First There is No Mountain

This is going to sound weird, probably, but it's one of those internal contradictions that make human beings so interesting. I've mentioned in these pages my Twin Peaks-inspired game, LOST PINES, and the game I wrote for Game Chef a couple of years ago, THE LONG SLEEP. I'm unreasonably proud of both of those games, despite the fact that neither one of them have been published or widely distributed. LP is a dramatic game in the style of soap opera, where everyone plays a part in the main cast. TLS is a meditative, internal game that's set in dreams, a kind of free-flowing improvisation on a theme. Neither one of those games has a GM role.

But I'm actually not a fan of games with no GM.

Cascade

Last weekend we played MONSTER OF THE WEEK for the second week running. Various things have kept us from returning to NOT FADE AWAY, my Fate immortals game, but I had been feeling the itch to roll some dice and wanting to get back into it with something lighter in tone. We had a lot of fun playing MotW, which falls toward the crunchier, more traditional end of the Powered By The Apocalypse games, like DUNGEON WORLD. It also reminded me of something that was an issue when I ran DW for my online group last year. It's not a game-breaker, exactly, but something that I think bears consideration.

Can Anything Fill the Portable Hole In Your Heart?

Here's a random idea I had the other day that I will probably never use, but maybe you can get some mileage out of it.

Not a big fan of dungeon adventures at this stage of my life. Why? Because dungeon adventures tend to spend a lot of time on the things I like least about the hobby. Long combats. Managing supplies. Traps. Players trying to make accurate maps. Players spending all their spells then calling the action to a halt until they get them back. Keeping track of arrows and how far you can see with torchlight and how much treasure you can carry and...

It's just exhausting. And it seldom has any emphasis on character development and drama, the things that I come back to the table week after week to enjoy and explore.

Raise a Glass to the Revolution!

Rebellion is the theme of a lot of great fiction, from Star Wars to Game of Thrones. Whether you're looking for a game of simple goals (plucky rebels fighting against an evil, monolithic enemy) or complex political machinations and reversals (and possibly lots of characters dying or having tragic or horrifying fates), the rebellion is a story frame that provides a lot of interesting gaming potential. A dramatic game is probably going to concentrate on the GoT side of the equation, exploring the conflict of powerful opposed personalities and possibly on the ideas they stand for. But I'm here today to write about a particular kind of rebellion narrative that I'm eager to weaponize for the game table.

American Gaming Story

I'm late to the party that is American Horror Story, but I'm a fan. I love a good horror movie, and anyone who has any affection for the genre knows that really good stuff is few and far between. Although the first season starts out a little rough, AHS has grown into one of the most provocative and entertaining shows on television. That said, it's definitely not for everyone. If the presence of the word "horror" in a title makes you uneasy, this is not for you, because they really mean it. AHS, unlike a lot of horror films and television shows, consistently goes after material that is truly difficult and frightening, daring to explore truly dark territory. So again, not for everyone, but it's awesome that someone is pushing boundaries like this in ways most horror films are frankly too lazy to bother with.

So what can we learn from American Horror Story as gamers?

Thomas Wolfe May Have Been On To Something

Fair warning: I’m going to say some things about The Force Awakens here that you might not care for. If it would spoil your enjoyment of that movie to hear criticism of it, do yourself a favour and skip this. I have my problems with it, but I also have no interest in shitting on anyone else’s fun.

I also have no interest in discussing the merits and problems of The Force Awakens in the comment section below. Feel like arguing about it? Take it somewhere else.

Nostalgia is the will-o-the-wisp lurking on the moors of nerd culture. Unapologetic affection for the things we like is a fine thing, but too often that leads you into the noxious bogs of sentimentality. It’s easy to get lost there, losing sight of problematic content, giving things a free pass just because we enjoyed them when we were young.

Quick and Dirty: Powered by the Dramapocalypse

HILLFOLK made quite a splash a couple of years ago, winning multiple awards and introducing a lot of gamers to the idea of drama-centric gaming. At our table, we played a series powered by HILLFOLK's Dramasystem, "Southern Rock Opera". We found that there were a lot of things that we liked about Dramasystem, but a lot of things we weren't satisfied with too. It felt a lot like a promising first edition of a game that could really be made to shine in further iterations.

ComedySystem (Part Two)

Let's assume that our hypothetical ComedySystem is going to look a lot like DramaSystem through a different lens.

A lot of the character creation stuff would probably look the same as standard DramaSystem, with maybe a little tweak in the language here and there. Instead of a long-arc Desire that drives the characters, which probably isn't going to work in a setup that's essentially (static) situation comedy, we probably need each character to have a "Bit". That is, the part of the comedic glue they provide to the ensemble. Going back to our Brooklyn Nine Nine example, Boyle's primary function is as the loyal (even doting) sidekick to Jake, our cocky leading man, and by extension he's the nice guy who gets pushed around by pretty much everyone. We might call his Bit "Enthusiastic Pushover". Rosa might be a "Tough Girl with a Heart", Santiago is the "By the Book People Pleaser", and Captain Holt is the "Incredibly Serious Commanding Officer".

ComedySystem (Part One)

Yeah, it's been a while. The last month or so I've been heavily invested in the Canadian election, which took a toll on my mental health, but at long last it's over. Our shithead government of the last decade is no more, and a handsome new government has taken its place. We'll see whether they live up to the hype.

But let's get back to talking about some games, shall we?

I've recently been going through a phase where I've been thinking about future games to run again, some of which have started to gel in ways that I know will lead to good gaming. Something I've had a real hunger for is to run something from my bucket list: a straight-up comedy game. There are lighter games, where the joking is part of the fun, and games where jokes help to defuse the tension, but playing a comedy game where comedy is the intention of play can be a hard sell with players. Sure, they say, we make jokes all the time during game play, but setting out to tell jokes and make each other laugh? That's doomed to failure!

Campaign Workshop: Eberron by Gaslight

I mentioned this last week as the "mash up" I was currently crushing on. To be fair, since then I've realized that a lot of this idea can probably be traced directly back to Benjamin Baugh's superlative THE KERBEROS CLUB, but what the hey. And if you haven't read that one, you should - if you have any love at all for Victoriana, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, WILD TALENTS, or just stunningly good RPG sourcebooks, it's the bee's knees. 

A couple of years ago I wrapped up my long-running Victorian vampire hunter game, SUNSET EMPIRE (and as some of you know, I often still mourn its loss in these pages - alas!). The concept for that game could be described, in broad strokes, as Victorian adventure in a world where the fantastic existed secretly below the surface. Like THE KERBEROS CLUB, as my game went on, the world got weirder and weirder until the vampires had conquered London with a magical weapon and German werewolves in silver-bullet-proof armor raced to the rescue. OK, it wasn't a subtle game.

Game Chef 2015 - The Long Sleep

Check out this gorgeous cover illustration by my buddy John Matthias!

So I decided that this year I would dive right into the deep end of the game design pool and put something together for Game Chef. It was intimidating putting something together so quickly, over just ten days, but I had a good time doing it and was satisfied with the results.

If you've never heard of Game Chef, it's a yearly contest with pretty wide-open parameters. You have ten days to design a game using the theme provided (this year it was "A Different Audience") and at least two of the ingredients (this year's were abandon, dragonfly, stillness, and dream). What kind of game and what format it ends up in are completely up to you. My entry, "The Long Sleep", is somewhere between storygame and American Freeform LARP. It's about people who are struck down by a disease that puts them in a comatose state. Their minds are not quiescent, however - the Sleepers find themselves in a vivid dream world, and somehow their minds are connected. Together, they embark on a journey Within...

Reflections. Ten days doesn't seem like a lot of time, but this is actually a do-able thing. I was happy with the game I got at the end of it, although there was stuff I wish I'd had the space for. 4000 words is not a lot, and you have to keep things simple and compact. I could have easily written another 4000 words if I'd had the space. I was very lucky to get an idea that had legs early on, so I didn't spend any time spinning my wheels. I thought about it for a couple of days, then wrote it down, caught my breath, and finally revised.

You can get the finished game here.