In which I apologise for being a closet powergamer

I was statting up Star Wars characters today, as one does, and my train of thought actually caused me to stop dead. There I was putting together some kind of Zabrak fringer (I had the model, okay? It seemed appropriate) and I envisioned him as a sort of Scout/Scoundrel mix. So anyway, halfway through I realised that I was actually statting the character out for optimum efficiency. You know, I'll take this feat because it stacks with this talent allowing me to leap out of cover, shoot, and dive back it, all while never exposing myself to counter-fire. Isn't building a character like that, you know, being a munchkin?

Well not wanting to be thought a munchkin, I desperately tried to justify it. Perhaps min-maxing was ok, as long as you roleplayed properly. But wait, I hadn't even thought of a personality for this guy yet. Perhaps as long as I made sure the mins were there as well as the maxes. But wait again, that's what a min-max is. In the end the only justification I could come up with was that perhaps as long as I didn't annoy the others it would be fine. But that's a pretty lame justification. So in the end I did what anyone would do. Seek out the biggest powergamer I know for advice.

So he gave me some interesting things to think about. Principally that there is a difference between powergaming and being a munchkin, and I had to work out what that line was. So I admit it world, I am a powergamer. I love being effective in combat. I love stacking feats to create an unstoppable badass capable of offing stormtroopers and dark jedi in a single shot. I like being impossible to hit. Because you know what? Being a non-combatent sucks in a game designed around combat.

Powergamers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your dex bonus!

This just in, Tate not bad

Well actually I saw the new episode of Doctor Who on Saturday, and I have to apologise to Catherine Tate. I assumed on the strength of her terrible comedy show that she wouldn't bring anything to the show, but she was actually not bad. No Martha or Rose, but certainly better than that awful woman played by Kylie Minouge (sp?) in the Christmas special.

I actually look forward to seeing what happens, perhaps she will grow into the role. Also, it's certainly nice to see some older talent joining the show (no offence to her, of course). Still, it seems we're still a long way from the Doctor being allowed heterosexual males as companions, like he used to be. Perhaps they could bring back Matthew Waterhouse, I hear that he's good, and it would be nice to get someone who remembers the good old days, because Russell T. Davies really makes me wonder at times.

Also, I saw the actual Buffy the Vampire Slayer film today. I never thought I would say that Luke Perry could rescue a film, but apparently he can. Damn he was cool as Pike. And of course Rutger Hauer makes everything good. Still, SMG is a better Buffy than Swanson.

Graduate your game-a followup.

The Fear the Boot podcast talked about Graduate your game today, and the host, Dan, made a point I hadn't really considered. White Wolf are suggesting that people graduate to a game by suggesting that they should move not to a deeper style of game, but to a more powerful kind of game. That seems to be missing the point entirely, and suggests that Exalted is a game of dungeon-crawls, which it really isn't.

They seem to be trying to bring in powergamers by misrepresenting the entire game.

White Wolf, what the hell?

As a lover of both World of Darkness and Exalted, you would think that I would love the publishing company, White Wolf. In truth my relationship with them is very hit and miss. I love their games, don't get me wrong. Some of the Old WoD stuff wa sub-par, and I think nWoD has a much better feel to it. Also, Storyteller 2 is a much better system than Storyteller. On the whole though, I love all the games of their that I've played. So why do I not like them so much?

Mostly, it's their arrogance. White Wolf can be incredibly pretentious at times. Just read the storytelling chapter of Changeling: the Lost and you'll see that in a hearbeat. Look at this section of it:

Imagine an artist's palette, first of all, a color-box from which you, as Storyteller, will "paint" your chronicle: the locales, the characters, the weird quests and dream-remembered promises. Don't consider the actual colors yet, though. Instead, think about the properties of those colors. Imagine the bleak, painterly neutrals of the Hedge and the sharp, dry-brush edges of the thorns. Imagine the oversaturated, high-contrast variety of colors present at an august Court function. Imagine the textured patinas of a lost artifact unearthed, an untarnished metallic luster yielding into verdigis, or perhaps the luminous nacre of a pearl plucked from between a dead man's chalky fingers.

What the hell does that even mean? Seriously, it's pretentious wank that tells you nothing in practice about how to GM a game of Changeling. (Incidentally, I wouldn't mind so much if Changeling wasn't in all other respects a fantastic game, probably my favourite of the nWoD line). So yeah, White Wolf can be arrogant as hell at times, but this takes the gold in stupid things that they've done.

The basic idea is that you send in your copy of the DnD Players Guide, and they send you a copy of Exalted in return. In itself, it's not a bad idea, especially seeing as 4th Edition is coming out soon. If they can drum up a big of interest in Exalted on the side, more power to them. It's the way that it's phrased that really annoys me. You're supposed to graduate to a better level of roleplaying.

Now you won't find me arguing that DnD is better than Exalted. I prefer Exalted, to be honest, but they're different beasts entirely. DnD is high mortal fantasy, with mortal characters in a fairly generic fantasy world. It is by no means a bad game, indeed I love it. Exalted is Epic level immortal fantasy. Your characters are, for want of a better word, gods. They are gifted with the power of deities, and capable of truly earth-shattering feats. It's at a much higher power level than DnD, and comparing the two in this fashion is simply not something that you can really do.

People who like DnD aren't necessarily going to like Exalted, and White Wolf have basically shot themselves in the foot by saying 'come and play a better game, leave those plebs who play DnD behind, what do they know?' The sort of person who would think like that is not the sort of person I want to play tabletop roleplaying games with.

That's not to blast those people who would make the swap because they are moving up to 4th edition anyway, I have nothing against them, and that's a good way to get yourself a little extra out of the bargain. But people who would make the swap solely in order to feel superior to DnD players, which seems to be what this deal is implying, you aren't welcome in my games, ever.

Now I'm sure that this has been in the works for a while, but they have done it at a truely, spectularly disrespectful time, considering that Gary Gygax only passed away last tuesday.

Shame on you White Wolf. Your games are great, we know, but stop being so arrogant about it.

EDIT: People of various forums are now suggesting that this move was done with their tongue firmly within their cheek. If that's the case, then I apologize profusely to White Wolf. Either way, I think it's pretty tasteless, but not so malicious as I thought it was.

But you're still pretentious!

RIP - Gary Gygax

I haven't been around for a week or so, firstly because I attended Minami-con in Southampton over the weekend, and then because of some personal things in the week that I'd prefer not to go into, but I was devastated to hear the news. Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, passed away on tuesday.

His influence on the RPG industry is unquestioned and, while other people may have come up with tabletops, given time, the fact remains that he is the one who did, and he is rightly called a pioneer and father of Tabletops. Dungeons and Dragons is, and remains, the most popular and the most well-known of all of them.

Blogs and webcomics everywhere are mourning the occasion, and Penny Arcade replaced their strip with a memorial to him.

Thank you Gary, and good luck with whatever next life there is. The impact you had on our lives can not be overstated!

Points of Light, or How I learned to stop worrying and love 4th Edition

Any RPGer who hasn't had their head in the sand has probably heard by now about Fourth Edition DnD, announced at GenCon last year. I have to admit that when I first heard about it, I was very sceptical. Wasn't this just some way for WotC to make a bunch more money by releasing the same sourcebooks over again? After all, 3.5 only hit shops in 2004, and 3.0 was printed in 2000. Surely there was no need for another edition?

Well, perhaps that is part of it, especially on marketing, but everything I've read about fourth edition makes me want it more and more. So what was the turning point? Quite simple, it's summed up on the phrase "Points of Light in a big, dark world." (Article requires a free membership to view)

What does that phrase mean exactly? The site itself explains it quite well:

Most of the world is monster-haunted wilderness. The centers of civilization are few and far between, and the world isn’t carved up between nation-states that jealously enforce their borders. A few difficult and dangerous roads tenuously link neighboring cities together, but if you stray from them you quickly find yourself immersed in goblin-infested forests, haunted barrowfields, desolate hills and marshes, and monster-hunted badlands. Anything could be waiting down that old overgrown dwarf-built road: a den of ogre marauders, a forgotten tower where a lamia awaits careless travelers, a troll’s cave, a lonely human village under the sway of a demonic cult, or a black wood where shadows and ghosts thirst for the blood of the living.

That's quite an interesting way of looking at things, and it does something to distinguish DnD from legions of generic fantasy games. It conjures up images similar to those from authors like Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock. This is taking Sword and Sorcery back to its original, pulp fantasy roots. I really hope that it actually gets rid of the Tolkein feel that DnD has had so far, and makes something slightly fresher. I know it will keep the trappings, Elves, Dwarves and Dark Lords, but those are pretty seminal in fantasy. The feel, however, seems completely different. Characters are more powerful, combat is cooler, and enemies are more numerous. You really could see Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser adventuring in this game, you'd never have seen them in the old Forgotten Realms.

This is a real example of where the feel of the game can really get me excited about something. I had assumed that this was a financial decision to boost WotC, but it really seems like they know what they're doing here. I can't wait!

The World of Darkness- Session Four

So with news that the Doctor was stable, our three heroes head home to sleep. In the morning, a full-scale investigation is scheduled of his computer. Not much is found, except for some map co-ordinates revealing the location of a small village about thirty miles outside of London called Greensville. Known for being quite pretty and near a set of caves that was a tourist destination until some people died there about thirty years ago. Surely this bared investigation!

Meanwhile, scientists work on the serum that they found, identifying all of the key components but one, which refuses to be identified under any scientific tests. Doctor Johns, meanwhile, lies comatose in a bed in the discrete lab of Parasol Corp.

Hopping into various cars, they sped towards Greensville as fast as they could, arriving in time for a pub lunch in the Fox and Goose. However, raised voices with angry locals, and repeated insistance that they will go into the caves eventually forces them to flee to a friendlier pub, the Green Dragon Inn, so named for an old folk legend. Here they find out that the other pub is a haven for members of a group called the Julian Society, a supposedly benevolent organisation dedicated to the improvement of the village.

After lunch, they head off to the caves, spending a little time looking around the tourist section. They get a little bit of information. The first cavern is open to the public, and while they can't be prohibited from entering the rest of the caves, it is not advisable, they will need breathing apparatus, and the management can not be held responsible blah blah blah. Breathing apparatus is summarily requested from London, and soon it arrives. Time to enter the caves.

The walls are dripping with water and covered in fungi and moss. Samples of all are taken. Progressing through the cave reveals something odd, there is a door set into one of the walls, with the sound of screaming from behind it. It is quietly opened, and a man is calling for help, chained against the far wall, behind what looks like an altar that would neatly sluice blood into a small basin. He screams at them to unchain him, and some fiddling around with lockpicks gets him out. He thanks the heroes. Meanwhile, exploring one of the pools of water, Thrace finds a secret tunnel which leads into a small bedroom, not the sort of thing you'd expect in a cave. He steals the small battery lamp that's there.

When he gets back, sounds are heard of people approaching. The heroes hide, but the intruders notice that their captive is missing and run over. Throwing a rock into a nearby pool, Thrace distracts them for a critical few seconds, enabling them to get the jump on their opponents, using his own time to capture one of them and use them as a bullet shield. Their new friend, William Kursus, goes first, running at one of the thugs before his knife can be drawn and delivering a sucker punch to the gut. Fisher moves in to combat another...before pepper-spraying him to the face. Thrace notices a gun on the hip of one of the men, and fires, his fine-tuned military reflexes serving him well as he hits the man in the gut. The various thugs, shocked from this initial offensive, scatter and attack various groups. The one who had been shot is woozy, but still manages to score a glancing hit, shooting Fisher in the shoulder. One of them struggles with Kursus, and another attacks Thrace with his knife, but misses and slices his own friend's shoulder open. Finally, Burns, hiding behind the altar due to his lack of weapons, calls out that the men should surrender.

Kursus scores a devastating hit, flipping the thug over his shoulder and leaving him unconcious on the ground. Thrace shoots the man with the knife, hitting him in the arm and causing him to drop his knife. Fisher runs over to the woozy man with the gun and similarly manages to score an excellent hit, kicking the man backwards. His head hits the wall, and he slumps down, either unconcious or dead. The man in Thrace's grasp rips free and runs for the gun that his companion dropped, but the other man with the knife attacks. However, Thrace steps to the side and the knife cuts nothing but air. Burns agains repeats the offer of surrender, but the thugs refuse, shouting out that their sacred spot has been defiled and there can be no mercy.

Kursus captures the thug running for the gun, pinning him from behind, allowing Fisher to deliver several punches to the stomach. Meanwhile, Thrace plays a game of cat and mouse with the knife-man, moving from cover to cover firing off shots. This game ends when he steps out and delivers one final shot to the head, killing the man instantly. The last man is swiftly knocked unconcious. The man who had been pepper-sprayed is subjected to a brief interrogation in which he reveals that he is part of the Julian Society.

Making good their escape, the heroes head out of the cave and take their samples back to London. The doctor has woken, and an interview with him reveals that he manufactured the serum for an unknown paymaster, and that he himself was doing it in a purely disinterested pursuit of knowledge. The missing ingredient definitely comes from the caves, and shows up on all of the samples they brought with them. Clearly the connection between the serum, the cave and the Julian Society bore further investigation...

TO BE CONTINUED...