RPGaDay Catchup

Been lax on this, but now I have a little time.

Most Impressive Thing Another's Character Did: Wow. Lots to choose from. OK, not that I want to give +Matthew Karafa a swelled head or anything (since one of this moments showed up on +Michelle's list, too), but the finale of Edge of Midnight was fucking superb. That was a long and really awesome game, ending in a totally noir way with Karafa's character shooting another dude in the head and letting his body fall into the swamp.

What Story Does Your Group Tell About Your Character? Oy. I don't have a character; I play occasionally but mostly I run games, I have several different groups, and I don't think anyone tells a particular story about my character. I'm sure Dylan, my kinetomancer professor in Michelle's Dresden game, could develop a story or two, given time, but at the moment I'm gonna have to take a pass on this one.

Most Amazing Thing a Game Group Did For Their Community: You know, it's a few years old at this point, but the Haiti bundle on DriveThru RPG that raised six figures for Doctors Without Borders was pretty awesome.

What Aspect of RPGs has had the Biggest Effect on You? Well, they've been my career since 1997, with varying degree of emphasis. I was full-time from 2001-ish to 2006-ish. I'd go back to writing/developing full-time in a hot minute if I thought I could pay all my bills that way.

Hardcover, Softcover, Digital, what's your preference? I'm not particular about hard vs. softcover; hardcovers are nice and sturdy, but they're heavy. I prefer to have a digital copy available for actual play; much easier to search.

Beyond the game, what is involved in an ideal session? Focus. My ideal session involves everyone putting their goddamn phones away and paying attention. (I was saying the same thing before smartphones were a thing, though, just with books.)

Largest in-game surprise you have experienced? I think "surprise during a game session" has to go to +Jessica, but I don't think that's what this means. Let's see. A loooong time ago, I ran a Chill game which involved a story arc with a character and his wife-turned-vampire. When I finally ran the game that ended that arc, all of the players showed up dressed in character. That was pretty cool.

#RPGaDay2015

Here we go!

Favorite Horror Game: It's honestly a two-way tie between the new World of Darkness and Chill, with the classic World of Darkness a very close third. The only reason CWoD doesn't edge closer is because it so often wasn't a horror setting - sure, you got some very creepy, beautiful horror moments (a lot of them from Wraith), and then you got the WAAHHH-HOOOOO of Werewolf, Vampire, and Mage.

NWoD hasn't had as much wah-hoo, and has stayed pretty consistently horror. Plus, it's horror that I like, which is appropriate, since there hasn't been a lot in NWoD that I haven't worked on in some way.

And then Chill, of course, for me has always been about the people who fight the monsters. One of the thing that frustrates me about real life is that our monsters aren't the kind you can melt with salt or destroy with an incantation; our monsters are people, and people have their own struggle, even if those struggles make them monsters. It's nice to play characters who are unequivocal heroes.

Favorite RPG Setting: Hmm. Well, in the interest of not being too one-note, let's move away from WoD. I like Deadlands, but I don't know if I'd say favorite. There are some problematic elements there. But on the other hand, hucksters! Really a brilliant idea.

Oh, wait, I know: Edge of Midnight. Noir, Dark City inspired RPG with physics-magic. Very cool game.

Origins 2009 - A GM's Report Card, Pt. 4

And now, the exciting conclusion.

So, Friday night, we sang, other people danced, we went to bed. Saturday, we woke up, and headed downstairs for more gaming!

Saturday morning, my 10AM game was Edge of Midnight, the second of the games that I ran. I've been running a chronicle of this particular game since December 2008, and I'm really enjoying it. Partly, that's because I've run little else than World of Darkness games for a long time and it's nice to keep the dark but play with a new setting and genre (noir), and partly that's because Edge of Midnight is just an awesome game and it's a hell of a lot of fun. So getting some new people to play it was a good plan, I thought.

The scenario was a murder mystery. Basically, prominent citizen dies at a club, and the PCs have until sunset to figure it out or else the victim's fans are going to riot. Oh, and the victim (and said fans) are gaunts, and a riot would tear the city apart. The characters got a chance to play with magic, investigation, learn about the city of Terminus (much like New Orleans, which is where my ongoing chronicle is set, too) and generally a good time was had by all. If I have one regret, it's that I didn't find a way to work in a more involved fight, but I hadn't set up the scenario to include combat and I didn't want it to feel forced (no orcs, thanks). I think the players dug it, though.

Following the game, Michelle and I headed to the dealer's room again. I scooped up a copy of Ars Magica, Fourth Edition for all of four bucks, and I finally bit the bullet and bought Unhallowed Metropolis. I've played UnMet a couple of times, I've really enjoyed it, and it's the sort of game I should own. And I've got players that I think would really get into it.

[redacted]

And that game was...Hollow Earth Expedition. Last tabletop game of the con, and the one I had the highest hopes for.

See, Hollow Earth Expedition is a pulp game, but unlike Spirit of the Century, it gives you a very specific setting - the Earth is hollow (bet you figured that, yeah?) and there are natives, dinosaurs, Amazons, the whole bit. I bought and read the game last year following GenCon, and I've been very keen to play it ever since. This particular game had a blurb that involved dinosaurs and capturing a tar pit. Awesome.

Warning sign right off: The GM hadn't made characters for the scenario, but had just photocopied the pre-gens from the book, put them in plastic sheets (OK, this is maybe just me, but I think it's cheap when players can't at least keep character sheets from con games), and handed us a great big stack. I picked on at random (the Big Game Hunter), and we started out on our airship in Hollow Earth.

Yep, just like that. No attempt at backstory or group cohesion. No explanation for why these characters were together. Just, here we are, on our airship, and then the air pirates attacked.

Now, at this point it's pretty clear we've into beer-n-pretzels, and that's disappointing, but OK. I co-opt Jonathan's Hyde's character from Jumanji to inform my portrayal of Col. Stanley Admunson (I promptly get a style point for naming my character, which encourages everyone else to do the same) and we get down to the business of killing air pirates. We win, but our ship is damaged badly, so the Fortune Hunter (played by a 16-year-old boy, who seems to have the emotional maturity of, say, 13) puts the ship down. The rest of us don parachutes and bail the heck out.

Splitting the party is fine; I do it all the time. But five to one isn't a split I like, because it puts too much focus on one dude, and that's especially true if the one dude is being...well, a fishmalk. So while the five of us are fighting a T-Rex, he's met a tribe of crazy Amazons (led by a woman named Sinestra) and patching the hole in the blimp with a bag of monkeys.

Things, clearly, are getting out of hand.

Eventually, we meet up with the other tribe of Amazons (at which point the GM makes it a point to tell us that some Amazons remove one breast, but not these Amazons...sigh). The gamer OMG GIRLZ is getting a little thick, especially for Michelle. I remind the 16-year-old that there is, indeed, a woman present and maybe he should be quite so juvenile, but his dad (also playing) is encouraging it a bit. We keep things on track, more or less, fix our blimp and land in New York City with a crew of Amazons (this is a shift from the GM's original intent, but it was the ending we liked).

Now, a little GMing theory: If you've reached the end, stop. We landed in NYC, the blimp burst through the subway tunnels, we're given applause and fame, awesome. That's the end of the story. Except, just then, not only did the Amazons reveal themselves to be the bad Amazons, but the freaking T-Rex jumped out of the hole and attacked. It had been tracking us. From the ground.

GMs, not every game has to end in a fight, even at a con. Here, consider this episode of Dexter's Laboratory.

Note that when DD runs the game, she keeps things exciting, she pays attention to what the players want for their characters, and she doesn't waste words or events? That's good GMing. (Yeah, she needs to learn the rules, but that'll come in time.)

Thoughts on the game: Pre-gens, cookie-cutter story, villains that show up once and never again (what happened to those ors, er, pirates?), gratuitous breast references, and an overdone ending scene? Man, it could have been so much cooler. My grade: D+

After that, I had to rush downstairs to play Rising! Only I didn't really have to rush, because the 10PM game didn't have any players but me. So I arranged to play in the 11PM game, which was a VIP event (and turned out to be all kinds of fun), went back upstairs for a while to watch Michelle sing karaoke. I didn't get to sing; the rotation was insane at that point.

Then, back downstairs for Rising. The VIP event involved them handcuffing us, blindfolding us, and letting us fight our way out of the lab that was doing experiments on us. They even took our pictures and did up little dossiers (apparently, my previous occupation was "cartoonist", which is funny if you've ever seen me try to draw). I played an engineer, which means I got to solve puzzles, and I discovered, now having played all four classes, that I'm happiest with Marksman. Engineer's fun, but I don't really solve puzzles under pressure all that well. Hunter isn't bad, but I like guns. Doctor's OK, but then you can't fight as well and you rely on other folks for protection. Nah, gimme guns.

Thoughts on the game: Rising isn't strictly an RPG. It's a LASH (Live Action Survival Horror), and mostly you don't really play a role as much as play yourself with some weird skills and rules with zombies trying to eat you. That said, Zombie Buddy Productions went the extra mile on the game, so RPG or not, it was bloody awesome. My grade: A

So the scenario ended, I survived, got my swag bag (awesome), and headed the heck to bed.

Sunday: We got up, got packed, took our stuff downstairs, and hit the dealer's room one last time. We (Michelle and I) had originally been scheduled for a game of Eclipse Phase, but that got canceled, and our other choice just didn't happen. So we wandered a bit, played some demos, did some more shopping. I picked up a copy of Agone for $2 (even if it sucks, that's less than a cup of coffee some places) and a copy of Trail of Chthulu, which I'm informed doesn't suck. That brings the total of new RPGs to five; that sounds good. Also bought a cool board game called Gemlok, which Heather enjoyed and wanted to grab.

All in all, lots of fun this year at Origins. Definitely got me in the mood to start serious essay writing about GMing again, so I'll get right on that.

Meantime, next con is GenCon, even if only overnight. We'll see how the grades fall out there.

Character Creation: Edge of Midnight

Things I learned today: 

Chainsaws are fun.

When you try to burn wood that's too fresh, it hisses as the water inside it boils out. I'm quite sure that some primitive tribe somewhere attached significance to that.

Grilled asparagus is awesome.

With all of that happiness in mind, I'm going to make a character for a dark brooding game with voiceovers.

The Game: The Edge of Midnight
The publisher: Studio 2
Degree of familiarity: None in play. I've read it, and it's a compelling game. It's probably going to be the next thing I run.
Books Required: Just the core, though sourcebook exists (I don't have any, at least not yet).

 
Edge of Midnight is a noir/supernatural kind of setting, set in an alternate universe similar to ours, but with some key differences. "United Commonwealth" instead of "United States." In fact, there are no states, and cities have much more governmental power. At first, I wondered what the point was, and then I read the book and understood. This game has awesome in it.

There are warlocks, but their magic isn't hocus-pocus and religious garbage. It's science, but it's science that can fling cars into the air. You need to be license to use magic legally, but plenty of people study it illegally. My character, in fact, will be one such, because I haven't made a magic-user character in a while.

Flipping to the character creation section, I see a bunch of questions. Let's do it!

Which three terms most accurately define your character? I'll say "suspicious" (he can't trust his own memory and he knows it), "aggressive" (he has a hard time keeping his passions down) and "thorough" (he doesn't let go of a thought until he's wrung everything out of it).

What does your character look like? He's a white man in his 40s. He still has most of his hair, and he has a distinguished air to him, until he starts talking. Then that downtown New Eden accent comes out, and he sounds like a mook. He always carries a piece, and he reminds himself that shooting somebody is betting than flinging them into a building with magic, from a legal standpoint.

What does he do for a living? Mitch Wiley is a rogue scientist, and he scrapes together a few bucks by answering questions about magic, snitching to the local crystal ball squad, selling off his services when he has to, whatever he can make ends meet. His goal isn't fiscal.

What does your character do best? Wiley is a good warlock, but that's because he learns. Wiley is a genius at lateral thinking, taking what's at hand and spinning it to solve a problem.

What kind of quirks or mannerisms does your character have? Wiley's a randy bastard. Loves ladies; that's about the only thing that can coax him away from books for any length of time. And he's not really a gent about it, either - he's pretty blunt. But he finds that works more often than the "nice guys" thinks. Wiley also has a habit of twirling pens, sticks, whatever he picks up.

What does your character do to relax? Women. Women. Lots of pretty women (Def Leppard, sadly, doesn't exist in this world). He also loves a good baseball game, but the New Eden Grays are a bunch of bums.

How does your character feel about magic? It's the only thing he really believes in. He feels that somewhere in the study of rogue science, he'll find a way to unlock the secret of the War, and figure out what is going on.

How does your character feel about gaunts? He's had nightmares about them since he was a kid...at least, he thinks he has. He does now, anyway, and they feel familiar. He's OK with being around gaunts for a short while, but they terrify him. They're monsters, and some part of his mind tells him that we should be killing monsters.

Did your character fight overseas? Wiley remembers the war. He remembers bombs and bullets and tanks being flung through the air by magic. His own skills saved his life, but his comrades died screaming in fire. But was he studying magic before the war? He must have been, if he used magic during the war. But then where did his books go?

What is your character's greatest regret? Not saving his squad. He could have, he thinks, if he hadn't been so scared to reveal his magic. But if he had revealed it, they might have shot him anyway. He doesn't know, he just knows he screwed up, somehow.

What is your character's greatest desire? To know what he really knows. To remember his past, clearly, to know his childhood and where he really comes from. Where everyone comes from. To know what is going on.

What is in your character's family? How well does he get along with them? He knows he has a brother, but he can't remember where he lives or what his name is. He knows his mother died when he was a boy, but he can't remember where she's buried. He never really thought about these contradictions until after the War, and now he can't get them out of his head, not unless his head is in a book or between a pair of soft, smooth thighs.

Does your character have any loyalties besides himself? Only his cause. He doesn't trust anyone else, but he's willing to put his life in almost anyone's hands, if he thinks it might lead to some real answers.

Does your character have a code by which he lives? What lines will he refuse to cross? Mitch refuses to let people on his "side" die. Anyone who he considers a comrade in arms gets his full protection, even if that means magic in public. Ironically, he still assumes that his comrades in arms are working against him and will turn on him, but having already lost a squad because of inaction, he won't have any more deaths on his conscience. And besides, dying can't be worse than living in a haze like this.

Whew. OK, that's a lot of background. On to Attributes! I get 30 points to divide up.

Obviously I want a high Brains, given how good Mitch is with puzzles and lateral thinking. Guts is going to be high, too, since it's about leaps in logic and intuition. And I see Mitch with a high Moxie, since he's good with the ladytypes. Brawn and Build are going to get shafted, I think.

Brains 7
Brawn 3
Build 4
Gut 6
Moxie 6
Smoothness 4

That 8 in Gut hurts, but that's Wiley's forte.

OK, now Skills. I get 35 points to divvy up, and I can't take more than 5 in any one Skill with these points.

Well, obviously I want some magic skills. I see Mitch at being good with Kinetic and Gravity, so I'll put 5 points into each.

I think Mitch has been looking for info on the war, so I'll take Lore: The War at 3. Perception is a must; 5 points (it's used for seduction). Pick Lock is good for nosy folks (2), and Puzzles are, of course, essential for this guy (3). 26 points.

Stealth 3, Streetwise 3, Etiquette 1, Evasion 3, and Firearms 2 round me out.

Backgrounds! I get three, and I have to take Magical Aptitude in order to be a warlock. I could take it twice, or I could take it once and use my Profession to take it again (see, I have to "activate" each of my magical skills so I can actually use them for magic). I'll use two Backgrounds, because I've already got a Profession in mind. For my last Background, I take Wise. This jacks my Gut up by 2 and allows me to re-roll a single die once per session.

Profession! I get one, or I could take 10 experience, but I want the Lady-Killer Profession. I'm damned smooth with the dames. I get to ignore the effects of partial success when seducing women, and that's not a bad thing, baby.

Money and stuff! I have $140 bucks to my name, which I should use to buy equipment, but I'm not going to bother with that. Mitch has a service pistol from his military days (he thinks), he rents a crappy apartment in New Eden, and he has a collection of notes and books that he's cobbled together.

And that's about it. My Magical Aptitudes give me +2 to my magical skills, and I note that I can affect objects weighing up to 500lbs with Gravity or moving up to 60mph with Kinetics. More than enough to cause a nasty car wreck, fling a person into the air, or even deflect (but not stop) a bullet. Awesome.