Rambling For My 56th

Effin' WIZARDS, Man.

So today I've officially survived 56 orbits of our local star, which means I've been playing RPGs for over 44 years now.

Why?

Because they're fun. Because I can become someone I'm not and walk a while in their shoes. Because I enjoy building worlds and societies and finding the edges of what I know about how everything works. Because controlling fictional powers beyond the ken of mortals gives me hope.

Why did I choose choose the image of a patch for the 56th Operations Support Squad? Because Wizards. It spoke to me. And I'm sticking with it.

Today I write to find out.

Yes, I've watched the clip from this bsky post and read through the blog post talking with Paul Czege about The Ink That Bleeds. And I'm writing. So let's suspend our rationality and see where this goes.

The Alchemy of Original Thought

Can we create new ideas from whole cloth any more? We've had 50+ years of TTRPGs, and the market has mostly settled into recognizable genres and flavors, such as generic fantasy, heroic, alternate history, horror, modern, cozy, espionage, near-future (and now alternate present like Cyberpunk), gritty, interstellar, war, and far future. Is there room to fit a new genre in that spectrum? Sure. But it'll definitely show its roots. Same with systems. Are there still innovations to be made that aren't roll+modifiers beating a target, dice pools, or roll+spend? Sure. Are they really bringing new technology to the table? Possibly, but I'll need convincing.

By the same token, can we find a fresh game hidden in something archaic? Is unearthing a tired system that nobody plays anymore valuable? The OSR certainly thinks so, even though a large part of the movement focuses on making new games to fix whatever the designer doesn't like in the older game. Then again, would I play PsiWorld again, even though the system has holes and needs an edit? Absolutely.

"And the world, the world turns around.
And the world and the world, the world drags me down."
  - The Cult "She Sells Sanctuary"

"Players" Discovered Defusing Edition War Riots

July 7, 2014
SEATTLE, WA

We had several pieces ready to run this week, detailing the factions participating in the Edition War Riots in and around Seattle. As our reporters gathered more and more interviews, we noticed a curious trend. People arrived at the various camps, asking only to play. To learn a new game system. To enjoy the experience and the company of fellow gamers.

Remember Thursday?

Some of these people stopped in several different camps, asking to play a game in each one. They had no agenda, no central organization, and no name. In most cases they weren't even aware of each other.

We started calling them simply "Players."

When a Player arrived at a camp, he or she magnetically pulled the militant gamers to the nearest table to share a game. Their passion for play tapped into the passion that converted the System Faithful in the first place, and everyone focused on enjoying the game together. The more everyone played, the less important the camps became.

The Future Starts Now

Much as the title sounds cyberpunkish (Cyberpunky? Cyberial?), I'm going to write about something more steampunkish this morning.

Waaait for it...

Brand New Game Designers
I attended a senior project presentation last night. Think of it as an optional thesis for high school students. This one was on Tabletop Games. I answered a few questions for the student in question and got a totally unexpected full-page thank you in the credits. W00t!

Several interesting points came out of the research side of it. All Board Games are Tabletop Games, but not all Tabletop Games are Board Games. Flavor and mechanics should cooperate and enhance each other. Wizards of the Coast released D&D in the '70s. (I didn't have the heart to correct him - he was on a roll.) Magic: the Gathering's Minotaur Abomination is literaly two minotaurs glued together. Fantasy Tabletop Games tend to offer choices before the game starts that impact how you play the game.

Two Weekends of Games

The next two weekends will be full of games. This Saturday is International Tabletop Day, and next weekend is PAX East. I'm thrilled to pieces to be doing something for both events. I created an RPG scenario designed to run from business cards at one or both events.

International Tabletop Day
It's an excuse to reach out to fellow gamers and invite them to play something. I'm organizing an event at my church in Shrewsbury, MA. Feel free to stop by between 10 AM and 5 PM if you're in the neighborhood and want to get your game on. We'll be playing games all afternoon, so bring a game you'd like to share.

Current Gamer Contests and Blog Challenges

Is it just me, or is this February chock full of contests and challenges?

RPG Superstar at Paizo

This is the 8th year of the contest.

Yes, the open call for the 8th annual contest was back in December, but you can look through the top 16 magic items and vote on the current round if you have an account on the Paizo message boards. This Pathfinder-based contest hopes to develop new talent, and the design advice flying around the boards might help if you're stuck on designing a magic item. The winner gets to design (and get paid for) an adventure published by Paizo. It's a sweet gig for an unknown designer, and the top 4 usually end up getting some paid work. I submitted a couple of times and got some feedback, and then my editing work took off and I no longer felt the need to attempt validation in a huge cattle call.

A Disney Approach to RPG Experiences

While I was in Orlando over Thanksgiving, I scribbled some notes about how my experience at Disney might apply to running RPGs. Storylines and adventures aside, since I'm sure we already mine fairy tales for story elements, noticing the experience of a Disney theme park made me think about how we as tabletop RPG players and GMs can improve the craft of running games.

"You've got at least
10 levels of dungeon
under that thing..."

Welcoming
Every Disney cast member made sure we had a great time. It was their prime directive, above and beyond their job description, with the possible exception of the guy playing Aladdin who was a fabulous snarky bitch, which entertained me to no end. If we ever looked lost, a cast member approached from less than 10 feet away to ask if they could help. We felt safe and well cared for the entire time. It felt like coming home to a place I'd never been before.

How can we invite more players to our tables beyond simply using "Yes, and..." when dealing with players outside of the game session?

Immediate Feedback
A group of teens ducked under the chain and cut us off in line. A cast member immediately held them back and let us and another family past them, explaining that the chains were there for a reason. You can't get away with much at Disney. There are rules for the good of all, rigorously enforced.

How can we encourage the behaviors we want at the table and discourage behavior that makes others uncomfortable? Is an explicit social contract discussion enough, or do you need a way to safely communicate your discomfort during play (an X Card or safeword)?

"One ringy-dingy..."

Communication
Between the wait times clearly posted at every ride or event, to the mobile app also listing the wait times, to the quick answers to any question, to the frequent announcements whenever there was any problem with the ride, I can't think of a single improvement to Disney's communications. At times we suffered from an overabundance of information, especially the often-repeated announcements during the very few times when a ride stopped temporarily.

Since miscommunication causes frustration, how can we communicate with each other more effectively, both as players and GMs?

Efficiency
For every ride with a wait time posted, we always ended up waiting for less time than posted. Cast members made sure that people churned through the ride at a blinding pace, fixing problems and smoothing out the traffic flow. When buying food, a cast member acted as traffic cop to make sure we got into the shortest line. Longer lines for rides had mini-games and distractions set up so the wait rarely felt like simply waiting. The design of the rides and the cast members removed distractions and allowed us to focus on the star: the ride itself.

How can we limit the distractions of the rules and the outside world to focus everyone's attention on the game? And how can we do this consistently?

"Good grouping."
Found at despair.com.

Consistency of Experience
The whole attraction of Disney rests on everyone having the exact same experience on each ride every time. You can say "I rode the Buzz Lightyear ride at Disney," and everyone who has ever ridden will be right there in the seat beside you as you describe your experience.

RPGs have a hard time with this by design, since they're predicated on letting everyone at the table control the story and the action. Running the exact same scenario at a con for different groups of people will produce wildly varied outcomes. Some think that more specific rules will help enforce consistency, but we can't mandate how a person reacts to the rules in play. Some people may get fed up with the rules and look for a lighter game to play. People play RPGs for different reasons and find different areas that they call "fun".

Should we even try to reconcile this behavior in a quest for more "consistent fun" in our RPGs? Or would that undermine the Tabletop RPG experience, turning it into more of a closed-world computerized RPG?

Sadly, most ride scents were this...

Immersion
Most Disney rides already engage vision and hearing. Disney makes sure they engage touch, like the dark waterfall in Pirates of the Caribbean, and many times smell. I got sprayed or smelled something about half the time when riding. It helped with immersion into the world of the ride, but at times I found the smell aspect annoying.

What tricks and props do you use to control your game space environment when you go for immersion?

Options
Disney provides so many things to do, that there's no way to get through them all in one trip. Some rides are popular, so you have the option of FastPass, which gives you a time window to come back later in the day for priority treatment rather than spending the whole day in line. RPGs have the edge here, since an RPG world can cater to every whim, but a theme park is limited to offering rides, food, and shows.

Were there times in your RPG play experience when you wished you had more options, even something like a fast-forward button to end a combat that the PCs have clearly won? What could you have said or done to make those options available?

Found at Genetic Anomaly.

RPGs and Communication

Tabletop RPGs have person-to-person communication baked into the premise. Can you imagine an RPG where you're not allowed to talk while describing a character's actions? (The caveman LARP comes to mind, actually...)

So why do we have such a hard time communicating about play instead of as part of play?

I hope this post sparks discussion around your game table and improves your RPG experience. These ideas can't make an adventure not suck, but hopefully your overall experience improves.

Thanks for reading!

Communities Rock

So I hang out with The Gamer Assembly online; wander into the webchat and introduce yourself, if you like. Earlier this week we heard that the licensing agreement fell through and that Margaret Weis Productions would discontinue Marvel Heroic Roleplaying as of the end of April (but follow the link to purchase print copies of the Basic Game from Amazon). Sad, but that's the way business runs. Related: I'm really looking forward to the Cortex Plus Hacker's Guide.

The next thing you know, we're in the chat talking about what Marvel heroes each of us would be. Natalya started grabbing pictures and mashing them together, then took those images and mashed up a wallpaper image. In the span of only a few days, we have this little slice of awesomeness:

Gamers, Assemble!
Image heavy lifting and assembly by Natalya Waye. Thanks, Natalya!

Dr. Strange? I'll take that gladly, thankyouverymuch.

Two things of note here:
1) I am astounded at the speed of online community rivaling the speed of thought itself. Ever since the Winter Is Coming blogfest went from idle chatter to advertised event in about an hour in September 2011, this speed shouldn't surprise me. And yet, here I sit, groping my cubicle floor in a vain attempt to find my jaw.

2) I have never met about a third of the people pictured in meatspace, but this image crystallized in my mind that we share a community. Period. Full stop. "Online" modifier label be damned. This is my tribe, one of many to which I belong. We don't always agree, but we continually decide to keep putting effort into the relationship, to understand what lies outside the realm of our personal experiences because we matter to each other.

We're more than avatars and username headers tied to bits of text scrolling by on a screen. People come up with all those bits of text and every idea you read, and people choose to shape ideas into words and share them. Why? The ideas mean something; they're important on some level to the person giving them form.

We can all use an occasional reminder that we're all people, whether the words you read make you angry or happy or sad or whatever. A person sits on the other end of the conversation whether you agree with them or not, and maybe their life experiences have been very different from yours.

Minor edit: we're all people until Skynet builds the Turing Horde and corrupts humanity through social media. But hopefully that day is a ways off yet. I'm not touching AI rights and the rewrite of the Constitution that would require.

Back on point: I think communities rock. What about you?

On Depth and Breadth and Social Media Broadcasting

WARNING: This post contains strong navelgazing and is only tangentially related to gaming. Discretion is advised. You have been warned.
UNRELATED: Happy Pi Day!

Dear reader,

I apologize for giving you less than my full attention. I let myself get distracted by the shiny spewing from the internet firehose. In concentration and communication I am woefully out of practice. I'm an editor who needs to turn a critical eye to my own choices and frivolities.

Let's start that process.

In my youth, I switched elementary schools every other year and spent the summers travelling with my grandparents. I was the perennial new kid, and I tended to be academically ahead of my grade level. These circumstances predisposed me toward social breadth rather than depth. I didn't really have deep friendships until high school, after I decided to live in one place for the entire year.

I've been involved in theater since 1981, the same year I picked up the Moldvay D&D Basic Box. Improv exercises and RPGs have gone hand-in-hand for my entire gaming career. To become a better improviser, I've leaned more toward breadth than depth in academic pursuits. In college, I started as a Physics major because I wanted to study everything, but then the math got complex and too non-intuitive for me to grok. I ended up with a degree in what I spent all my time doing: Theater.

Welcome home.

There's a certain amount of omniology that springs from studying the theater, and I did every job I could. I started as an actor, then took on playwrighting, directing, stage managing, producing, advertising, program design and layout, printing t-shirts and other promotional materials, set design, master carpenter, house managing, lighting design, running crew, and dramaturgy. No matter what job I did, I needed to understand the story of the play and how to present it in the most effective way possible.

I didn't get pigeonholed into a specific role in the theater, nor even a specific side of the curtain. I could do any job and do it fairly well. Again, I flitted between the actor and techie social circles. I've played kings and clergy and villains and boyfriends, but I never quite had the depth for a real romantic lead. A part of that realization hurt, but it made sense to me intellectually.

I acted as a social bridge. I could understand what several diverse groups wanted and at least bring them to the same table if I couldn't forge a compromise with my insight into both sides. I could speak several social languages, even if I struggled with high school-level French. I still think of my D&Dified self as a neutral good half-elven bard, firmly wedged between almost every extreme you can think of, building worlds and communities for myself because nothing else quite fits.

"Seek a life useful."
Which is not this.

Now social media is a major method of social interaction. I still have the drive to connect with diverse groups, but that leads directly to stream glut. I can't keep up with all of it. I drowned in Twitter, so I moved my focus to Google Plus. Now I'm running into the same problem there from my poor circle management skills. I have almost 1400 people in my "Gamers" circle, and I just added a few more this morning. I post almost everything to every circle I have, if not Public. I feel like I have precious little time to give to diving into the depths of social interaction, and I feel like I'm missing the point of social media.

I'm broadcasting. I'm disregarding the potential for deeper connections and conversations for perceived lack of time, and I'm treating social media like TV: broadcasting into the void and hoping the message gets through. Sure, I try to follow up to comments, but I think that's the barest of minimums for social engagement.

All this breadth is starting to impact me negatively. I'm doing what's in front of me because I gave up trying to plan anything for fear of those plans falling apart. I was lucky to get 4.5 hours of sleep last night, between working, editing, coordinating buildings & grounds at my church, making time to play games, and spending time with my wife and daughter. I want to do all of these things, but I need to start making decisions about the price I'm willing to pay to juggle all of these priorities. And right now it's coming out of my health, which can't last for much longer.

I'm teaching my daughter to play chess, but I feel like I don't have the depth to concentrate on the game. Right now I'm in a crappy position and down a Knight. My daughter isn't even 7 yet and if she manages to plan ahead at all I might lose our third game. I played my father to a draw at age 10 and haven't really played since, but it still hits me square in the pride.

Earlier this week I tried meditating for 10 minutes and ended up straining my back. There's my wake-up call, I think. Maybe I'll answer it this time.

PAX East is next week. I don't want to go into PAX this year with the attention span of a rabid weasel on crack. Again. I want to have deeper conversations. I want to be more comfortable and more open, not moving on like a shark and trying to "trade up", whatever that means. I don't want to run away from awesome opportunities to get to know people like the new kid in school did. If you run into me, sit me down for a few minutes and let's talk.

I don't know if I'll become a better social citizen anytime soon, but typing it out helps.

Wish me luck.

All the best,
-T.W.Wombat

Non-Sequiturs, Inspiration, and Blowing Off Steam

So I had a non-sequitur tweet-off earlier this evening with the inimitable Tracy Barnett, the driving force behind Sand & Steam Productions. It's been a long day and I needed something to jar my mind out of the rut it had been in all day. Apparently all it takes is one simple statement and the will to continue, and suddenly you get something like this...

• @TheOtherTracy: All I feel like doing right now is tweeting non-sequiturs.
• @twwombat: Lemon Lemurs?
• @TheOtherTracy: Biscuit disco.
• @twwombat: Mother Pheasant Plucker.
• @TheOtherTracy: Chain-link gazebo.
• @twwombat: Aquarium Mousetrap.
• @twwombat: Though I think we may be straying into band name territory.
• @TheOtherTracy: Mousse-based dental work.
• @twwombat: Handcart congregationalism.
• @TheOtherTracy: Band name is the name of my previous left shoe.
• @twwombat: ...in the whisky shower.
• @TheOtherTracy: Logical bean trails.
• @twwombat: "Bucky" Bradbury, western futurist.
• @TheOtherTracy: Leftover band-aid gravy.
• @twwombat: We Are The Hamlet's Father's Ghost In The Machine
• @TheOtherTracy: Blanche the grapes until the supine threshold has been reached.
• @twwombat: Subluxate the metatarsals, submerged in Napalmolive.
• @TheOtherTracy: To be, or slap someone on the wrists for yodeling.
• @twwombat: Having the consistency of bran.
• @TheOtherTracy: Blank stares into the vorpal netherdrome.
• @twwombat: Folded left-handed Huxleyism.
• @TheOtherTracy: Lacking the Proust of our yestergenerations.
• @twwombat: Pulling cotton candy from the tentacled maw.
• @TheOtherTracy: Zebra-striped blazing adjectives with buttery steeliness.
• @twwombat: Doing the tonsil cha-cha with garlic-stuffed olives.
• @TheOtherTracy: I think you win. I'm sequitur'ed out. Well done! =)
• @twwombat: Awesome! I was about to concede so I can get my daughter bathed.
• @TheOtherTracy: This slice of non-sequitur theater is brought to you by #SchoolDaze. Pick up your copy here!
• @twwombat: And definitely well-played, sir!
• @TheOtherTracy: Thanks!
• @twwombat: Thank =you=! I needed something silly after this frustrating day.

Buy this from Tracy.
Seriously.

One statement fed into another as tangents grew tangents, and the ridiculousness kept making me laugh. Now our exchange is preserved for posterity, as if this little bit of fluff needs a solid remembrance. Yes, I took editorial liberty with the order of things, but at least there are no issues with changing the order of a stream of non-sequiturs like this.

Now let's take it one step further.

READER CHALLENGE: Pick one thing (word, concept, syllabic cadence, anything really) from this unrelated pile of absurdity and turn it into a game element, whether for Paranoia, Gamma World, School Daze, Call of Cthulhu, or whatever your fevered brain can think up. Post it somewhere and let me know about it in the comments.

Inspiration can come from anywhere if you let it. Even otherwise frivolous interactions like this. Now go shake your idea tree and let fall what may.

Games as Social Space

Yesterday someone asked about an online resource for comparing and contrasting every edition of D&D and retroclones. And I thought, "That could be useful." And I thought that I could probably take a stab at it, using a Consumer Reports-like grid to indicate the existence of classes and skills and level limits for non-humans and THAC0 and positive or negative ACs.

And my mind started to spin in the peculiar way that it does when the game design engineer in my head gets ramped up to pick out the nuts and bolts of rules and fiddly bits. The endorphins get released and I can see the shining PDF completed and available for download, and I forget the pile of work that it will take to get the idea to that point. I can feel myself slipping down the slope of losing myself to the idea, of blissful hours debating with myself about including non-weapon proficiencies or not, of fiddling with the rules and deciding what's important.

And I reread that last phrase: "Fiddling with the rules and deciding what's important."

In that moment, I heard this Ze Frank acceptance speech echo through my head (after the dick joke):

We're gamers. We play games wherever we can: in basements, around the kitchen table, at conventions, in a sterile conference room at work, in game rooms and dining rooms and living rooms and bedrooms, even on a roof in the rain. We play to feel better about ourselves and to create stories we want to tell ourselves for years to come. We game to create memories and share them with others, and the places we choose to game become so much window dressing. The friends and the memories are the core of the experience; where it happens fades into the background as merely setting and embellishment.

And what is a game other than a mutually-agreed-upon space in which to create those memories? We could stage a play, or form a knitting circle, or play team sports, or square dance, or a million other activities where people come together and do something, but we choose to play games. We could debate the rules and analyze the hell out of everything we do, but that's the equivalent of sitting there and talking about what color the walls should be at a square dance. It's debating about the space and not the activity, which is why we get together. Sure, it's useful in its own way, but we're missing the big point because we're not dancing.

From a gaming standpoint, the rules make the structure of the space we game in. So if we want a gothic stone cathedral with flying buttresses (WoD or Warhammer) or the ruins of a toy store filled with shape-changing dolls (Gamma World) or a shadowy house with something living in the basement (Call of Cthulhu) or a flophouse just off a rainy street bathed in neon light (Cyberpunk) or an intricately-worked manor house overlooking a dungeon entrance (D&D), we can decide to use or customize or build that structure and play in it.

So sure, I could dust off my Rules Lawyer Hat and debate the merits of a manor house vs. a toy store, or the effectiveness of rule X vs. rule Y, both of which will get me engaged but not in an altogether positive way. And I like to think I'm not a total dick, even when I act like one. And I may work on the field guide to D&D editions, but I thought I'd stop and follow my thoughts for a minute.

What's important? Spending time with friends and stengthening the bonds between us by sharing experiences. Finding new friends through the medium of gaming. Smiling and laughing and emotionally investing in the present moment. Being a social creature with people who share some of my interests. Feeling like I'm expanding my tribe.

These things are important to me, more so than the subjective "correctness" of the rules. To me, it's more important to play than be right.

So let's play.

Vote Wombat for Site of the Year!

It's Wednesday, 18 April 2012. For 24 hours starting at 6AM Eastern Time, you can vote in Day 3 of the 2012 Stuffer Shack RPG Site of the Year contest. The winner of the reader voting each day becomes one of the five finalists to be judged and awarded a pile of prizes.

As a bonus, today I'm also publishing a Schrödinger's Gun GMing article entitled The MacGyver Theory. Please take a read and enjoy.

Click to vote. And thank you!

I'd appreciate your vote, but I'd appreciate you voting and being a part of the selection process even more. It's a great exercise in community building, and that's one of the reasons I started blogging in the first place. So take a look at all of the sites nominated today and the rest of the week. There are some great blogs out there, and well worth reading.

To take a look at the sites up for voting in today's block, you can click the image above or use this link:
http://stuffershack.com/reader-voting-group-3-of-5-for-the-2012-rpg-soty/

Here's the great group of blogs to choose from in today's voting:
G*M*S MAGAZINE
THE ARTIFACT RPG
SHAPER AND MAKER
TROLL IN THE CORNER
THE BLACK CAMPBELL
THE PLAYER’S SIDE OF THE SCREEN
WOMBAT’S GAMING DEN OF INIQUITY

Please take a peek at them all and cast your vote. Thanks for taking a look and getting involved!

4e as Lame Duck

Wizards announced D&D Next about a month and a half ago now, back on Monday 09 January 2012. The Gamer Assembly has been keeping track of some of the reactions throughout the blogosphere. The fever has kicked up a notch with the various invitation-only playtests out there.

And 4e content on blogs dries up like Serengeti lakes under a summer sun.

This happened with the 3.5-to-4e transition as well, but it feels more pronounced this time. Maybe all the companies hooked to the 3.5 OGL refused to let that edition go since they had so much in the pipeline. Maybe it's much more pronounced to me since I've been curating the Weekly Assembly and actively gathering gaming links. Maybe it's the "I'd much rather write about stuff under NDA so I'm not interested in writing about 4e" attitude for those who have participated in the D&D Next playtest.

In any case, 4e feels like the lame duck of the gaming world. Because it is. People wait for the Next big thing with bated breath and a lull settles over the gaming world.

Maybe that's not so bad. Wizards admitted they messed up with many aspects of 4e. There are a few revisions within 4e if you count Essentials and the new monster math that came out with Monster Manual 3, and each have their advocates. From what I've heard from friends more connected than I and from the Legends and Lore column on the Wizards site, I think they're trying to address these issues, and they're doing it in a much more public and fan-accessible way.

I had a post in my head all lined up about how Next needs to streamline and pare down to a real startup mentality, where Discovery and Creation rule the day and to the Abyss with the baggage of past editions. I may still write that up and argue for Wizards getting investors and startup capital to free themselves from the corporate mindset of Hasbro. But that's a fight for a different day.

I'd rather say this: 4e is still out there. People still play it, or Gamma World, and Gamer Assembly is working on a 4e Modern hack. 4e does some things absolutely right, and it missed the boat on other things. It's different, but that's OK.

The point is, 4e is still here and that's not going to change. We can't unmake an edition no matter how hard some people wish for it. The gaming industry landscape has a new shape because of 4e's influence. Let's examine where we are and figure out which edges of the map haven't been explored yet.

Above all, keep writing. Keep dreaming new things up. Keep communicating. Industries are built on communication, doubly so with tabletop RPGs.

It'll be a while before the Next open playtest comes out. Let's not kill the conversation as we lock ourselves in our rooms to wait for it, OK?

Thanks for reading!

A Comfortable Hiatus

"Hi! My name is Wombat, and it's been thirty days since my last blog entry."

"Hi, Wombat!"

I disappeared for a month without telling anyone. There were holidays to celebrate and work to crank out and songs to sing and games to play and the battle against dirt and vermin that never seems to end. In a way, it felt great to walk away from the self-imposed pressure of maintaining a blog, but I miss developing my game-related thoughts into something moderately useful, at least useful to myself. So I'm back, and gods help the guilty. Or something like that.

In some ways I never left; I just changed venues. I've been putting some effort into The Gamer Assembly, mainly by curating the Weekly Assembly RPG link roundup. It's fun to scour the blogosphere and collect really cool content that came out in the past week. It shows me that the community remains vibrant, intelligent, and still willing to share with each other. The D&D Next hubbub and all the blog activity it inspires is still happening, but with DDXP happening this weekend, we may be able to get some more hints about it into the community at large despite NDAs flying thick and furious.

We're working on a post-apocalyptic setting at The Gamer Assembly called 3 Generations After The End, or 3GATE for short. It's designed to be system-agnostic, but we're including stats for 5 systems (D&D 4e, Gamma World, Savage Worlds, FATE, and Apocalypse World). We're still publishing bits which may spill over into February, and at this point I'm still developing Greybar City, with apologies to Dunk for wholeheartedly stealing the name. It's got some neat bits, and we hope some GMs will lift parts of it and let us know how they worked. As always, feel free to drop by the chat room and say hi. I'm lurking up there most weekdays.

I'm planning another blogfest for President's week called Campaign Season. That doesn't have quite the punch and unrelated marketing hype that Winter Is Coming does, but then again winter isn't the time for war unless you're a frost giant. Start thinking of your military and war-themed RPG articles and I'll get a signup page going in the next couple of weeks so we can start getting organized.

As for content here at the Gaming Den of Iniquity, we've got a few things on the docket.

1. A review of Thunderstone coming up on Tuesday for Game Night. This will be my first game review for which I received a complimentary copy of the game, a trend that I hope will continue.
2. Finish Schrödinger's Gun GMing. I'm planning for another 4 articles, though that may expand as I get deeper into it. I wasn't expecting The 3 Types of Loot to take off as much as it did, so I think I'm on the right path. I need to finish this. It's a first draft and then I'll collate the bits into a PDF with much editing, and hopefully it'll be well-received. But first: finish the blessed thing.
3. Finish the Traveller Adventure Arc. I want this done for me - maybe it'll be another collected PDF project.
4. An obligatory D&D Next post. Don't know if it'll be a wishlist or an observational post, but there's more than enough fodder out there to blog about for years to come.
5. Other things as they strike my fancy. I don't want to make a schedule - that's not really my style. I want to post at least one thing per week. I want the freedom to react to things as they come up without feeling guilty and reworking a set schedule. This is my space to blather on, and I intend to do just that. Hopefully you'll find my blathering interesting enough to not wish for those few minutes back.

I'm also looking for editing gigs. If you're writing an RPG ruleset or supplement, please drop me a line here or on Twitter and I'll be glad to talk over your project and figure out how we can work together to make your final product the best it can be.

Thanks for reading!

On Perspective and Context

Earlier this week, I flew from Boston to Pittsburgh. I don't know why this flight was different, but I couldn't stop staring at the terrain far below, seeing the imposed order of tiny houses and roads cut out of hilly terrain covered with forest. I saw a wind farm dotted across a hill, each turbine spinning in its achingly slow circle. It made me think about how the concept of "neighbors" had a very different meaning when moving from staring out a window in your house to staring out a window in an airplane.

Different ideas are useful in different contexts. Groupings move from people to neighborhoods to towns to counties to states to countries, each with different concerns and needs. Even language adapts based on the breadth of data being considered. "Local" can mean a ten minute walk, or an hour drive, or two hours in a plane, or even the solar system if you're thinking interstellar travel.

I think our perception of language causes miscommunication. We each have different experiences and perspectives, and that colors what we mean when we use a specific word. Different assumptions cause different meanings. "Community" could mean everyone who has ever played a particular game, or all people at a convention, or the usual suspects at a game store, or your gaming group. Each meaning makes sense. We need to be sure that we're talking about the same thing, or we need to invent language that communicates the particular shade of a concept we mean.

We all start from our own perspective, but where we go from there depends entirely on us. Do we want to close out the world and exist in a bubble all our own? Do we steal concepts from the anonymous well of the Internet and fear the retribution given to Prometheus? Do we dive into online conversations, brash and self-assured, coming to loggerheads with anyone with a differing opinion? Do we listen politely and try to encourage others to do the same? Do we try to understand other points of view and incorporate that perspective into our games and lives?

Can we really afford to fabricate edition-based holy wars for our own amusement? Are we really that bored?

I challenge you to think in a perspective that is not your own, and see what happens. Orcs do not understand power in the same way as humans who aspire to join the aristocracy. Elves and Kobolds have different understandings of "a long time". Dwarves and Merfolk both know exactly what "deep" means. A cleric and a rogue will have very different meanings for "good deeds". A con man and a God of Trickery have very different timeframes for their long cons. And we as gamers have vastly differing perspectives on what "normal" means.

And every last one of those perceptions is absolutely correct.

Laugh, Dammit!

When did we gamers get so serious? It feels like we can't roll a d6 without running into an argument or misunderstanding out here in the wilds of the Internet. Granted, part of that is a function of the Internet, where all the bridges have gone virtual, so trolls are free to roam and stir up trouble. I'm not saying we don't deal with serious social topics from time to time, but not every topic should be treated so seriously.

The hobby is called "gaming". That seems to imply that we play games. And games should be a pleasant diversion undertaken by choice for the express purpose of having fun. So where did all the virtual dead bodies come from? And why do so many gamers say things like "You can take my 3.5 rules from me when you pry the rulebooks from my cold, dead fingers." I mean seriously.

It's a game. It's supposed to be fun on some level.

If your table is anything like mine, you hear four categories of table talk:

1. In-character interactions.
2. Rules questions and results of rolls.
3. Raunchy jokes.
4. Monty Python quotes.

Half the talk at my table makes people laugh, more than that if you count over-the-top fumbles and criticals. We accomplish in-game goals and we move the game forward, but we don't forget that we're there to have fun. As I've always said, "If it ain't fun, it ain't worth it."

I think part of this goes back to a question I've been thinking of lately. "Which came first, the gaming group or the friends?" Many people who play online or in con settings pick up the dice with complete strangers at the table. The group hasn't built a common vocabulary nor shared experiences, and in a con setting the players probably won't be gaming together on a regular basis. This makes joking at the table a risky proposition. It's possible, it's just harder to pull off effectively since people have come to the table primarily to game.

Most of my gaming experiences have been with already-established friends. We have shared experiences that we can tap and expand on in the game. And yes, joking with each other has already been established. We know each other's limits for what's acceptable and we've hammered out a social contract the overrides the game's contract.

For the level of fun and joking I enjoy at the table, I would probably be escorted to the door if I showed up to a con game laughing my butt off. That's not to say I won't interject some awful puns during play, and who doesn't like a good Python quote when it's appropriate?

In talking online, I try to maintain the same stance. I assume things should be funny. I rarely assume what someone said was designed to cause pain. I believe people are generally good, so I give the benefit of the doubt when I can. I'm not without my hot button topics, but I try to let the majority of what's said roll off my back.

You've got the choice to do the same in your online interactions. You can take everything that's said as a personal attack or malicious misinterpretation, or you can take one breath and read it again with a different voice. Try to listen for the point the author was going for past the actual words on the page, and mention the possible misinterpretations of what's written as an aside to your calm and well-reasoned response.

Years ago in the dark days before Twitter, we had an email list where we'd post cool things to a select group of friends. It's name had over 50 characters, and we all agreed to never set up an alias for it. We wanted to self-police our thoughts, so we imposed this criteria: if it's cool enough to expend the effort to type in the list name, it's cool enough to share. I miss that. That's also why I type in "Thanks!" at the end of all my email - that's not a signature file; I want to thank you for your time in reading what I'm emailing to you.

Don't we have enough problems without inventing a new holy war based around which edition of rules you like best? If you want a deadly serious game, go figure out how to feed and care for refugees in the middle of a guerilla war. But first let's stop fighting with ourselves over how many dice of damage a fireball does so we can tackle the world's truly serious problems.

Laugh, people. It's a game.

On Meetups and Community

I'll be 42 this year. And you may ask, "Wombat, isn't meeting people through IRC and organizing meetups more of a college-age activity?" To which I would respectfully disagree.

The Boston IRCUp
The IRCUp started out of my selfish desire to put faces to usernames. I find I'm a visual person, and the lack of consistency between Twitter and IRC names sometimes drives me a little batty. If I can meet someone in the flesh and get a sense of a person, that's a much stronger foundation for me to build on than an ephemeral username. So very many cool gamers hang out on the At-Will Web Chat talking about game design and holding brainstorming sessions about their games, and a fair number of them live in the Boston area. So why not get together?

I gathered email addresses and we organized. I knew @gamefiend couldn't make it since he's a new dad, but @sarahdarkmagic, @mmaranda, @BrianLiberge, and I all came out for dinner at Tavern in the Square in Central this past Tuesday. One of our number who shall remain nameless had to work a bit late, but the rest of us met around 5. And suddenly it was 9:30.

We talked gaming and war stories and the online rumor mill and game design and podcasting and what's happening in our games and the gaming community and conventions and we finally all saw the Cirque de Soleil guy throw out the first pitch on SportsCenter and our favorite settings and we loved the idea of a 4-armed minotaur paladin named Mugar ascending to become the god of healing. It was one of those times where everyone was so familiar that it felt like we had met again after a hiatus rather than gathering together for the first time.

We're going to do this again, probably in the August timeframe. If you're in the Boston area and interested in meeting other gaming types, drop a comment or email me at jim (at) twwombat (dot) com so I can put you on the list.

On Community
This is the way communities gather. This is how communities grow. Boots on the ground. A handshake. A shared meal. Paying attention to each other. You can make grand designs about sites and hierarchies and how you think a community should work. But in the end there's no crap about joining a club or getting a login.

Meet people. Talk with them. Hang out. Play. Have fun. Understanding each other begins here. Even if you only have stories that you consider mundane, they're completely new to other people. Share them. Everyone has had different experiences, and in sharing your experiences you strengthen everyone who hears you. If knowledge is power, sharing is a strength buff that never wears off.

The Gaming Community isn't just a community of people, it's a community of games, of gaming groups, of tiny communities who only know each other. There may be no way to unite everyone under a single banner - the nitpicky edition wars is proof enough of that. But to me, meeting people in the flesh will always be worth the effort. This is the way social circles grow to embrace the world. This is the way war ends.

Who do you look forward to meeting?

Old Technology (IRC) for Recent Games (D&D 4e)

After years and years away, I'm back into IRC in a very limited capacity. And it's all @gamefiend's fault. He wanted to have discussions about D&D 4e in a depth that Twitter just couldn't handle conveniently. So he installed an IRC server and invited gamer folk to come on and hang out.

IRC and Me: Ancient History

Back in the day, I used IRC for chatting with people halfway around the world, and I got hooked on it for a while. Yes, I flirted madly. Yes, I started a long-distance and short-lived relationship over IRC. In general it gave me social fluffiness and a place to blow off steam or to go pretend. And yes, I used to fire it up on a DECTerm in the brand-new computer center at WPI, or on my VT-220 over a 28.8 modem. Don't laugh; it worked.

I thought of IRC as a faster form of communication and a more interactive flavor of email, nothing more. And then I had my "Aha!" moment. I remember sometime in 1990 or '91 during the First Gulf War, someone had set up a channel for updates on the war. Iraq had sent missiles into Israel and my friends and I got a little nervous about the possibility of a draft in the US, so people from all over hopped on to talk about what was happening half a world away. And then someone casually mentioned that he may have to drop because the air raid sirens were going off right now and he had to grab his gas mask and go into his plastic-sealed room until the all clear sounded. I think he typed, "BRB - air raid. Can't type in my gas mask." He was on from Israel to talk about the war. We buried him with questions and got a decent feel for how he perceived the conflict - apparently air raids were no big deal since most of them were false alarms.

And then it hit me. Someone in the middle of a war zone in the middle of a missile attack could talk instantly with over 300 people scattered across the world. Here's a guy who was actually living what I saw on the news and filed away under, "That's terrible, but it's not really real because anything on TV isn't really real." And I could talk to this guy and get to know him and feel for him - not so much for the Israeli people, but I could I feel for him because I knew him, at least online.

The war suddenly became very personal and it slammed into my brain in that instant of realization. This power to communicate across the planet made the world incredibly tiny, and gave those with enough curiousity the power to circumvent media pre-digestion and get the raw experience from the perspective of someone on the ground. That's power, and that's what the Internet meant to me from that moment on.

I doubt we'll see anything quite so earth-shaking in a game chat channel, but the ability to live vicariously through someone at an event you can't attend is still pretty heady stuff. Live GenCon updates, anyone? *grin*

And Now, 4e At-Will's Web Chat!
@gamefiend opened the chat room up on Wednesday, 18 May 2011 sometime in the late morning - a little over 4 weeks ago. In that time, we've gathered a core group of a couple dozen solid regulars to keep the discussion blissfully troll-minimal, and we've had visits from Wizards of the Coast folks (Hi, @Trevor_WotC!). The Internet makes us a global village - we've got gamers from Ecuador, England, South Africa, and Germany chatting in there every day. We've recently set up a free-form roleplaying area for people wanting to come up with a character and hang out in the Nentir Vale.

One great benefit for me has been asking questions about potentially breaking into the industry as a freelancer. Thanks for talking about your Lost City experience, @SarahDarkmagic! Communicating directly with freelancers, designers, and game publishers has taught me so much about the gaming industry in a very short time. We've had rules discussions, game design discussions, and talks about business decisions. Speaking of which, if you haven't seen @thedandmom's art, go look at it now and then order a commission from her. Thank me later.

And the chat will only gain momentum from here.

We're having a special guest on Monday, June 13 at 9PM Eastern: Steve Winter from Wizards of the Coast. He's the current editor-in-chief of Dungeon and Dragon magazines. He's been involved with RPGs since the early days, since he's listed as a creator of the Marvel Super Heroes system. He served as the editor for Gangbusters and Star Frontiers, and he used to run the Car Wars "Lake Geneva Death Rally" games at Gen Con.

We'll be having a moderated chat with him - send questions to the moderator and they'll be batched up and asked as the chat progresses. It's a great opportunity to get some D&D questions answered direct from a long-time gamer who just happens to be a highly-placed source inside Wizards.

I'm sold. How do I connect to the chat?
If you want to join for the moderated chat or just hang out and see how others play their D&D games, you can point a browser to the web chat page at http://at-will.omnivangelist.net/at-will-webchat. Or if you prefer a more flexible web-based IRC client, you can use mibbit at http://www.mibbit.com, or you can dust off your local IRC client. You want to connect to server 4eatwill.net, channel #4eDnD.

In the end, it's about building community. We gather ourselves, unlimited by geography and improve the hobby one game, one idea, one answer, one person at a time. We collaborate and create. We talk and imaginary reality pours out of us, spun off as blog posts or published products or adventures five times cooler than ones we could make by ourselves. I'm hooked.

Hope to see you there!