I’ve been aware of what was coming for a while and suspected it since 2008, when I heard some serious shifting of the tabletop release schedule, ranging from the EVE RPG being shelved to some other developments which were leaked to the tabletop gamer public, but as I found the rest out in confidence I’m not going to repeat them here.

Can I tell you exactly what’s going on? This is difficult as there are some things I know which I think give me a somewhat informed opinion, but which even couching in weasel words would make for a breach of ethics. But I can use it as a way to comment on trends I think apply to the situation and are relevant to a wider audience.

Tabletop RPG Producers Are the Best Open-Ended IP Developers in the World

Is this a hubris-ridden statement? Maybe — but it ain’t braggin’ if it’s true. There are multiple occasions where RPGs have had a drastically positive influence on intellectual properties. Star Wars is the best known example. As an open-ended property, Star Wars essentially owes its chops to West End Games, which managed the thing while it lay fallow and turned what was a closed, small story into a possibility-laden narrative field. Oh, and you know how Enterprise turned from a lousy series into something passable by the end? You can in part thank Paramount sending an intern to the Merril Collection to photocopy its Trek RPG archives. They didn’t keep them around at Paramount.

(That last bit of info comes from the collection’s curator, by the way, when I toured with Justin Mohareb a while back.)

Also, about ARGs? You’re welcome.

Now aside from these examples (which I’m sure will spark their own special nerd war) this particular skillset has managed to earn me a fair chunk of change for clients outside the tabletop gaming field. Fans tend to believe that this kind of work is at its best when done by the IP management team with the most money. These fans are wrong.

Unfortunately, well-heeled IP management teams tend to believe this too — and so do tabletop RPG developers who would really like to have as much money and prestige as folks in mainstream media and games. So with the exception of some visionaries, this kind of thing isn’t well known. On the Big IP side you get closed concepts without backbones. (Terminator, anyone? Yes, I am really saying that a Justin Achilli or Matt Forbeck could make it a bajillion more dollars.) On the RPG side you get creators learning the wrong lessons because they mistake a fat wad of cash for an applicable creative style.

(This is one reason why licensed games often under-perform. Game designers and developers are at the mercy of people who really do know less about how to transform their IP into an enduring success than they do.)

What does this mean vis a vis CCP? They’re pretty smart guys who seem to know the kind of talent they acquired. Do they know how to fit it into their own culture? The folks who were on the White Wolf side seem to be doing okay and I trust them. But this is a fragile situation. When you’re trying to show how a process that moves thousands of copies is legitimate in a culture used to a few orders of magnitude more, you have to be really goddamn convincing. And if you do convince them, why would they want you earning them beer and toilet paper money from tabletop RPGs? Even if you win, tabletop gaming doesn’t.

Converged, Mashable, Hackable Content — and Confusion

Think of DDI. It sucks — and it looks successful. It’s an underwhelming set of tools and resources but it still meets a need. We feel the need because familiar technology has primed us to do so. We’re reaching a convergence point right now where cheap ebook readers, mobile applications, netbooks and PoD technology are poised to radically change tabletop gaming. I currently have the rules for all of my go-to games on a tiny touchscreen MID that cost 150 bucks. Want a book? High quality PoD is simple and cheap; OneBookShelf nearly has the option ready for its merchants. It’s already easy to hack together exactly the game book you want, use it in multiple forms and share it if you’re an early adopter of the necessary tech. By 2011-2012 a physical RPG book may well be an affectation and right now, it’s only a marginal convenience.

(And let’s not forget about piracy. It matters. The tabletop RPG business isn’t the music business, folks, and it’s not the work of Cory Doctorow either.)

Here’s the rub: Nobody really knows what this means yet. My feeling isn’t that this isn’t a new way to play tabletop games but a new type of game — a “third way” of gaming that isn’t a managed electronic property or traditional RPGs, but draws a lot from self-organized social networking — something that White Wolf fandom adopted early.

(You know those chat games everybody craps on? Rough and tumble stuff like that is called “innovation.”)

The community is primed for a new type of game, and letting loose the reins on fans will help CCP understand what that is as long as management doesn’t listen to attractive, high level prognostication that tries to force it all from the top down. That’s always that danger when there’s a big difference in the monetized accomplishments of one group (CCP) compared to another (the nerds running a zillion chat games and fandom RPs).

And if you can’t get into this new game there’s always PDF and PoD. With piracy rampant, CCP probably has to emphasize the convenience of their own option by building better fulfillment and exerting some fearsome downward pressure on pricing. The price of an OBS-hosted game is already approaching bottom-tier smartphone app levels and CCP already has plenty of content in the system. Adding new content that lacks additional features isn’t cost effective unless it exploits fan contributions (always risky) or uses a new scheme to draw them into the sales funnel gracefully.

I don’t think anybody really knows what the next step is here, but let’s make one thing clear: LARPing with an iPhone or Droid isn’t going to bring back the earthshaking Mind’s Eye Theatre hordes of the 90s any more than a slide rule App is going to replace your calculator App. But is CCP going to give it a serious shot? Making money off of this sort of thing isn’t easy, and social media-based schemes are vulnerable to fads and fan refusal to participate in the moneymaking side. (Most Facebook ads and apps have a shitty most desired action rate, for example). Plus, some successes are bad example from a creative point of view, a la Mafia Wars.

Come on: We all know Mafia Wars blows. But it sure makes bank.

Ehm-Ehm-Oh

Yeah, a lot if it probably is about that — after all, it’s probably coming next year. The question is whether CCP will use its assets properly, or kill off what made White Wolf’s in-house style special. This is not to say the rest of CCP should just learn, since from what I’ve read, the tabletop staff seems to be get real inspiration out of their current roles.

The Unsolicited Advice

What do I think CCP should do? Aside from finding some excuse to pay me significant sums (which I am qualified to receive — email me!) I think they should stick to some form of traditional gaming as a form of rapid IP prototyping. Tabletop RPG design is an ideal technology for developing and testing intellectual property with a minimal budget in a short time frame. It’s inherently social and provides a way for quick, meaningful feedback. Plus, you’ll build fans and anticipation cheaply, and might even get a new idea or two about game design.

But about that feedback: Let’s filter the online RPG community. If we map by fan/non-fan and player/non-player we get a nice set of quadrants we can use to figure out what matters. I can’t help but suspect that the New World of Darkness reacted to the wrong quadrants — guys who want to fantasize about certain structures in games (5×5 splatitude!) instead of having a vivid participatory experience. We all know that there are very vocal folks out there whose opinions don’t really have bottom-line relevance. You want to make retired gamers happy, but you want to see what compels people to play more. On the fan/non-fan axis . . . that’s tricky. Some fandoms are toxic and closed, but some are open, and draw people from the non-fan category. The boundary between the two types isn’t fixed. Open fans identify with closed fans. The Games Workshop approach is to fire fans likely be in the closed category by demographic (defined as “boys with hair where there wasn’t hair before”). Use RPGs to fine tune an IP for an open fandom, but see if you can grab the odd grognard.

I’m not saying this as a stuck in the mud tabletop guy. I love that medium, but I’m working on my third electronic games/media project now and it’s awesome. There are substantial differences in presentation and practical role. Still, I think the tabletop (or wired post-tabletop) medium can enrich every stratum of IP development. Use it intelligently, respect its assets and keep its budget sane, and it won’t steer you wrong.

Markus twitched and shifted so Jude’s partner (T-something or other – some fake-ass Midwest gangster handle) tightened his full nelson up, but that was a misunderstanding. It wasn’t the hit. Markus just hated it when his cock scratched right up against the denim like that. He grunted and wiggled his hips.

“Say again?” Jude smiled and bunched a fist again; the stomach punch hit like a mallet on a taut drum. The force bounced down to Markus’ perineum and up sweetly to his crown, bursting into the outline of a flower on his skull. “Where’s my product?”

The hot flower in his mind bloomed and Kira was with him, crowned as well, tipping a skull of wine down his throat while she straddled him.

“Well I tried your shit, J,” said Markus, giggling in the rush, “But it was so pure. My heart stopped. That’s what happened to those kids, right? You barely cut it. Heh. I flushed the rest.”

“A very, very wrong answer. I’m gonna feed your fuckin’ heart to my dogs.” Out came the cleaver. “You’re one ignorant bitch, son, ‘cause yours won’t be the first one they ate.”

“Not big,” said Markus, then he barked out laughter. He was drowning in the wine now and her tusks cut his cheek.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jude slapped the flat of the cleaver against his palm.

“You play big, think the people you fuck up carry an indelible mark, like you own them, right? But they’ll get better. You’re little.”

“So? You’re dead.”

“Yes? Yes.” Markus didn’t struggle with the man holding him but dislocated both shoulders around the other way. He popped the wet bone knives and entered the Goddess in his memory and death, death death stained the sweet air of one long, orgasmic exhalation.

Traditions of the Council of Eight

Æther Society: Scientists and adventurers devoted to forgotten, “obsolete” and fringe theories who are convinced that True Science has limitless scope. Metascientists are famous for their eccentricity — as obsessives who master one field, or polymaths who make bizarre connections between disciplines. Spheres: Forces or Matter

Eumenides: Accused of decadence and immorality, the Left Handed believe they follow the shortest path to spiritual power through ascetic extremes, drugs and refined sexuality. Without arbitrary taboos, they behold fundamental justice, acting as its executors. Spheres: Destiny or Life

Order of Hermes: Originating in the Western Magical Tradition, the Thaumaturges embrace high ritual from a number of cultures now, to make up for declining numbers and renew their organizational vigor. The Tradition’s factions are its Houses. Some claim a legacy beyond the limits of precognition, but a few are decades old, if that. Spheres: Forces or Mind

Templars: Born of medieval heresies that put God beyond all mortal creeds, the Apostles preach radical tolerance, but often find themselves tangled in dogmatic zeal. Factions honor particular theological traditions, but believe these are mere reflections of an ultimate truth. Spheres: Correspondence or Spirit

Transhuman Adepts: Cutting edge scientists and engineers that make themselves the subjects or radical experiments, the Enhanced look forward to a world where immortality is commonplace and the barriers between the biological mind and sea of information dissolve. Spheres: Correspondence or Mind

Vajrapani: The Brothers and Sisters practice deep meditation, arduous yoga and punishing martial arts to hone their psychic facilities. To them, magic is a manifestation of enlightenment, not its object — in theory, at least. The Tradition contains a mix or psychics, devotees of physical disciplines and monastic isolation. Spheres: Life or Mind

Verbenae: The Sacred Branches hold to traditional religions and a few reconstructions that stay true to the principles of ancient faiths, were there’s no divide between sorcery and worship. They are called shamans and priests, but their militant tendencies earn them the title of Witch and they don’t shy away from that name’s power. Spheres: Life or Spirit

. . . and the Hollow Underground: a sect born of the detritus of the Victorian occult revival, postmodern magic and streetwise superstitions. The Hollowers are unreliable allies, but at least they aren’t traitors — the Traditions have felt that sting before, and value even casual loyalty.

For the Medium

The Dirty Version explores Mage through the tabletop RPG medium as I see it: one with its own voice to offer, instead of something emulating a book, film or other medium. I have pretty strong opinions about this and think that many RPGs nowadays are the product of envy directed at more popular or arty media. That’s why we now have dozens of games that let you play a story as structured by somebody with a halfassed recollection of 100 year old literary theory that happened to get dumped in their heads during high school. Fuck that. This is an RPG; it’s about unstable categories, insecure power relations and multiple narratives springing from the same event. In other words, it’s perfect for Mage.

Fuzzy Logic

Drawing from the above and looking at the old World of Darkness, I’m going to bust up neat little boxes where I can. Splats are a mix of in-world history and game function, and I’ll leave a heavy load on readers and players to negotiate the intersection between them. I think this is interesting and ads verisimilitude, since real organizations rarely stick to a set function. The current World of Darkness tends to be excessively structured at the core, but comes to life in expansion, but keep in mind that the old World of Darkness wasn’t much different — you just got up to three editions to write the expansions back into the core. The same thing applies to game traits, though Spheres will mostly stay functional because they have to be.

Not a Vehicle for Awakening Criticism

I mean, are you fucking crazy? I worked on lots and lots of that line and like it a lot. They’re different games — though honestly, not so different as many people think.

Like Ascension, but Not Ascension

I’m not going to rebuild Mage: The Ascension faithfully. It’s old and there’s a ton of stuff wrong with it. Your favorite thing may not appear. It will have at ideas from the old game I think are interesting or powerful. It will probably feel a lot like Ascension. It will also chop and staple a hell of a lot of stuff. So far, around half of the Traditions are pretty different and I’ve cut two Spheres. Say goodbye to Entropy and Prime, and I might kill Time, too.

Nonlinear and Compressed

This is coming in blog form so don’t expect a big-ass full RPG. Don’t expect a neat order, either. Honestly, You and I would both be bored doing it the linear way, slogging through potato-peeling systems. Lots of things will be presented as references, excerpts from big stuff that doesn’t really exist and so on.

Not New or Old World of Darkness Systems

I ultimately ran Mage: The Ascension with a variant of the Aeonverse/Exalted 1e system very successfully. This is not going to be your NWoD Ascension adaptation. It’s not going to be your OWoD 4th Edition. It may not even be an Aeonverse like thing by the time I’m done, since I’m running a game with that system and have already hacked it six ways to Sunday. Hell, I may even float a card-based character system that’s been floating around in my head.

Auteur Style

This is solidly about my ideas. Feel free to comment on what you want, but as this is totally unpaid, my reward, aside from attention (heh!) is exploring things my way. For example, if you think the Technocracy were good guys, you’ll probably be disappointed. Also, you may be a fucking idiot. See what I did there? That’s the difference between writing for you, and writing for me. This is aimed at being playable, but it’s more something for me that I think you’ll like. So let’s give this a shot.

We are the thread and the needle. Listen:

A fist locked into a hammer, the triceps the last piston of a hip-driven meat engine, dipping the hammer into skin and blood and broken bone. Strike. Knockout. Victory: ten thousand roar. Maya drags her bruised legs to the middle of the cage, pulls the sponsor’s shirt over her, its fresh, vulgar logos paying her way, a rote speech . . .

. . . but her hammer never hits the Old Woman. Maya’s tried every time she visits her. “Contact’s good,” says the master, “Reality check. But you’re just a fighter, like a particular species of insect. Beautiful. Useless outside of certain parameters.

“You could be more.”

Five years later and Maya’s feet bleed; the desert is a field of black daggers. It was Outer Mongolia when she started walking but now the sky’s fucked up. Wrong color, and the sun has a lattice of darker fire upon it. In the distance, a rust-red rock. A door. Her door.

Listen:

“It’s a cheat.”

“Is that a noun?”

“It is now. I’ll update you to understand it. You’re still too stupid.”

His laptop doesn’t answer. Luc can almost see the code flowing out, distributed to the leviathan of the Net. Idiot databases grinding electrons. Stupid mechanisms with unthinkable memory and speed.

Unthinkable to most.

“Planck lengths. Foam and strings. Cheats to keep us from seeing below the best resolution the universe has to offer. It’s not so much uncertain as pixelated. That’s what I mean.”

A shape surfaces in Luc’s mind. The geometry of a perfect explanation, but it’s mostly hidden, lurching like an iceberg in black water: depths he can’t see. Luc blinks, gets back to the atomic force microscope to work on the Wire: his third implant, this one a fishhook to lower deep into his secret intelligence . . .

Listen:

Mor’s been able to read his father’s mind for five months (this is a secret) so he knows the danger’s real. Dad – Julius (but his name used to be Vernon, before the Order) keeps yelling at him, slapping. “You were born for this!” he says, and it’s true: Mor can see the shining moment of his conception erupt from Julius’ thoughts, the moment Dad seized his orgasm’s breath and hissed it into the rite.

Mor discovers his mother had red hair, just like him.

His eyes unfocus. The discovery was a distraction. Dad hits him again; Mor’s mouth tastes of salt.

“The spells are in there, Mordred! Translate! I know your Enochian outstrips mine, boy. I don’t have the knowledge to simply express what we’ll need to escape. They’re close!”

True – Mor can already sense the curious structures of their minds. Three blocks away the agents’ well-worn psychic gears spin into a killing attitude.

Mor takes their mental mechanism and makes it his own.

“I have it, Pater.”

His father thinks joy. Twitches hands anticipating sigils. Image of a hidden car.

Aasha Enesh’eth Kyraiyi Tsa Abbai Tathagehom, and Dad burns.

“It says,” whispers Mordred, then again, a scream: “It says that Enochian is a truth written in letters of fire, you stupid old fuck!”

Mor will not read his father’s pain or look up at his wilting black body. As he runs to the car the book will be the heaviest thing he ever carries.

Listen.

Mage: The Ascension still seems to have some legs in fandom. I haven’t done much thinking about it for a while. I haven’t played it since running “Judgment” for the Ascension book and have been pretty happy with other things: writing for Awakening, Lost, Hunter and Geist in the World of Darkness, working on various other projects and running a number of homebrews, New World of Darkness games and a whole bunch of other stuff.

But you guys still miss Ascension. I respect that. You mention my stuff quite a bit, which I find flattering. Some of you want to redo the game.

Let’s face it though. The game is very 90s. (“The future is in virtual reality!”) The systems don’t make sense (throwing a brick with Forces inflicts more damage than conjuring a frickin’ nuke).

And folks, the game wasn’t about magic versus science, no matter how much you’d like a strawman to beat because of real world tensions with real fundamentalist jerks. (Plus, and I’m sorry to say it, a few of you are basically fell for the propaganda.) All the same, this is a real, relevant tension and deserves some coverage.

Postmodernism? Ascension got that wrong, by the way. Nevertheless, some aspects of the game are still relevant — and some hit the zeigeist like a hammer. (And modern steampunk, baby!)

But you got me. I’ve been considering old ideas and remixing them with new ones. The result might not be what you were hoping for, but online noise has pushed it into action. It isn’t quite an Ascension reboot, but it leans closer to it. It’s not New World of Darkness or Old. And it’s probably foolish of me to bother with — barring a surprising email from Georgia, there’s sure as hell no money in it.

I’ll be posting about factions, systems, stuff. Not sure about the order. Eight cults. Seven Spheres. Expressions, spells and rites. Maybe some fiction.

I’m pretty sure I know Mage. I know what makes it special. So I’ll be blogging about the way I’d do it. I can’t think of a clever noun. Let’s call it the Dirty Version.

Geist: The Sin-Eaters

I wrote the (unfortunately, somewhat version-dated, compared to post-playtest revisions) krewe rules and I hashed out their role in the setting. Previews made some people assume the krewes were all gang-like, but the other half of that section shows that this isn’t the whole story.

One thing I wanted to do in my section is get rid of one of the big barriers to using mythology and the occult in RPGs: the sense of ownership, expertise and authority some folks feel they have over it, which drives people to avoid hacking together things as they see fit. Ironically this makes it more like actual occultist or mythology, which is pretty much cultural Lego anyway. In Geist, people have revelations that don’t make sense, don’t have to make sense, and combine all the chunky debris of pop culture with the cool flow of recurring motifs. Nobody gets to play the expert, and everybody does.

I also wrote some stuff on antagonists.

Eclipse Phase

I didn’t do any writing for this one but Rob Boyle and co. kindly asked me to drop in and participate in initial brainstorming. I helped out with some names for things, (the Exsurgent virus) suggested an embryonic version of the tagline, warned of a terrible Putonghua pun and took a strong AI/digital consciousness stance in discussions about psychosurgery and forking. This wasn’t because I’m a transhumanism geek but because I happen to be familiar with the more extreme end of the stance and thought it should be considered.

Now Eclipse Phase doesn’t entirely adhere to the strong stance and this is a good thing. When people complain about the limits of some version of transhuman technology they often don’t consider the global picture. They want effortless body-swapping and personality apps, but don’t deeply examine the combined effect these things have at “maximum setting” in RPG narratives: They totally trash them. Yes, that even includes your funky nu-game POV nobody’s thought of before, because you’re just not thinking big enough. Egan’s Diaspora is too weak as well, for that matter. The primary issue is the nonexistence of real risk or tension in characters that simply cannot have involuntary experiences in any way, shape or form.

(This kind of reminds me when people didn’t get my work on the old Mage‘s Ascension, because they figured it was “One side wins!” or “We get to ride unicorns!” No, it’s bigger than that. The ultimate potential of idealized, Singularitarian transhumanism is bigger than our narratives too.)

Fan Expo

I’m going to Toronto’s Fan Expo this weekend. I’ll be doing panels and maybe handing out cards but no table – I want to get out there, game a bit and look around. I’ll be co-sponsoring (putting in for snacks) a Meet and Greet at Hoops, a nearby bar. Feel free to drop by and chat! People sometimes seek me out to sign things and I’m always happy to do it. This event is your best bet.

What Else?

This is the first blog entry in a while because I’ve been very busy with an electronic gaming project (not the WoD MMO). I will have more stuff on GMing, more announcements about upcoming games — just not right now.

The Halo series has a rich background and good enough plotting to provide the illusion that as Master Chief, my lone operations are part of something bigger. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for many first person games. For me, Mirror’s Edge was an example of a game with great play but a dull plot (the fascist super Parkour conspiracy!). FPS games need the tabletop RPG setting’s strengths: story events with gravity, the illusion of a bigger world and a wealthy idea mine to compensate for the fact that story mode is not always a high priority — so the more inspirations around, the easier it is to do it right. Twitchy RPGs and RPG-like FPS games are improving too, but the empty and silly aspects of many examples (like open world games) demonstrate that there’s room for improvement. So let’s explore five tabletop RPG settings that could make great FPS games.

Dungeons and Dragons: Warforged

D&D is a huge license, and its computer game implementations usually choke on the sheer size of it — and invite comparisons with tabletop play that never go well, even when the games are good. Let’s cut it back; you’re not playing a party or a guy in a party. You’re one of Eberron’s warforged, magically programmed for battle, revived from an Adamantine crypt by adventurers. and bound to serve their master because of the artifact he carries (you’ll kick that guy’s ass later). Yeah, that feels like Halo, but Halo rocks.

Advantages: The enormous D&D bestiary is yours to fight. As a warforged your unnatural toughness is believable. You have limited item slots built into your body, so no scratching your head at inventory or wondering what hyperspace your items disapear to. Even your interface can be immersive, because maybe warforged do see a tactical display: glowing runes instead of a helmet HUD. An integral crossbow with magic quarrels takes care of the ranged weapon thing to start, though you’ll find stuff as you go, too.

Vampire: Solomon Birch

You’re God’s own vampire, blessed with supernatural strength, quickness, and a series of occult rites that might be revelations from the Lord Himself, all to punish the wicked – in this case, a demonic conspiracy that runs from mortals to Kindred to . . . whoever you meet at the climax. Once again, we’ve cut back from the whole World of Darkness. Hell, there’s no character creation, but that’s okay, because Solomon Birch is enough. Just don’t have him talk too much in cutscenes.

Advantages: Birch’s Daeva clan and Lancea Sanctum sect give him the powers and motives of a tough FPS protagonist.  Celerity is bullet time. His organization provides rites that he uses as between scene buffs. Vampire: Bloodlines had some excellent concepts for making use of mortals, so let’s revisit those, too.

Aeternal Legends: Knights

Yes, I went and did it – suggested a game that I publish in a blatant example of bias! It’s a good thing that Aeternal Legends (yes, a link, but I publish it because I like it!) really does work for this. Now unlike the other examples I wouldn’t stick to one character, but would go with a selection of four preset Strength Sphere users (Knights): one for each Clade. This restriction justifies fighting ability and means it’s easy to tweak story mode for each character. The Ministry charges you with destroying  one of the Swords of Yesterday – but it’s in the hand of a rising Dark Lord. Along the way you’ll fight subway pirates, slaves of the clockwork realm and evil Legends.

Advantages: Aeternal Legends‘ power system is easy to adapt to FPS play and would create definite changes in tactics based on your choice of Knight – something that can be spun into team-based PVP, too. The setting is at once familiar and includes enough hidden world stuff to let you design wierd and wonderful levels without straining credulity or lining a place with crates.

Talislanta: Thrall

Talislanta is kind of the Dying Earth’s meathead, metalhead cousin — that’s a compliment, by the way. It may not be as witty, but it is quietly imaginative and satisfyingly rewards brute force in a way Jack Vance’s decadent wonderland shouldn’t. You’ll play a Thrall: a hulking, tattooed soldier that moves from galdiatorial challenges to swashbuckling across the decks of windships, guided along the way by one of the mysterious Black Savants.

Advantages: Thralls are a warrior people, so suspension of disbelief is built in. You’ll believe that a tattooed man can kill 100 ice giants! You’d have a signature spikey close combat weapon (the Garde) and enough strange magic to supply any FPS mainstay. Maybe you can even commandeer windships and mounts. But in the end, the sheer variety of the setting and its strange but accessible nature makes Talislanta a winning license. This isn’t just look and feel, either; every group in the setting is chock full of story motivations, from Quan nobles after a cheap thrill to the Xambrians and their big grudge against wizards/Toquarans. (In fact, Xambrians are misunderstood violent loners, making them good FPS types, too.)

Lessons Learned

I got a few ideas out of writing the above. I’m coming at this as an FPS player who vastly prefers story play, so take it in that context.

1) Don’t Eat the Whole Sandwich – But Let ‘Em See the Tomatos

In each entry I cut down the options not just out of respect for the format, but because many things have impact in backstory and suggestion, not integration. When I’m playing Master Chief Halo lets me know enough to think of a whole infrastructure backing me up, and a rich setting that helps me ignore the restrictions of each level. Cutting down to one or a few preset characters also provides immediate motivation (I know my job and perspective) without making any of it seem petty and isolated from the greater world.

2) Settings Should Inspire Neat Levels

Crates and  shopping mall features are the bane of modern-era and futuristic levels. Every setting should inspire interesting level designs. (This is weak in my Vampire choice, but let’s plug some underground Belial’s Brood temples in there). D&D‘s assets are self-evident. Aeternal Legends has lots of neat hidden worlds a la Hellboy II and Harry Potter.

3) We’ve Got to Get Bigger Guns!

You need an excuse for interesting ranged weapons. Modern and futuristic games have this in the bag, but it requires imagination to apply this to fantasy worlds. Warforged can get Predator-like shoulder crossbows, so they work. Talislanta has lots of oddball magic – enough for gun substitutes, though I admit it’s the weakest entry in the list. Of course, you could get by this with ranged magic as well.

4) One Cool Thing Per Character

Every protagonist should have one cool thing they can do by virtue of their background. Knights can be super accurate, bust through armor and so on, depending on the character’s Clade (fantasy “race”). Solomon Birch has magic and Disciplines and is easily the best example in the article. Our warforged protagonist can magically upgrade him/her/itself. I must admit I missed the boat with the Thrall, though.

That’s it. What tabletop RPG do you think would make for a great FPS?

One of the problems with the game was that I didn’t do enough prep for many sessions. I winged it too much. That leads to the other issue, which had to do with overactive immersion. My friends like to do a lot of talking in character, which ends up taking up a lot of time without getting to a new chunk of the plot. These problems are related because if I don’t prep well, it takes more time for me to compose new events based on the characters’ actions. If that takes more time, in-character talk develops more momentum, making it difficult to move things along implicitly. This is primarily an aesthetic problem and an artifact of the non-communicative style of gaming that I don’t care for, but even I’m recovering from. It feels more graceful to move from scene to scene by an unfolding consensus than saying, “Hey, it might be time to move to a new scene,” put out loud.

Now I made corrections for these issues toward the end, by getting off my ass and prepping more (to be fair, I’ve also been extremely busy with work) and trading off the abstract satisfaction for “natural” progress from scene to scene to a more efficient use of time.

One of the problems with immersion is that the longer and deeper you go, the more starkly the player/character divide shows up in certain situations. For instance, players who do not have the character’s knowledge of a topic tend to talk around it and get really verbose to no good end. This can be due to the players not being hackers or military tacticians (real world fields of knowledge) or not knowing as much about an alien species as the characters (a situation where the field is fictional but has much more depth *in* the story than one would get from any text).

This is when it’s time to step out of natural conversation, obviously. Traditional games are generally not great at communicating the need to switch gears like this, but should be. One of the advantages of the RPG form is that we *don’t* have to suffer infodump dialogue in character. We can take it OOC and get it out of the way.

Positive elements? Well, the game was actually quite good, but readers will know that I problematize first and my own game sessions are no different in this regard. One thing that worked very well was aggressively utilizing social skills. There were several sessions where characters had a chance to use their skills to uncover social cues, judge veracity and organize people. There was one situation where the PCs were trying to get the prince to move Elysium to a new location. The Prince rolled well enough to detect that the PCs had done a halfassed job negotiating with the Keeper and was rather reserved, but other social rolls allowed characters to deal with the fallout. Better yet, it gave me the freedom to lie as various NPCs without leaving the PCs without the ability to sense it.

The story itself was fun and the climax, featuring traditional gonzo exploding statues in an art gallery, worked out just fine.

Now it’s time for Steve’s D&D game and time to consider the future of my Rogue/Monk.