I will be at Gen Con next week, Friday through Sunday. That
should give Sherri plenty of time to play Animal Crossing: New Leaf and possibly deal
with the new kitten. I’m looking forward to picking up my Hillfolk Kickstarter
and some other things from Pelgrane.
If you’re going to be at Gen Con, hunt me down. I haven’t
signed up for anything, planning on mostly seminars and shopping. I hope to go
to the podcasting seminar on Friday. I have an appointment late Saturday
afternoon and late Sunday morning, but otherwise planned nothing out. I’ll have
a copy of my board game Right of Succession and the homebrew rpg, Action Cards,
we’ve been playing for the last decade+ if anyone wants to see those. I’m going
to try to keep my kit otherwise to a minimum, with maybe Microscope and some other
stuff. Anyway I hope to run into some people I know. If you’re going to be
there, leave a comment or email me at edige23 (insert obligatory symbol here)
gmail.com.
My Gen Con hunting list includes:
1. 13th Age
2. 43AD
3. The Justice Trade for Ashen Stars. (maybe…there's a bunch Pelgrane
stuff on this list…)
4. DragonMech (If I can find
a bundle of this stuff for a decent price)
5. The Edge of Midnight (They had a bundle deal on these last year that I passed on
because of the weight. I might try again. Another maybe.)
6. The Esoterrorists 2nd Edition (maybe- if it is available)
7. Eternal Lies (The new ToC campaign. Even though I'm not sure I'll get a chance to
run it, I want to read it. Another maybe.)
8. FATE Accelerated
(The one thing I didn’t get a printed copy of from the KS).
9. Iron Kingdoms (I’d like to find some older stuff cheap perhaps? Someone
contacted me that they have some to sell, so I might hold off.)
10. Monsterhearts
(Sherri wants a printed copy of this.)
11. Double Tap for NBA
12. Over the Edge (2nd Edition) (Another one someone offered to sell me. If I see a really
cheap copy, though).
13. Owl Hoot Trail
14. Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island (The one board game my wife insists
I buy if I see it).
16. Strongholds of the Empire (I'm hoping AEG might have a POD copy of this at their booth.
That’s a wishlist, so we’ll have to see what fraction the
budget can support.
SUGGESTION BOX
A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to play a demo game
of 13th Age via G+Hangouts/Roll20. I had fun and
importantly it closed the deal on my decision to pick up a copy of the game. It
occurs to me that online demos, done regularly could be an effective supplement
to f2f conventions. They reduce the overhead costs of travel and create an AP
video which can be pointed to. Companies could tie participation perhaps to a
coupon or discount.
To really do that well, companies need to step up the kinds
of tools and packages they have available for online play. Demos specifically
created for online play- with an interactive packet. For example, pre-generated
characters but with form-fillable sheets to mark damage or conditions. Create a
set of tokens to match those characters. That would be enough to allow GMs to
easily use those with their own scenarios online. Going a step further, maps
from the demo could be put together and made available on these services- in
this case I’m particularly talking about Roll20. Tokens for opposition and NPCs
could be possible as well. The maps and extra tokens could be a nice touch, but
not necessary.
Roll20 has made a nice cottage industry for artists creating
general tokens and maps. For a number of years smaller companies have been
creating token and map packs, particularly for VTT but often useful in jpeg
format for other applications. Savage Worlds in particular has been great about
providing image and token support for their products. However many of these
still appear on sheets, requiring the GM to cut, paste and size to create them.
I think companies need to be really looking at how to support online play by
providing ready-made tokens (and maps) suitable to these kinds of games. That’s
true even for games which don’t require a fully tactical map. It would be nice
to have a set of tokens based on the art work for games like Night’s Black Agents or Ashen Stars. The GM could use those to
show relative positions and groupings. Use the art assets from the books. One
company who really ought to be doing this is Privateer for Iron Kingdoms. They
have great art assets- for face-on tokens. But they also have the various
overhead icons and silhouettes they use for the rpg and miniatures game
diagrams. I’d love to run Iron Kingdoms online- and if I could buy several
packs of those, it would make my life easier.
Games with odd or unusual tracking systems or set ups really
need to think about how someone will play their game online. I’ve seen various
approaches to Fiasco. We played using
a shared Google Doc, but I’ve also seen some lovely set ups that create a board
space and make writing and placing the detail cards really easy. In the near future
I want to run Microscope online- and
to do that I’m going to have to figure out the best way to have the players
write up and arrange the cards. I’d love an interactive app for that that
displays nicely in Roll20. The same thing holds for similar games like Last
Best Hope and Durance. Ideally I should be able to pull up simple tools that recreate some of those visuals onscreen.
That’s one of the challenges facing DramaSystem aka
Hillfolk. I really hope that they’ve already developed the best and most
attractive methodology for playing online using Roll20 or something like it. I’m
not talking about just screen-share and a document, but art or tool bits to
handle the several oddball stages of the game. For example, we need an easy way
to build the relationship map. That should be possible with those tools- but a
template would be helpful. We also need a means of tracking the various
expendables. Finally we need a guide for how to easily set up the card
resolution system with the Roll20 tools.
Because here’s the thing- my best chance for trying out
these new games and sharing them with people lies in online play. Maybe I’ll be
able to try them out with my f2f group, but we’re likely deep in our campaigns.
Maybe I can get to a convention, but I only go to a couple each year. But if
there’s a well set-up and attractive option to play online, I’m likely to take it
these days.
GROUNDS FOR DISMISSAL
I posted about running Hollowpoint last week. We had a moment during the break when Nick, glancing at my
gaming shelf, spotted Fantasy HERO and commented “somebody likes math.” That
turned us onto a brief discussion of systems and history. I’d played HERO for
about twenty years before setting it aside. The same thing with other clunky
systems like Rolemaster. I made a joke about all games being worthwhile, except
Rifts. At which point a couple of people said that’s where they’d started and
they’d had a great time playing it. Consider me properly schooled. I thought
back to the predecessor of Rifts and the whole Palladium canon, the original
Mechanoid Invasion. We’d played and loved that. The system was a hot mess, but
we had a good time playing it.
In the monthly board gaming group we have a couple of people
who loudly and angrily decry Worker Placement and Deck-Building games. That
seems weird to me, but then again I’m not a fan of race games. I have to remember a system may not be
something I want to play or run, but that doesn’t invalidate it. For example, I
don’t particularly care for Dungeons & Dragons 4e- but many people do. I
thought I might want to try a classic game so I picked up a copy of Dark Dungeons.
But man, I do not want to work through that. It doesn’t do anything for me…but
lots of people talk about the Rules Cyclopedia fondly. OSR has no particular
appeal to me, but many smart and creative folks embrace it and I've tried. The same with pure story games.
That’s a lesson I have to relearn every few years. There’s
sometimes the pressure, especially in the high social media age, to rise to defend
vigorously anything you like. I don’t think that’s a bad instinct, except that
people carry it too far. Someone’s dislike of your favored system isn’t a crime
to be vilified. Someone suggesting alternative approaches isn’t an assault on
your game practices. Or at least it shouldn’t be. Shoepixie has a great postconsidering what she gets out of radically different games. She contains
multitudes, as I hope do we all.
No comments:
Post a Comment