November Projects & Age of Ravens Ideas

BLOG ON THE EDGE OF NOVEMBER

November is National Novel Writing Month. While I have a couple manuscripts in long-delayed progress (of course), I’m instead devoting myself to finish a small set of projects. So I’ll be taking November off from blogging, except for the next installment of my History of Universal RPGs (and maybe another if I get distracted). I’ll be back in December. As of the moment I have three things I really want to get into a finished state: my Wulin PbtA game, a Harvest Moon-style rpg, and a working public version of Action Cards (either generic or for a campaign frame).

To prepare I’ve gone through and updated my personal list of Blog post ideas. I have plenty of material to keep me occupied for the next several months. I’ve posted my "on deck" concepts below. Favorites, other suggestions, and/oror general comments are appreciated.

AGE OF RAVENS FUTURE POSTS

• Another Pass on a Base Raiders/13th Age Adaptation
• Ashen Stars Express
• Birthright with 13th Age
• Blades in the Dark Review
• Bringing Fate into Dramasystem (or Vice Versa)
• Changeling the Lost PbtA v 2.0
• Cop Campaigns in Blades in the Dark
• Coriolis & Fading Suns: Adaptation vs. Crossover
• Cthulhu City Review
• Demon and Promethean: Figuring out the Fun
• Doing Dragon Quest with Dungeon World
• Fate Supers: Assessing Options
• Game Tech Posts: Damage, Stuff, Experience, and more
• Icon-Based Events for City Adventures in 13th Age
• Last Year in “XXX” Genre Lists
• Lessons from WWW Season Two
• Longer Term Godbound and Letting Go
• Magic, Inc for Fate
• Montage Conflicts & Events in PbtA
• More Thoughts on Adapting Iron Kingdoms
• My Pigsmoke Review
• Neo Shinobi Vendetta for Fate
• Our Experience with Legacy: Life Among the Ruins 2e
• Pandemic Legacy: What Can We Steal?
• Pigsmoke University Press: A New Front
• Problem Scale and Solution Granularity
• Railroad Cars, Passengers, and Events for Ghost Lines
• Random City Travel Events
• Revising Crowsmantle
• Rolls per Session and Play Weight
• Sprawl Mission Cards
• Thoughts on High-Level Play: Kingdom, Legacy, Microscope, Fate

I may update progress during the month; otherwise I’ll see folks in December.  

What I Like in Games: Saying Please

MORE GAMES, MORE GAMES

Several weeks ago Vincent Baker started a conversation on G+ about defining yourself as a game designer. He encouraged everyone to create and consider yourself a designer. In particular he pointed at people who say what you ought to be doing in games. “They're asking you for a favor and they aren't even gracious or self-aware enough to say please.” That phrase stuck with me. James Stuart followed that up by talking about the challenges of unpaid labor as it related to game creation (citing this article about github).

I want to say what I like in games and I want to say please. I smile when I see games hit my particular hang-ups. I also want to break those "likes" into two groups. In the first we have things which may be less labor, time, and effort intensive. They’re about style and information. The second group requires more time and effort. They’re things I dig, but I recognize not all games can do given commitments and energy.

If a game or supplement is of substantial size, I’m more likely to look at it through this lens. Smaller games, niche indie rpgs, truly revolutionary approaches have their own standards. Some of my desires apply to those, but more often not. I’m talking about books with dozens of pages, Kickstarter projects, and anything with a substantial price point (let’s say roughly $3+ maybe higher...I don't know).

Also designers can make deliberately, conscious aesthetic choices to do the opposite of what I say I like. I respect that. If you make an informed choice, having weighed the perils and pitfalls, then cool. Hopefully the reasons for your approach will be clear to your readers. None of this should be taken to say anything game should be condemned. Instead it’s about the guidelines I use to invest my money and time. The latter’s the more precious resource. We live in a golden age of gaming with almost too many excellent options.

Games I'm Thankful For: A Companion List

BASIC LIKES

Tell Me What We’re Doing

Offer a clear statement of what we’re doing when we play. I like to see that early. It’s one of the first things I look for. Some books just give me a genre statement ("a game of fantasy adventure") or simply describe the setting. But I’d like to know what the play aims towards or supports. If that’s "anything possible" fantasy, then make that claim. Think of it this way, when I go to pitch this to my players, what am I telling them?

I’ve picked up a couple of complete rpgs on Drivethru lately which have super-detailed and rich settings. But I don’t know how we fit into it. I can't figure what kinds of stories we’ll be telling. Maybe they say that later on, but if I don't know in the first chapter or so, I’m less likely to press on or even remember the game later

.

Before You Get Going

Before you launch into a large chunk of game fiction, an overview of the setting’s history, or a complete gazetteer, do that telling I mentioned above. Even if it’s just a couple of paragraphs before we dive in. On the flip side, don’t jump to character creation on page one without giving me any idea of who these characters need to be. .

Genre

I love superhero games, I love spy games, I love samurai games—all genres I dig. When I see new games for these I’m going to check them out. But I’m always stumped when all the game tells me is “I’m a steampunk game.” OK, what kind? What’s the difference between you and the dozens of other cog & brass games?

If your game jumps into a crowded genre, maybe tell us what’s new about it. Or say what’s done differently and better. Or even just talk about why you made the game. Even if it’s to only to say that you created something that fit your GMing style, worked with your group, or added a few bits you preferred.I like it best when that discussion’s concrete and specific.

You don't have to know every game in the genre. I’m not saying you have to name and take on the biggest competitors. But you have some reasons you like this game, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t have created and presumably played it. Tell us.

Blurbs

Check your blurbs. Like many people, I get my first impression from back covers or the electronic equivalent: Drivethrurpg product pages. That’s your pitch. That’s the thirty seconds you have to get someone’s attention. I’m less likely to check out games with ambiguous, vague, or generic language there. Maybe you want your game to be enigmatic, with the idea that the reader will be drawn in to figure out what’s going on. That works sometimes, but it has to be super well-written. Some of the best blurbs I’ve seen offer a little bit off mystery, but then have concrete info. They divide that with lines or font choices.

First Impressions

Related to that, really think about if you want boobalicious artwork on your cover. Maybe you’re doing that for a strong purpose; if so, that’s cool. But I’m less likely to buy or support a game that I’d be embarrassed to present to our mixed gender player group. A T&A cover says something to many female players.

What Am I Rolling?

Tell me early on what kind of dice I’ll need- or if I need none. I can’t say how many games I’ve gone through for my History lists that don’t do this. I need to get 100+ pages in to the resolution section to see what they mean by “roll X dice.”

Hacks

If you’re building on an existing system (Savage Worlds, d20, PbtA, Fate), tell us what you’re changing or doing differently. Explain what you’re bringing to the table. If you’re just repurposing it without changes, tell us that too. If you’re changing up basic terms from the original system, please call that out. When I read the Fellowship rpg, it took me a long time to realize that when they were talking about “Overlord Cuts,” they meant “GM Moves.”

BONUS LIKES

Don’t Box Me In

I like open pages. If you’re going to bound the text with lines or art, keep that simple and let the text breathe. It bugs me to read games with completely enclosed box frame pages. Or strong bounding lines on multiple sides of the page. I’m not sure what purpose that serves. Are they crowding the frame to make less text look like more? I recall student papers that did this to pad out page counts. I feel the same way about large, graphically intense, and obtrusive page edge borders.

What’s My Background?

Think about why you have repeating graphical element on your pages. If you want greyscale watermarks, background images, color pages, or some combination, have a reason why. What does it add to the text? Does it make it easier to read? Does it help the page hold together visually? Does it complement the overall aesthetic of your product? Then ask yourself, does it make this harder to read? Then ask a bunch of other people if they have a harder time reading. Remember it will appear darker on some readers’ displays or print outs. Does that balance out for you? It might- Space Wurm vs. Moonicorn’s a good example of a success with this.

BUT if you have any of that PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE learn how to use layers when you put your pdf together. Allow readers to turn off those backgrounds for viewing and printing. Some people have visual limitations, some are just old fucks like me. Alternately: offer a printer-friendly version. Seriously, this ought to be a common standard and you can find tutorials about it online.

Wall of Text

I appreciate it when designers break up text, carefully use headers, or offer vital synopses in callout boxes. I have a harder time getting through text which combines small fonts, single columns, and long paragraphs.

Navigating

I can understand not having an index, but there are tools now to make one much more easily. It might not be a great, but it could help. It’s especially necessary if your game is fairly long. I’m more pleased when I see an index than disappointed when one’s missing. That being said, if you have more than a couple of sections give us a table of contents. And one with useful headings rather than fanciful ones. Please.

Pitch Meeting

Think about how a GM’s actually going to translate and convey your game/setting to players. This is vital, but how you handle this varies. Yes, you can have a rich history but perhaps offer a 1-2 page summary. Yes you can have many clans/groups/factions, but perhaps present a quick ref for those somewhere. Figure out what players need to know to play. You’ve probably had to synopsize when you’ve presented the game to others. What did you say? What questions came up in play? Ideally have something a GM can hand out.

Pre-Gens

If appropriate to the game, I love it when I see pre-gen characters. Especially when they’re presented as standard character sheets. If you have printer-friendly versions included or available as downloads somewhere, that’s awesome.

Getting Rolling

If appropriate to the game I love it when I see quickstart or sample adventures. They’re hard, they’re work, but they’re useful to demoing the game to a new group. They don’t fit for every game. But even if you have an rpg with a more flexible approach, perhaps point the GM to some good starting places or fronts. My favorite quick-starts introduce concepts and rules in stages, like a good video game tutorial.

Diverse Art

Not all games have art. And sometimes you have to rely on creative commons or stock art. That’s cool. That being said, when a game has art and I see an effort has been made to have diverse characters presented, I appreciate that. Different ethnicities and cultures, various body types, women in positions of strength, etc. I’ve seen many games where all the women have to be sexy-times and the men get to look interesting and distinct. I like it when a game changes that up.

One-Page Character Sheet

Completely a personal preference. And a higher-level design issue. But I’m much more sympathetic to games where characters fit on one side of a single page, without being in microscopic font. YRMV.

Initial starting sounds

This is a stupid one. But it’s something that bothers me. If you have a small pool of key terms (attributes, skills) consider varying the initial sounds of them. I’m always weirdly disconcerted when I hit a list of six characteristics and three of them start with “S” (Strength, Stamina, Social). They don’t all have to begin with different letters, but think about breaking that up, if only to make abbreviations easier. 

Thoughts? Other Likes I Missed?
Games I'm Thankful For: A Companion List

The L5R 4e Resource Guide: Otosan Uchi

THE L5R 4E RESOURCE GUIDE
The set-up of the new 4e L5R more easily allows the use of materials from earlier editions and eras. That raises the questions: which of these products should an L5R 4e GM bother picking up? Which of them offer new insights into the pre-Clan War period (and beyond)? Which of them offer more universally useful setting material? This series aims to answer those questions. Note that I leave aside any and all mechanical material and questions for purposes of these reviews.

OTOSAN UCHI
And here’s where everything changes. I mentioned the metaplot when I looked at Winter Court: Kyuden Seppun. That had been the first L5R supplement to really move the timeline forward or even suggest that there would be movement. In some ways, it was inevitable that they would move the world forward. At this time, the CCG had gone through several arcs and was towards the end of the Hidden Emperor and Spirit Wars episodes. As well the CCG IP was in the hands of Wizards (though they would sell it back to AEG the following year). Clan War, the L5R miniatures game had been rolled out, but wasn’t catching fire as they’d hoped. As well plans for a second edition of the core rules had already been put into place. The events of the First Core setting were decades out of date with the developing saga. However taking the step that 4e did- making the game era agnostic- wasn’t really viable. L5R had built significant history, but not enough to support that. So I understand why they pushed the rpg timeline forward.

And many players wanted this- wanted to see behind the scenes at the various stories and secrets. This and Time of the Void would answer (or at least address) many of those questions. That makes Otosan Uchi an ambitious project with a good deal riding on it. It is a boxed city set, so it has to live up to the amazing standard set by City of Lies. It puts the players in the middle of one of the most complex and significant events in Rokugan's history. And it has to do all that while allowing very different groups and parties entry into the material.

The boxed set contains three perfect bound booklets, plus two maps. The first thing you’ll likely notice on opening the box is that the books don’t fit. I don’t mean they’re tight in there, I mean they are literally jammed in there, bending them. The books are about ¼ to ⅛ of an inch too wide. That’s too bad because the box itself is nice and sturdy.

The two poster-sized maps both show the Imperial Capital of Otosan Uchi. One offers a lovely illustrative take in full color. The other’s more analytical- a top down, old school city rpg map complete with numbers for just about every building in the city. Think City State of the Invincible Overlord or Cities of Hârn. The books themselves are quite nice, with a simple cover pattern and helpful reference material on the back. A massive amount of work has gone into the product. It uses a simple two-column layout, with none of the sidebars of earlier supplements. The authors know just how complex the material is going to be and aim for clarity. The illustrations are generally pretty good and useful for showing significant NPCs and places. There could be more of them, but the product’s already massive.

Book 1: The Imperial Capital: A Location Guide: Otosan Uchi clearly breaks with the approach of City of Lies. That volume offered a loose approach, with an emphasis on story and player facing materials. NPCs were detailed and important locations noted, but the whole of the city was painted broadly to give the GM plenty of room. On the other hand, OU takes an old school approach- with almost 800 locations numbered on the map. Each chapter covers one of the districts or areas of the city- presenting its governor or important figure and a brief summary of what the area’s like. It has cut out maps from the posters. However the size of the numbered maps makes that text unreadable. Each section also has a “stat block” of traits, like population, corruption, political influence. Then locations within the area get very short write ups- averaging a paragraph or two. Not every numbered entry is covered, but there’s definitely a focus on volume over depth. GMs who like lists and completeness with appreciate this.

That’s not, however, my favorite approach. My preference is for a few key locations, well described to use for interesting stories and plots. There’s an almost tactical level sense to this approach, like the players would go door to door. The book has a eight page master index of locations (“OK, we go to #674,” “That’s a tea shop.”). Still the introductory material here offers broader material. These twelve pages include an overview of the city, articles on crime and punishment, and discussion of religion in the city. Overall the 96-page book covers a lot of ground.

Book 2: The Forbidden City: A Walking Tour: This takes a similar approach to the districts of the Ekohikei, the inner city and palace of the Hantei. However, the smaller number of districts to cover (and more interesting features available) mean that everything’s treated with greater depth. There’s some really interesting ideas and characters presented. The fifteen pages of introductory material really help explain life within these walls. Its interesting to imagine the plots and plans carried out here. A GM could easily run a Courtier/Intrigue campaign just using this. It would be a high-level, high-risk game for veteran players.

Book 3: The Scorpion’s Sting: A Game Master’s Guide to the Scorpion Clan Coup: This is an 80-page massively ambitious adventure. It details the death of the Hantei and the Fall of the Scorpion. The scenario takes an interesting approach, breaking the story into three distinct tracks. The Courtier’s Tale assumes characters within the palace itself when the plot unfolds. The Skirmisher’s Tale deals with characters within the greater city, battling the Scorpion’s infiltrators and seeking a way to save the Empire. The Soldier’s Tale deals with event outside the walls- battles, skirmishes, and the death of iconic figures (such as Doji Satsume). The last chapter in the book describes how to run the events using Clan War. The book has a section on how to connect this with previous events and bring the PCs into play. I think that’s important. The players shouldn’t feel that they’ve just stumbled into the middle of this. They should be pursuing some thread that suggests or hints at the larger problem.

The authors paint the picture broadly- suggesting events and scenes, but allowing the players plenty of room to run around. They may even shift from one track to another. GMs could run all three in parallel, with players taking on the roles of different characters. The really excellent timeline on the back cover of this volume helps keep the events straight. It ends with three pages describing the immediate aftermath of the coup’s failure.

Is it good? I’ve run it once- with the players beginning as skirmishers and moving into the palace. There are some great scenes there. I regret that my version was truncated; we had a terrible player who made the game awful for everyone else. I ended up rushing through this, to my regret. I think the adventure holds together, just barely, like a car falling to pieces as it heads downhill. And that’s awesome. The story here moved me more than I thought it would. Anyone wanting to run this should read The Scorpion: First Scroll of the Clan War by Stephen D. Sullivan. I disliked the rest of the series, but this one really managed to capture the feel of the event. It puts the Coup in broader context.

OVERALL
Of course one of the ironies of this boxed set is that Otosan Uchi gets destroyed in the later timeline. That means there are several eras in which this material won’t be that useful. Still the concepts and structures could be ported over to a new Imperial Capitol. Or the maps here could be used for players sent to explore the ruins of the city. Obviously a third of this boxed set is devoted to a highly specific event. But the remaining two-thirds offers useful concepts for the GM. Granted some of it is presented thinly, but it is still decent. Useful for GMs of many eras, but how useful will depend on the campaign. GMs running in the First Core setting will find solid hooks and characters. Obviously if you want to run the Scorpion Clan Coup, this is a must-buy. It manages to bring that chaos into focus, offering a unique campaign climax. At the time of this writing, the pdf is listed at $18, which seems a little high. AEG also offers this as a POD product, which might make an interesting option.

One final thought related to 4e. Imperial Histories presents a couple of different alternate Rokugans. If you’re looking for a place to change up events in a dramatic way, the Scorpion Clan Coup offers a nexus point. It’s where I shifted the plot of my version of the setting away from canon. In that way, GMs running the First Core setting who want a major event can twist players expectations and create their own timeline.

L5R 4e Resource Guides

First Edition Core L5R Rules/Game Master's Pack

The Way of the Dragon/Honor's Veil
The Way of the Unicorn/City of Lies
The Way of the Crab/The Book of the Shadowlands

Code of Bushido/The Way of the Crane
Twilight Honor/The Way of the Scorpion
Night of a Thousand Screams/The Way of the Lion 

Walking the Way/Tomb of Iuchiban

The Way of Shadow/Midnight's Blood 
Way of the Phoenix/Way of the Naga/GM's Pack Revised
Winter Court: Kyuden Seppun/GM's Survival Guide
Unexpected Allies/Legacy of the Forge
Bearers of Jade/Void in the Heavens 
Otosan Uchi
Merchant's Guide to Rokugan/Way of the Minor Clans
Winter Court: Kyuden Kakita/Way of the Wolf

RPG Wishes: Five Scattered Ideas

In the tradition of my earlier post about what was on my wishlist for GUMSHOE, (The GUMSHOE Companion: RPG Wishes), I present a list of five other rpg things I'd like to see created, done, or produced. 

1. CHILLING CITIES

I really like Night’s Black Agents, and I look forward to running it. I like the globetrotting nature of the spy-genre- with the quick cut/wipe to a new exotic locale. The core book offers three cities done in brief (a page or so): Bucharest, London, and Tunis. One of the most useful old-school spy rpg supplements I owned was Thrilling Locations for the James Bond007 RPG. Pelgrane needs to do an updated version of that for NBA. They could pick a couple dozen cities from various continents, so that GMs could mix and match the travel plans of agents. Each city could be detailed with: map, basic cultural concepts, useful elements for creating the character of the city, local security and heat, places of interest for sexy spying, places of interest for horror and the awful, and perhaps one or two NPCs with hooks (done in The Armitage File's Stalwart, Sinister, Innocuous styles). Such a supplement could also be useful for other games like The Esoterrorists, Spycraft, Delta Green, and Conspiracy X. You could go rules/mechanics light. This kind of supplement would really push me to run a Night’s Black Agents campaign. I could supplement it with Wikipedia and travel guide info, to complement the game-focused ideas here.

2. THE G+ REVOLUTION

I suspect we’ll be seeing this soon, but I thought I’d put the idea out there. I would like to see a gaming publisher create and release G+ tools alongside their game system. This could be a character creator, turn tracker, rules reference, quickstart version, and reference sheet. Optionally if the game has some set maps or images, those could be offered in some way. This could be done in conjunction with Tabletop Forge and/or Roll20 for the easiest access or the company could build their own app. I play a good deal of face-to-face gaming, but I know anecdotally that this segment is increasing and will continue to. The first company that really takes control and presented value-added game material like this could gain some audience share. Or not, given the relative loyalty and fickleness of gamers. For my part, I know I would check these kinds of things out as they could make running a G+ game easier.

3. DUNGEON ARCHITECTURE DIGEST

Last night we took the bucket down into the depths of Undermountain, GM’d by the excellent Greg Christopher. And by depths, I mean the first level before we turned tail and ran. Let us say that Undermountain may not be the most structurally sound edifice ever created. There’s a problematic arrangement to the corridors, lack of smart through access for wandering monsters, and several zones which probably need serious reinforcement to avoid collapse. From the PC’s standpoint, at least one room could have done with a safety rail.

What I would like to see is a blog which provides an architectural critique to classic dungeon, castle, and ruin maps from modules. Places where the run of the corridors make no sense, areas without load-bearing supports, items on upper floors which don’t make any sense in the context of lower levels. For example, the pool on the upper levels which given the depth of the next level down ought to be leaking into the Kobold’s room. Questions of space, workplace safety, access, symmetry, and aesthetics could be considered in such a blog.

4. LIGHT WOLF

So White Wolf, as far as I can tell from the press release, is no more. That seems an odd choice, but clearly pitching away years of accumulated product identity and good will was a reasonable cost for actually gaining control of their properties. Beyond publishing plans for World of Darkness- New and Old- Onyx Wolf announced that they would be creating new editions of Exalted and Scion. These are two great settings with, at least for my group, problematic and dense systems. However the world background in each makes the games worth playing.

I’ve been running Scion with a FATE homebrew (you can see more on that here). It would be awesome if 'White Path' would consider publishing a “rules-light” version of each of these product in parallel with their core publication. They could keep the battle-wheel, ticks of time, detailed charms and whatnot for the base rules. But as well they could do a narrative focused approach which grinds down those rough edges. They could use their Storyteller Adventure System as a basis perhaps. Or more interestingly, they could do what other companies have begun to and create a sourcebook/version using another system like Savage Worlds or FATE. They could hook different market segments that way- perhaps offering a print core book reworked, and then online or pdf conversions for later supplements.  

5. TRANSMISSION SUPPRESSED

I mentioned this before in my reviews of  Suppressed Transmission One and Two. I’ve been listening to Ken Hite and Robin Laws' awesome new podcast, Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff. It remains fun and focused across the four episodes so far. But it reminds me yet again that there’s no easy way for me to purchase the old Suppressed Transmission articles from Steve Jackson Games. I have both collections- and those are great, but they’re only a small portion of the larger body of work. The print/pdf books offer added value content in the form of annotations and those are awesome. But I don’t need those- I honestly would be happy with the articles themselves.

It seems the only existing option is to buy some of the electronic versions of back issues- but you can’t even get most of those since they were in the weekly online zine. I can’t understand why SJG can’t simply bundle the electronic versions of those articles together and sell them. They don’t need to do a full print version- and they don’t need to spend time on layout. I can’t imagine converting those to a collected pdf format would take many work hours. SJG could put together a quick pack, sell those and still have the option of doing and better and expanded version later. I think the phrase is “Shut up and take my money.” I just want access to those great articles again.

The GUMSHOE Companion: RPG Wishes

KEEP REACHING FOR THE STARS?
I just finished about 6500 words on Ashen Stars and its accompanying adventure collection Dead Rock Seven. I hope those will be up next week. I had a strange experience in reading through those rules. I'd pre-ordered them and gotten the nice autographed full-color version. I really enjoy some parts of GUMSHOE and I've reviewed a great deal of the line. My first reaction on reading Ashen Stars, though, was more than a little negative. It felt complicated and overwhelming. It wasn't until I sat down for a serious read that I began to see what Laws & co. aimed at- a distinctive sci-fi game of investigation in the broadest sense with all the possible trappings of the genre. That's a flip from Mutant City Blues which presented superhero mysteries with a heavily defined and limited setting. MCB doesn't simulate superheroes, nor even the comics from which it borrows (TopTen and Gotham Central). Instead, to make mysteries of a particular kind playable it establishes some strict ground rules: all powers from a single source, a precise and mapped order of those powers, and players as police officers with powers investigating those heightened crimes. In some ways, MCB's really the first sci-fi approach for GUMSHOE, but a far cry from the space opera of Ashen Stars.

LOOKING FOR CRACKS
Now I'll admit I love some elements of GUMSHOE. I've heard people dismiss the concept of not rolling for investigation as obvious or simplistic. And yes, perhaps groups had already been working with that mechanic. But GUMSHOE uses that as a starting point. It isn't that you don't roll when investigating, but that the system and mechanics support and promote an interesting and involved investigation. Players have access to other kinds of clues, make choices about where to spend resources in following leads, and gain trust in their GM that the mystery will play out and they have the competency to investigate it. Laws & co offer more ideas about running, planning and even winging mystery games than just about any other resource out there. And they show how that emphasis can be built into the fiber of the game.

On the flip side, I don't like how GUMSHOE handles risk and tension, at least for the kinds of games I want to run. To set this up, I need to give a nod to Ryan Macklin's couple of blog articles on Dice and Risk (here and here). GUMSHOE came out of investigative horror- and in the case of Fear Itself, out of a game where you'd probably be running incompetent characters. For that a system with wonky ranges and the requirement to spend before rolling makes perfect sense. I've run a lot of stripped down Unisystem horror one-shots. That system also pretty much says "You've got a skill rating, that's great...I'm still going to screw you over..." That's perfect for games of limited life-spans and bloody deaths. Dread's probably the best example of this. The only control you might have is desperately arguing that something on your character sheet questionnaire should allow you to skip a pull. But if you're using GUMSHOE for something other than horror, it becomes frustrating. I know that might sound a little backwards- after all you get to spend points and therefore have control over the roll. But you don't have any real sense of expertise, you have a die with an absolute range of 1-6 and so it is very easy to waste a spend.

I say this based on play experience with an espionage skin of the system; a Victoriana version of The Esoterrorists; and Mutant City Blues. There's a strange split in the feeling of personal competency between one side of the mechanics and the other. The response was pretty universal across those groups. I suspect that's the nature of the games our groups have been playing for the last couple of decades- certainly we're move to greater player and narrative control systems. I don't want to harp on these problems too much- GUMSHOE offers so much good stuff for use with that system or adaptable over to other games and mechanics. I'm excited by the idea of a Pathfinder conversion (Lorefinder) in particular because I want to know what Pelgrane sees as the key elements of the system. I'm also excited by the news that Will Hindmarch and Fred Hicks will be putting together a hack. I can't imagine that they're just going to adapt it to FATE rules. Not that that wouldn't be a great thing- it would be an amazing thing (and something that skalchemist gave me advice about).

HAND ME MY TOOLBOX
Which finally brings me to whatever point I have in this post. I want to see Pelgrane put together a GUMSHOE companion. This would be a general book, useful to players across the games in the line and for general GMs of mysteries...maybe, I don't know exactly. I know there's an The Esoterror Fact Book, but what I want to see is something broader. There's a real strength in that Pelgrane has approached each of these games as solid and individual rpgs. They have rich settings- which means that the game presented isn't really a toolkit. I'd like to see something that focuses more on those bits and bolts.

So what do I want to see?

1. Guidelines and ideas for adapting GUMSHOE over into other systems. I think it is great that they're doing a stand-alone product for their PF hack, but perhaps we could have some ideas about conversions for other systems and approaches- perhaps one's that likely won't be worth their own book. For example nWoD, L5R or ORE?

2. Optional systems for handling general abilities. A couple of different flavors of this could be presented. Perhaps one which ditches spends and another which keeps spends but offers more control and choice. Along with that more articulation to the combat system, perhaps? I say that as a person who runs rules-light games. I think options to add more emphasis to that side of the game wouldn't be a bad thing.

3. Revisiting and talking generally about some of the interesting options presented in the later books- like the shop/organization system from Bookhounds of London; stability from Trail of Cthulhu; and character arcs & vessel combat from Ashen Stars.

4. Consolidating and picking out the best GUMSHOE articles Robin Laws and others have presented in See Page XX.

5. Retooling the Quade Diagram to change the organization of powers and perhaps add a few more. My friend Gene Ha in particular has been tinkering with another way to arrange this chart.

6. Another variation on the Quade Diagram- using it for a fantasy setting. In this world spells and schools of magic have particular signatures depending on how they're used. What mages can do starts tightly grouped together at low levels and then radiates outward. For this setting, I imagine the PCs as town guards. So they'd be trying to solve crimes while at the same time dealing with keeping adventurers from burning the city to the ground. I imagine some ideas from Witless Minion! could fit in with that.

7. Discussion of how to handle particular historical genres. You could get an expert on Ancient Rome rpgs like (Chad Bowser) to write up what the ability sets, law enforcement and structures would look like for that period. Any historical period which has been well covered in modern mystery fiction (Feudal Japan, Medieval England) could be treated.

8. Parallel to that- a discussion of how to handle different mystery fiction themes and genres in games. Ideas like corruption, betrayal, unreliable narrators, existential or surreal mysteries could be examined for tabletop play.

9. How to run a game aimed at younger players- with Nancy Drew or Veronica Mars style adventures. Ideas for integrating school life into such games. Perhaps with more rules for relationship mapping as a technique and source of investigation.

10. Running a detective agency- with mechanics for dealing with money, expenses and clients.

11. Building a mystery city- how to excavate and create mysteries which carry on the feeling of a place. How the players can help with that or have more power in the process (as in The Kaiin Players Guide). There are some interesting city books out there that consider the mystery flavor of places (The Naked City and Nameless Streets for example.

12. Further discussion and ideas on how to run improvised mysteries using GUMSHOE.

That's off the top of my head- I have a few other things I'd like to see, but in part I'm waiting to see what Ken Hite's Night's Black Agents (supernatural espionage) and Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball's Eternal Lies (post apocalypse) will bring to the table.