So Shadowrun

-Biggest problem with cyberpunk is: The same way the gravity of superhero games pulls toward in-jokey parody and it takes a lot of set-up to resist, the gravity of cyberpunk games pulls toward dumb escapist "real life just cooler". Since I live in downtown LA (literally where Blade Runner was set, blocks from the Bradbury Building) in 2016 and everyone here is in porn or something and my girlfriend has so many essential tubes in her she technically is a cyborg, this is a very serious problem for both overall setting, character gen, and improvising details.


-Ok, I recognize the gear and brand porn is actually an important setting element: when your characters can casually throw around shared ideas like "oh that Fairlight Excalibur used to be hot shit back when people thought AIs were spinning pyramids made of grey cubes" it really does help make a future of disturbed hypercapitalism come to life. And also, it is interesting as a planning challenge to have a "right tools for the job" approach to weapons. On the other hand, I don't want a simulation of the experience of actually shopping. There are, just like in real capitalism, more weapons than there are proper niches for them. A sci fi game should have each niche:

Long range, light damage, narrow area of effect, slow rate of fire, hard to get (like a sniper rifle)
Short range, heavy damage, wide area of effect, slow rate of fire, easy to get (like a shotgun)
Medium range, heavy damage, narrow area of effect, high rate of fire, hard to get (like a machine gun)

...and every other possible variation on those categories super-clearly laid out. Plus nonlethal weapons like a net gun and weird ones like the one that sends you to dimension 3 or sprays mutagen everywhere or whatever. And if you want to add a shopping-simulating mechanic (like some are cheaper but less reliable, etc) then ok. But actually having to have system mastery in order to get the non-trap weapon should not be a thing.

The reason I don't think this has ever happened is very few game writers are simultaneously old school enough to realize the legitimate world=building and tactical planning purpose of gear porn while also being innovative enough to cut away the parts of gear porn that exist because of sheer inertia. Any game mechanic which rewards having read the manual more carefully is evil.


-Like sex, hacking is more exciting in real life than it is in a game, even when you dress it up so it looks better and involves more robots.

Moreover, computers are kind of boring in general.


-It is definitely fun--and genuinely a challenge of invention--to make up dystopic, satirical versions of places in the actual world. That's fun. That is the tempting part.


-All the hippie shit has to go and you have to somehow make Shadowrun elves feel like elves without it. Which probably means many of them have to be immediately accepted very high into the power structure and establish their specialness right away.


-Do they have cyberware for critters yet? Because if you can't have a half-chrome cockatrice with Judas Priest cover claws what even is the point?


-Cyberpunk miniatures are terrrrrrrible by and large. The sheer volume of people trying to do it has resulted in sculptors able to produce medieval fantasy minis at a fairly high level of quality and the amount of money and talent Games Workshop aimed at them from the beginning has meant the 40k line has developed an idiom for their version of the future that looks pretty good but--as in life--reality is one of the hardest things to romanticize and generations of Cthulhu and Western and Shadowrun sculptors have fell flat on their faces churning out endless series' of grimacing big-headed knob-fisted humunculi that nobody wants a piece of.


-The current state of cyberpunk art in general is far advanced over the state of the art in actual Shadowrun books--which is only a problem as far as showing players the Shadowrun-specific stuff is supposed to look like, that is: the cyberelves and cybertrolls. But: that is a genuine hurdle. If you're gonna have orks, you want people playing them.
-
-
-

6 Games You Don't Have To Play Before You Die

So saying something is 'must-read' or 'must-play' is dumb, and, at-root, a creepy arrogant steamrolling over the ineluctable modality of being. I remember that list of 100 games to play before you die that went around--and I'm sure there were some lovely games on it--but seriously play 100 RPGs? Ever heard of Sturgeon's Law? Games exist to serve you, not the other way around.

That said, here's a list that's RPGs that are Essential to play if you want to experience and learn some things I thought were worth learning and experiencing. Bonus: in order for newbies.

1. D&D--Basic, 5e, or simplified AD&D

Not only will you then know what everybody is talking about, it's a game with a culturally broad enough premise (everybody knows what an elf is) and an open enough structure that you'll probably find a way to slot yourself into that universe. Obviously if you hate fake-medieval magic settings don't play, but seriously duh--if you don't like the genre don't play the game that is in that genre, I won't point that out again.

2. Call of Cthulhu

I haven't seen the latest edition, which I hear is worse, but every ed until then was good. You learn two things:
-A system which is basically D&D but with a whole other % and Sanity system bolted on works fine
-Hey you could probably use this system for, like, almost anything if you just changed the skills....

You could also play Pendragon here instead, which has a trait system instead of a Sanity system but is based on the same system and teaches many of the same lessons.

3. Rolemaster

Have someone else make your character, though. Then experience the rich anticipation of finding out how horrible your fumble is, or the unique and gory detail of your new crit. See die results you will never see again--plan the fuck out of your combat or die trying. Also realize character generation that is too complex to do yourself is...not really a big hurdle if there are pay-offs.

4. Dread

You already played Call of Cthulhu, now you can compare. This is the Indie way of doing things: Movie-inspired rather than literature inspired, open-ended, relies on you (the player) to invent details, requires you to maintain tone, ultralight, best in one-shots. Plus, as one of the few postForge-RPGs where the author isn't either a chronic online psychopath or in a close business relationship with one, it's one of the few Indie games where your money spent won't go to fund online harassment.

5.  Marvel Superheroes FASERIP

Have fights that comfortably last a whole session, see what it's like when the girl who wants to act like Spider-Gwen and the girl who wants to solve the problems that Spider-Gwen has to solve are both equally effective due to the karma system. See the genius of the Make A Commitment rule.

6. RIFTS or something else Palladium

This will be your first experience with a genuinely wall-to-wall fucked-up system. It will probably also be fun anyway--which is an important lesson to learn, plus we need a sci-fi game here.
-
-
-

Tips For Running A Spy Game

Currently running one and somebody asked so I figured I'd do my best to throw together some simple but concrete things:

-Choose a place and a time you know as well or better than your players

I once got to say "Actually, I've been to Pollock's Toy Museum and it's fucking tiny and the coat check is right next to the entrance" instead of looking stupid when running Night's Black Agents for Ken Hite. Though I did pretty much rip the system into shreds accidentally kind of constantly but whatever that's another story.


-Figure out how much spy stuff you want the players to have and how hard you want it to be for the players to get it

One of the nice thing about Night's Black Agents for one-shots is you spend no time shopping, and even though I run my own games using a modified Call of Cthulhu (basically using the NBA skill list) the point is you want to have a clear handle on how the parent government or patron's largesse is going to shape the adventure. Technically the CIA could always call in an airstrike, and that could be boring. You need to carefully calibrate how you want to use the system and scenario to decide how much recourse the players have to crazy tech that can solve their problems before they come up.


-Get comfortable with how spy pacing is distinctive

Ok, in a super-hero game, you can run a 2-hour session of which an hour and a half is one fight with one villain and not only is everybody happy but that pretty much can be an average session. A little drama--biiiiiiig fight, lots of powers, done. Satisfying. That's why superhero games are pretty easy to run. Similarly, D&D games can typically be paced out to like a series of 5-10 moments of opening doors or entering hexes or encountering NPCs and then dealing with some unexpected consequence.

In a spy game, the unit of "something happened" is basically each time the players get concretely closer to their goal or some other major confrontation. That is a "beat" in a spy story. I roll successfully to see if I can detect a pattern in Worthington's tax returns over the years--beat. I talk to the bartender and he makes me as IRA and waves me off. Beat. Get comfortable with that--let the players enjoy the little world you're creating with these details. Make that as fun as the rooftop gunfight you know is coming.


-The spy equivalent of the dungeon is the heist

And I don't mean in structure, I mean in terms of reliably providing a session's-worth of reliably spyish activity. You name a target, a time, a place, and tell the players they need to steal, assassinate, kidnap, rescue or neutralize it. The rest is up to them.

It sounds preposterously simple but trust me, it works. Here's a freebie. They'll spend a half hour or more planning, they'll get in, they'll fail one crucial roll and the consequences will provide the fuel for the rest of the night.


-Hunter/Hunted is a good one to have in your pocket

"What if there's a crucial clue the players miss?"
"Oh just use GUMSHOE! Or the three clue rule! They'll never miss a clue again!"
Screw that, let your players deal with the consequences of their appalling incompetence. It's good clean fun and a plot structure so tight it's hard to think of a spy story that doesn't use it. Here.


-Red herrings

In yesterday's game I told False Patrick that the cell data he Traffic Analyzed revealed:

-One number that gets called all the time
-One number that calls the target, only after they've consulted that first number
-One number that gets called the same time every week for 20-30 minutes

Patrick looked at the 3rd number and went "That's probably just his mom". And I was so happy--not because I'd fooled him, but because he had guessed exactly right. In the years he played in my games he'd gotten used to the idea that just because there's a detail doesn't mean it's important. Only hack GMs only give players details that turn out to be meaningful later.


-Enemies are whatever

Opposed NPC stats can be just average people 90% of the time with like one good stat and 1 skill. You don't even have to write them up ahead of time if you have a good handle on who they are. In most spy (and horror) systems, PCs are fragile enough that regular people with guns are quite enough to make a genuinely frightening combat.

The final boss can have stats, but even just an interestingly exotic place to fight and a lot of hit points or a bullet-proof vest results in a memorable encounter.


-You don't have to invent plot twists right up front

In making a D&D setting I recommend running that first adventure, then extrapolating the setting from what happens there. It worked for Tolkien (you got a....ring? Ok, let's see where the ring came from...). Run the first adventure, figure out what kind of PCs the players made and what kind of stuff you had to pull out of the hat that day to make the game happen. Then develop the plot twists out of that between sessions. As more and more elements come into play (one player is CIA one is MI5, you can do inter-agency rivalry, none of the players speak any other languages--give them an unreliable translator, etc). The twists will come organically once you get your feet on the ground in the world. Just character creation for 4 people alone will generate enough question marks to build plot out of for weeks.


-In other words, relax

I am making this sound easy, but it some ways, it kind of is. You don't have to genuinely scare people, like in horror, you don't have to invent some new exotic traps or weirdness, like in D&D, you don't have to make your villains seem as vivid as real comic book villains like in a superhero game, you just have to make this slightly alternate take on reality feel real. The spy genre is about how mystery and danger are hidden in banal objects--the bomb in the apple, the elevator with the frayed cable, the Man Who Goes Through The Blue Door--luxuriate in these details and other lives. Rushing toward set pieces isn't necessary--these players want to spy on things, let them.

And if that doesn't work, like Chandler said, just have some dickhead show up with a gun.
-
-
-

We're Totes Taking A Stand Against Harassment

We here at _______ are taking a stand against harassment!

Oh cool. Are you going to donate to legal efforts against harassers?

Well, no, sorry.

Ok, that's maybe a little much to ask. So you're just going to call out the harassers?

Um, no.

You're going to privately take steps to see that they don't harass people?

No.

You're going to block them on social media?

Mmmmmm...not that either.

You're going to stop advertising their stuff?

Uh...no?

You're going to stop buying their stuff and donating to their Kickstarters?

Oh hells no. Gotta keep doing that.

But if there's an accusation of harassment, you're going to read up on it and see if it happened? To be, like, informed?

YeahhhNo. No time for that.

But you'll at least not allow it in spaces you control?

Uh. Actually gonna totally allow that. Wouldn't want to upset somebody by telling them to shut up.

Not gonna like commit it yourself, at least?

I mean, I don't think so, but...

What is harassment?

I don't know. I can't, like, define it.

But you're taking a stand against harassment?

Totally!

"I'll let him touch me because I rarely say no"

New I Hit It With My Axe today:

-
-
-

Current Stack of Boxes

 You can accumulate tons of cute DM stuff but it's useless if it's too much of a pain to get to,
which is why I have a collection of kits, cases and jewelry boxes.

This one on the top is a pretty typical sewing kit box. 

Got it from the antique mall in New Orleans and paid a little
too much for it because the drawers were unusually deep.

It's packing-taped to the top of the wheely-thing. Inelegant but it works.

The skull is for skeletons, which I got a lot of on account of starting my campaign
with Death Frost Doom and then Reaper sponsoring I Hit It With My Axe

The international symbol for "goblin"

Jewelry box from a place here in downtown LA

These were made using the Instant Easy Lazy Dungeon Block method

Most of these are just complete sets (4-6-8-10-10-12-20) for folks
who forgot their dice.

GM's dice, including all the weird novelty dice, plus dungeon life bendy walls.
Not pictured is my diy pop-o-matic bubble, which scares the dog so I only use it
when I'm running games on the road, so it's in the alligator-skin salesman's case.

Thin clear plastic case in the middle.

I filled it with things I think I'd forget I have unless they were
in a clear case.

Two newly painted PCs. Hannah has a chameleon-woman paladin (left) which I made
by taking a Werner Klocke-sculpted woman (his tend to have big triangular heads) and
emphasizing the shadows under her eyebrows).

Lots of wolves and corpses, naturally.

Just repainted this succubus to look like Lady Crucem Capelli
for Maze of the Blue Medusa games. Of course now that I went to all
that effort they'll probably never go back in that dungeon again.

Anything called anything"men" goes here: snakemen, mushroom men,
beastmen, scorpionmen, turtlemen.

This is a book for some video game, it's in Japanese.

I put whatever in it.

These are for people who forgot their dice.
Comes in a delivery-sushi box because the more likely
a person is to not have their own dice, the more likely
they are to roll it off the table if they don't use a box.

The Eminent Man of Role-Playing Games

The eminent man of role-playing games was as eminent, perhaps, as any man living in role-playing games, and more drunk than me. He wore--like all men of role-playing games of a certain age and eminence--a hawaiian shirt, and had--like all of them--big facial hair.

"You look like a man I should know!" He said, leaning on a wall and pointing with a big finger.

"Yeah you should!" I said.

He took me in, with what he judged to be an appropriate level of skepticism, "Some people are children their whole lives," he said "is that you?"

"Look. Who the fuck. Is talking," I said.

He roared: "I like this guy! Let's get you a drink!"

He rolled through the crowd. It was loud, so I had to shout: "How's your party?". He shrugged silently and made round eyes. All around were people who loved the games he invented--they seemed very happy.

We went to his bartender, she went "I'm cleaning up, sorry."

With the stagey secrecy of Dennis the Menace stealing a cooling pie, he reached over the bar and took a Red Bull. I said: "You ever have one of these? It tastes like crushed Smarties," he shook his head no and I found him a bar that was still open.

He reeled all night, lightly chaperoned, from room to room.

He asked me: "Have you ever done heroin?"

"No. But I've been cast as a drug addict in every movie I have ever been in."

"I have done every drug there is! And I'm still alive!"

"You are."

"You know what the secret is?" he asked, wobbling and waving at all of us listening in his delirious hawaiian shirt and big facial hair, "Moderation!"

-

-

-