we both dressed up as farmers and talked about the Parable of the Sower. The game was Dangerous Journeys by Gary Gygax. (I imagine both are now out of print).

A few years later, I was here in San Anselmo with my mother as she worked toward her Master's Degree at SFTS. While she was away taking seminary courses, among other things, I was in an apartment in this same building, creating my own roleplaying game. Otherwise, I'd play with the few other kids who were living here, or wander around, or talk about religion with seminary students.

It isn't so much a case that religion and gaming are connected to me - they are, but only in the way that both of them are connected to almost everything I do with my time. There is actually not all that much specific overlap. These are just two things that I enjoy immensely, and have since I was a little kid, which fascinate me to this day.

Of the two, gaming has caused me by far more trouble. I've had family members become concerned that I would be dragged into devil-worship and the occult. Thankfully, after talking with one family member in particular and giving him some information to read on his own, he's been semi-converted into thinking that gaming sounds fun and is something he might even try at some point. At this point most of the rest of my family has decided that gaming is just another weird thing about me that they have to endure.

Of more concern, at certain points in my life, is that gaming is often a sure-fire method of social suicide. The interesting thing is that it didn't stop me. Accutely aware that this particular hobby was something people tend to feel profound condescension toward, I kept at it because it is so amazingly fun. And I still feel the same way. At almost any point in my day, I'd rather be gaming. When I don't have a group to game with, I feel myself coming slowly unhinged. When I have a great group, I am 100% guaranteed a weekly high.

This social-suicide aspect is something that I've found fades with time, along with many anxieties about what people think of me. Really, it's still deeply uncool, but the change is that I don't care nearly as much.

Religion, or being religious and studying religions, is also a lifelong interest. In the US faith is far more acceptable than gaming (about 150 million churchgoers and about 2 million gamers). The main problem I tend to have is that, well, I'm odd. A good example is that just a few minutes ago I was listening to the Infidel Guy podcast, which is an atheist/freethought discussion podcast that I usually enjoy. I find it very challenging, but very important, to remain in contact with atheists and atheism. The reason for this is simple: I understand that I could just be crazy. And even if I'm not, when I talk about how well-meaning and reasonable people can disagree, I put my money where my mouth is.

Maybe I'll post sometime about time spent as an atheist, or at least a serious agnostic. (My more conservative readers probably think I was never truly re-converted - and maybe they're right)

Sometimes I toy with some way to combine my love of gaming and my religious life. A game about religion, or a way to use concepts and practices from gaming in worship or education. Maybe I will. For now, oddly, I enjoy the segregation. Everyone has to have hobbies, right? And I think that it'll probably be key to my ongoing mental health as a pastor if I have some pastimes that have nothing to do with church.