I Want to Play This Game and Never Stop

This eagle is stunned by all the awesome

Like them or not, Muse has an awesome song called Knights of Cydonia, with an equally awesome video that you need to go watch right now. Go. Okay, back with us? Awesome, right? Yes, I know this is old news, just humor me here. I first got hip to this song through Guitar Hero III, and then to this hysterically campy video through some casual YouTube surfing. I watched, mouth agape, and in the silence I looked around at Jacko and Munin and Riff and Shade and everybody else and said, "We need to play this game, right now!" I do that a lot. I'll see some crazy thing like the Knights of Cydonia video or get really into a book (or series) and decide that I need to do some role-playing in that setting. So, let's talk about great and/or hilarious settings we want to play in, shall we?

Something New!

Hey look! My latest book, Edge of the Abyss is now on sale. Get your ass to your FLGS or to your favorite online retailer, and lay your money down for this newest addition to the Rogue Trader library. It's chock-a-block with setting info, NPCs, planets, crazy people, and it has more hooks than a fishing trawler.

Still Not Dead

It's true, I'm still not Dead. I've been quiet lately thanks to dadding, a sort of creative malaise, and plain writerly laziness. I recently finished up another big ass project for FFG, and now I'm casting about for other paying projects. Right now, though, I'm starting pre-production on my Cold War super hero/super spy setting AEGIS vs. SPIDER. I'm looking to put together maybe a fifty page PDF covering the setting including the main agencies (AEGIS and SPIDER) and other affiliated agencies, important NPCs, player and GM guidance, and a bunch of other stuff that I think you'll think is neat. We'll see though. The inestimable Jason Richards has offered to help me with layout, since he's got some experience and I know dick about layout/design. We'll see how it goes. Right now I need to digest a bunch of OSS/CIA and Imperial Russian/Soviet intelligence history and set to work. Updates may be sporadic. No more sporadic than they've been, though.

Gilding the Lily

You have got to be shitting me...

So, I've got this thing where I see wonder in relatively ordinary things. When you look around, you can find a lot to be amazed at in your surroundings. Little things like the fact that this computer I'm working on has more computing power than was used to put a man on the moon or build this beautiful thing, and big things like, well, the fact that we put a man on the goddamn moon. I've said it before, but if you look at something hard enough you can always find something about it that's fascinating. I find more beauty in the gaunt symmetry of a turbofan engine, and more terror in the simple thoughtless, workaday evils that we perpetrate on one another, than in a million horror movies or sci-fi epics. What drives me crazy is the tendency some writers and game designers have of embellishing something that is already perfectly awesome and, well, ruining it frankly.

Two Great Tastes that Taste Great Together

What the hell is this? Awesome, that's what.

So, today's post isn't going to be very long or insightful, 'cause I've got Rogues and Traders to write about. I've got something on my mind though, and that's the time-honored tradition of the mash-up.

Class Warfare or Why I Hate Class/Level Systems

Pass me a fresh character sheet.

I guess I don't really hate class/level systems per se, I just feel like I've, I don't know, outgrown them. See, it seems the older I get, the more inclined I am toward more open ended, customizable gaming experiences. More specifically, what I like is to be able to build characters that meet my character concept without being limited by another game designer's ideas as to what makes a character. I dislike being told what skills or abilities I can or cannot take just because someone thinks that a fighter/warrior/soldier/whatever should have to pay extra for the ability to, say, read.

The Old Ways are the Best Ways

Look at 'dat dragon...

Yes, another two weeks without a post. Yes I know. I know it's bullshit. Even more so that the last time I went on an unannounced two-week hiatus. Anyway, to give you a quick recap, since I got back from GenCon things have been pretty busy here at The Shop. I've had a flurry of rewrites for both Deathwatch and Rogue Trader, another Rogue Trader assignment that I'm not at liberty to discuss, and a bunch of other personal stuff. All of that combined reduced my desire and ability to make post, or even be online at all except in a bidness capacity. But now I'm back, I'm back and I want to talk about the evolution of RPGs through their different editions.

Let's Go To Work!

Meet our new art director...

Journeyman

jour·ney·man   

[jur-nee-muhn]

–noun, plural -men.

In modern apprenticeship systems, a journeyman is a man who has a tradesman certificate that required completion of an apprenticeship. This is the highest formal rank, that of master having been eliminated; it allows them to perform all the tasks of the trade within the area where they are certified, to supervise apprentices and to become self-employed.

As the descendant of hard-working and hard-drinking Eastern European immigrants, the iconography and symbology of the "working man" resonates in me like a genetic memory. For over a hundred years the men of my family have been creators. The first generation came to America from countries that don't evenexist anymore. They tilled the land, built towns, forged lives in a strange country, and toiled endlessly in the hellish steel mills of Eastern Ohio, Western PA, and Northern West Virginia. Their sweat, and much of their blood, tempered the steel that forms the bones of our great cities. Their sons were masons, carpenters, bricklayers, farmers, ironworkers, and steelworkers. They worked ceaselessly building this country, and in what they had of leisure time they built their own homes, made music and musical instruments, made art, brewed and distilled, and even found the time to win a war. Their sons, my father among them, were creators, too. Engineers, mechanics, contractors, welders, ironworkers, and entrepreneurs. Like their fathers, they created for work and they created for play. They built lasting things, great things, and took pride in a job well done. Now here I am, not a bricklayer or a carpenter, but a creator nonetheless. This is my inheritance, the creative impulse, an I'm here to tell you about a new creative endeavor that I'm about to embark upon.

Risk Assessment

I'll take min/maxing for fifty, Trebek!

Let's get this out of the way right off the bat, I love it when bad shit happens to characters. Your character, my character, it doesn't matter. When a cunning plan doesn't survive first contact, when a die roll goes bad, when you role-play yourself into a corner, whenever something unfortunate happens in game it warms the cockles of my stainless-steel heart. Why? Because that threat, that jeopardy, it makes me tingle all over. In my opinion, a game that doesn't punish as much as entertain, and doesn't have an element of risk, isn't much of a game at all.

Friday Mea Culpa: No Excuse Edition.

Mea culpa, mea culpa...

Okay, look. I know going over two weeks between posts is total bullshit. I know I've let down my tens of readers, and for that I'm sorry. I don't really have a good excuse, not one that holds water anyway. Let's just say that I took a little hiatus, and I'm in good company, but now I'm back. Instead of boring you with what I did on my hiatus, I'll just skim some important points, starting with what caused my absence, the train-wreck that was Origins.

Putting the Pro in Procrastination

If writers are, in the words of the inestimable Chuck Wendig, procrastinating shitheads, then I am their high-priest. Origins is six days away. Guess who has two thumbs and has only one of his four games ready for Origins. This guy. Right. Six days to port three games into new systems, build characters in those systems, and get familiar enough with those systems so that I don't look like an idiot. But that's not really what I came here to talk about today. Not really anyway. There's something else I've been putting off. Something in regards to Origins, and something that I need some advice on.

Hey! You! Looka here!

Hot damn! My first assignment for Fantasy Flight, in which I developed a whole bunch of awesome new rules, has finally been announced! Just look at it. I couldn't be more proud of the work I did here. So, save up your pennies, kids, and get yourself a copy right here.

In Defense of Dwarves

Pretty much every dwarf ever is this guy.

Confession time. Dwarves are far and away my favorite demi-human race. Their industriousness, their pragmatism, their vitality, their sturdiness, and their acceptance of technology in fantasy settings appeals to me on a visceral level. Given the choice, I'll always play a dwarf character in any setting, save for maybe Shadowrun. Shadowrun's about the only game where I simply can't abide demi-humans, but that's not what we're talking about here. What we are talking about is A: how much I love dwarves, B: why they're awesome, and C: why so many gamers seem to miss the point.

A Question of Scale: Size Matters

Those AT-AT pilots have a hell of a penalty to hit, but if they do connect...

So, I'm taking a break from writing about eight kilometer long spacegoing cathedrals to pound out a blog post today because, well, I need a break from the aforementioned spacegoing cathedrals. I believe I've made it perfectly clear throughout our time together that I have some very specific ideas about game design, especially when it comes to realism or the illusion thereof. Since I play a lot of sci-fi games, and those mostly dealing with giant robots, powered suits, and other powerful vehicles of war, something I've always been concerned with is the question of scale. No, I'm not talking about weights and measures or a C minor or something. I'm talking about the fact that some things are bigger than you, and bigger things are invariably harder to kill and more deadly than things that are your size. Would you like to know more?

What's My Motivation? Escapism in Gaming

You're going to have a hell of a penalty for that. You know that, right?

So, I've been thinking a lot lately about the whys and wherefores of the hobby. Specifically, what is it that drives us, largely grown-ass men and women with jobs and families and mortgages, to sit around a table on a regular basis and play pretend. What, for lack of a better term, is our motivation? I touched on this a little in last Friday's post when I talked about our characters as avatars of ourselves that portray us as we'd like to be. But why? Why do we pull on the cape or the body armor or the pointy hat? Why do we take up the plasma rifle or the staff with the knob on the end? That's the question that fascinates me, gentle readers. That's what I want to touch on today.

Something new! Designing new items and gear for your games.

What do I do with this?

So, today is all request Tuesday here at the Gamewerks, Gentle Readers. My good, good friend from the Great White North, Dr. Braden Campbell GM;Phd, dropped me a line last night to let me know that he'd finally gotten around to reading Motor City Gamewerks. Apparently they get the internets delivered by mule up there in Canada, or all their tubes are clogged with maple syrup or something, 'cause it sure took him long enough. Anyway, he wanted to let me know that he was enjoying what he read. So I asked him if he'd like to see anything in particular here, and he suggested that I do an article about making item and gear for your game. Specifically, items and gear that fit, make sense and don't break the setting when they ultimately fall into the grasping hands of your players. So, come on down to the lab with me, and see what's on the slab.