MRAAKTAGON

I got some shit in the mail this week–sort of unexpected in some instances (and some stuff I ordered) and it turned out to be an RPG blow out.

First– I’ve been looking at a D100 game to run and am considering either Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd edition or RunQuest 6. Given that there were a lot of 2nd edition WFRP books that I didn’t get back in the day, but have about 4, that would be the cheapest route. That said, I just had to have the full Career Compendium Fantasy Flight put out when they took over the license. If there’s one book other than the core book (and Plundered Vaults– a bunch of 1st edition adventures updated to 2nd Edition), the Career Compendium is it. I picked it up via DriveThruRPG print on demand, so it’s not an original. It was expensive (40$ for the hardcover) but if I’m ever going to play 2nd Edition WFRP, it’s a must have.

Secondly, long ago I backed the Cortex Plus Hackers Guide kickstarter, and the book finally came in the mail. I’ve had the PDF for awhile but it’s really been tough for me to read PDF books on my PC–I sort of hate it– hence I didn’t read much and am thus happy to get the hard copy. Cortex is the base system for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, and is really good for any sort of 1 off games, especially super powered stuff.

Third– Runequest 6th edition. In the late 70’s, a few years after D&D was out, a bunch of people got together after playing D&D and thought to themselves: “boy, Hit Points as an abstraction of damage sucks real bad.” I agree with this and that’s one of the reasons I moved away from D&D in the early 80’s to other stuff finally landing on WFRP 1st edition– what ARE hit points anyway? Going from 100% combat effective to dead is—difficult to imagine in reality.  Over the years, we’ve all learn to accept hit points as an abstraction because, well, it’s fun and fun is the most important thing after all.  Runequest tried successfully to keep the fun in a game while making combat more realistic  with hit locations and no body-wide hit points. Fights are over in a just a few rounds and have… consequences. The new edition is pretty tight from my short reading so far, and lo and behold I have played the system before many moons ago since it powers Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu. It’s a good Schweizer Offiziersmesser for gritty fantasy games and the combat system is, needless to say surviving from the late 70’s until now, fantastic.

Lastly, one of the developers on 13th Age released a bestiary for the Midguard Campaign setting that I instantly picked up (unfortunately, PDF only). It’s got a mess of monsters and what’s really a bonus, a full suite of Midguard-specific Icons to boot. For all my ripping on D&D all the time 13th Age has warmed me up to d20 big time. I wish I had known about 13th Age at Gencon last summer, I would have given the creators a good slap across the mouth because I like them. 13th Age is going to be my go-to game for light, crunchy fun where as either RuneQuest or WFRP2 for more hardcore play. I do want to take a crack at world building with custom icons, but that may take awhile since it’s no fun if it’s not a group thing and my groups is geographically quite challenged.

That said, the above is a lot of sundry gaming material, so it’s time to grease up and get fucking gaming.

During football season, I get a lot of texts. Hundreds really, sometimes each day about this player doing so and so for various local sports teams. I know I get these because I explicitly do not like American Football. People think I’m being contrarian, but two events early in life coloured my view of watching sports.

First, I had a friend that I had just made at school, I was very excited because I liked this kid and we were going to play at his house. We got there, I figured we’d start playing with toys or some games, but instead, we sat down and watched—football. After 5 minutes I couldn’t wait to go home. This was in first grade or so, and I realized at that time that watching sports, particularly football, was not for me.

Second, I got to go to some Gator games and while fun (read: drunk and with hot girls) the game itself was boring to me. I went to a pro football game a few years later and it completely removed my interest in the sport forever: the COMMERCIAL time outs that turned a 1.5 hour game into a 3.5 hour waste of time just irked me, and nowhere is it more evident than at a pro football game. What happens during the commercial timeouts on the field? Nothing. While you at home are watching Culligan Man or Viagre, the entire stadium is just waiting and the team is just sitting there. It’s the worst ever.

That said, and I digress, I am no longer getting the Football texts, this week I am getting ESCHELON 3 texts– tons of them. Certain people of a certain people are texting back and forth minute by minute progress of their games.

For example:
Those Umbral Dogs in the second level of the mine are badass

Yes! I found a book that gave me CARTOGRAPHY!

I have a real hard time spending three points in game.

While this is much better than football, I haven’t played an Eschelon game all the way through, so I don’t have any idea what it’s about (just played the demo).

This is a gaming nerd blog so I don’t want to delve to deep into a review of a book, but this is one that comes along for me every once in a while that I really have trouble finishing from an author I otherwise like. The books author produced the amazing Canticle for Leibowitz in the 50’s and SLatWHW came out in 1997– posthumously. It was finished up by another writer who stated that 90% of the text was complete and didn’t touch it– he just wrapped up the last 100 pages or so.

In reading the book it feels like a huge mess of a thing, this is not to say I didn’t like it, it’s one, like Canticle, that will stick to your ribs a bit as there is some heady shit in there. However, there are scenes that just didn’t need to be there, characters that have 3-4 names that are used across the book and it feels to me like it’s 3 books smushed into one, there are descriptions of places and things that have already been described in earlier parts of the book and some arcs that jump into the story that it feels like you’re supposed to know about beforehand. Certainly the scope of the book could have been a trilogy of 250+ pages each– but my big beef with the book is that I feel like it needed an editor to really dial it in.

That said, if you liked Canticle for Leibowitz, you should buckle down and read this, there is certainly some gold to be had here.  The plot concerns a monk of Saint Leibowitz who isn’t too happy with the order and has some misbehavior, since he is fluent in some of the nomad languages, instead of dismissal from the order he is pawned off to what turns out to be a very militant Cardinal who takes him on some sort of journey to deliver modern weapons to a settlement of mutants.  During this time the pope dies and our protagonist gets a view into the machinations of church and state to elect a new pope.  Note that this is post-apocalyptic so there are your Gamma World style mutants around and a lot of rediscovery of technology during what appears to be a rebirth of knowledge in the world. There are no sentient plants or anything crazy, but some of the mutants have odd powers.   Of course, having read Canticle, the readers know the whole plot is just the build up to a and eventual second flame deluge.

I do think Miller was on to something here, the world of the rad-zone nomads and Texarkana Empire and the church is quite vibrant, but he has an extremely frustrating protagonist who seems to never be in the right place at the right time.    It’s repeatedly mentioned that the main character is a mutant by other characters, but this is never explored to fruition in the plot, which is strange.  My favorite part of the book is a showdown between nomads, church troops and Texarkanaian empire troops over a shipment of repeating rifles– the nomads pretend to switch sides, help both sides and basically sit and watch until the right moment.  I feel this was narrated brilliantly.  Other parts are a bit of a chore to wade through and honestly I had no idea where the book was headed until the last third, even then there was a lot of wandering around.

Thematically, the book is about the conflict of church and state and paganism vs monotheism (the first external to the protagonist and the second internal).  Frankly, I didn’t get what Miller was trying to say with either one– just left me thoughtful, but confused.  Some of the character’s motivations, especially the militant cardinal, are never fully explained.  All in all, a tough but good read, now on to something a lot lighter.

Oh boy, that was a long one… I’ve been playing the game on and off since 1999 (when it originally came out) and found it to be quite fun, and not at all about the winning of the game. If you play to win, it can go sort of faster, but when you first play the game it’s more about exploring and being an RPG (where the character is your clan) than a game you ‘win’.   Like Dwarf Fortress and FTL, the fun is not always in success.  Recently on the phone, I played a few times trying to win the game, failed and quit (just sell off all your cattle to end the game) and in frustration, finally picked a great name for my clan that actually won: Rape Margin.  One of the offshoots of playing a lot of KoDP is an interest in Glorantha and Runequest– while it does seem like an interesting period to roleplay in, it’s tough to imagine every getting people to play a game of it.  Runequest 6 looks quite good for a very detailed and realistic system.  Reading the combat system has made me look at D100 systems (the whiff systems) a lot differently, especially WFRP 2nd edition who’s combat could have been a lot better.

Winning King of Dragon Pass is not easy, it takes quite a long time to do because a lot of the events are completely random, and your clan can go on a pretty hard core death spiral if you get hit by bad events over and over, but after years of play, there are some clear steps:

1. Form a Tribe. This means completing a the Making of the Storm Tribe heroquest which can both kill your guys and kill your will to continue playing. Just remember, completing a heroquest is a HUGE deal in the game. Think of the game as a means to complete the heroquests and you’ll be good. Making your clan into a heroquesting engine is the most important part of the game.

2. Complete ALL the other heroquests (including Making of the storm tribe a second time). My advice here is to read all the myths, memorize the correct answers and be ready to try the same one over and over.  There are walkthru’s on the internet too of course, and if it makes the game more enjoyable USE THEM.  Remember though, many of the answers to the situations have many ‘winning’ answers.   Some of the heroquests give you hints about other ones, those are good to do first.

3. Win. This is the hard part because you have to be the king of your tribe, which isn’t easy. Once you are king of your tribe things can happen to your king, so you NEED to complete the heroquests as soon as you can.  Keep at it.

An Excerpt from my clan’s saga (the Rape Margin clan).  The whole game took 76 game YEARS to complete.

This is what looked like to be the beginning of a typical death spiral, but I pulled out of it:

1382
Our seers predicted that the hunters would find little game this year.

A gigantic Chaos creature appeared on the boundaries of our tula. It ate some sheep, and scared away the shepherds. We sent for Uroxi warriors. While we waited for word to get to them, the Chaos creature ate some of our horses. The Uroxi refused to help us, because we had not respected them before now. “Maybe now you will realize how important we are,” they said. We sought the aid of other clans. While we were talking to other chieftains, the Chaos creature ate some of our children. No other clan agreed to help us. We sacrificed to Urox for aid against Chaos. While we prepared the sacrifices, the Chaos creature ate some of our cows. The god-talkers said the signs were good; Urox would aid us in our battle. We attacked the creature. We fought the creature, but its terrifying powers were too much for us. It devoured many of our fighters before our eyes, and horribly wounded many others. It shambled off only when it had gorged itself on the corpses of the slain. Many people expected it to come back later. – This is a horrible event in the game and if it keeps happening, you will be fucked forever.

Outlaws blocked our caravan to the Apple clan. Branbrig attacked, but was wounded and had to return home. – I always choose “Kill as many bandits as possible” in these events.”

Brenna was accused of secret magic and deliberately spreading disease. Our ancestral spirits held her blameless of spreading disease. They said she was a friend of Ernalda but would say no more. Many people concluded Brenna was a member of the Earth Witch spirit tradition. We proclaimed her innocence. The people said that Brenna must be guiltless, and agreed that her magic, though secret, was not harming anyone. Not long afterwards, several farmers reported digging up valuable items. – Always do a divination if you have clan magic because this happens a lot and most of the time the people are doing some sort of good.

Korlmar, a trader of the Arnoring clan, warned us to be wary of another trader, Yerestia of the Zethnoring clan. We avoided becoming entangled in this dispute. – I haven’t seen all the permutations of this event tree, but it happens a lot.

A dragonewt came and asked for its old body back. “We don’t have your body,” we told it. We said that we really had no idea exactly where the body was. It flared its crest and hissed, “You not lie, exactly — but you not truthful either.” It departed, promising stern action. – This is when you find a ‘dead’ dragonnewt and make armor out of it. You want to keep the armor!

Foul weather turned back our trading caravan bound for the Vanstali clan.

Salinarg began the Elmal Guards the Stead heroquest. Orlanth left on his great quest, and Salinarg stayed to guard the stead. A Chaos creature called the Eater of Skin came and attacked. Salinarg became bright, in order to blind the Eater of Skin. The creature reared back, shrieking. It tore at Salinarg, tearing his arm from its socket. Salinarg easily slew the sightless creature with his other arm, and the people rejoiced. Our worshippers, back in the ritual ground, had a chance to help Salinarg knit himself back together. We gave of our tears, weeping and wailing, so that our tears soaked the ritual ground. Salinarg knitted himself back together and everyone, whether from the Rape Margin clan or the Storm Tribe, rejoiced. More Chaos enemies came, including the Author of Sores. Salinarg let the creature tear him apart. The Author of Sores did so, and then destroyed the stead of the Storm Tribe, and slew everyone inside. Our god-talkers were distressed by this terrible omen; even more so when the dismembered pieces of Salinarg’s body were found outside the ritual ground. The god-talkers said that we were sure to be visited by Chaos in the seasons ahead. – Elmal’s quest is one of the hardest because there are no right answers to the challenges, all of them give some sort of possibility of moving to the next stage– but if you give of anything but your tears after you get fucked up, you will lose.

We spotted a cattle raid by the Arnorings. We drove the Arnorings from the battlefield, striking them down as they fled. – There are a bunch of magic items that help to stop cattle raids– you need to buy and find them whenever you can.

A gigantic Chaos creature appeared on the boundaries of our tula. It ate some sheep, and scared away the shepherds. We sent for Uroxi warriors. While we waited for word to get to them, the Chaos creature ate some of our horses. 2 great holy warriors of Urox came to aid us. We sacrificed to Urox for aid against Chaos. While we prepared the sacrifices, the Chaos creature ate some of our cows. The god-talkers said the signs were good; Urox would aid us in our battle. We sought the aid of other clans. While we were talking to other chieftains, the Chaos creature ate some of our children. No other clan agreed to help us. We attacked the creature. We slew the creature. It decomposed over a matter of days, and we had to keep everyone inside their steads. Where it died, nothing would grow. – Again, this is a fuckall event.  

The Apples raided us. We drove the Apples from the battlefield, striking them down as they fled. – This needs to happen a lot, a combination of tech (the blessings of the gods), magic items and people on the ring can make this happen all the time.  I always pick: Sacrifice to Humakt, Kill as many as possible and Charge as my options unless there is something special. going on.

Good luck, the game is winnable after all!.