Philosopher Gamer

D&D 5E Modularity: Means many more games - to be frustrated with!

2012-01-25T16:08:00.000-08:00

The spin on fifth edition dungeons and dragons is the modularity component. Ie, you (which actually means, the GM (so if that's not you, you choose nothing)) choose the components of the game.

The fact is though, this means there will be about 100 games (probably far more) all calling themselves D&D 5E.

Lets say your own preferred game is at position 46 on the spectrum. The further you go up or down, the more it's like wearing a shoe which is not your size - either it's loose and comes off unexpectedly, or it's painfully tight and it's a fight between the shoe remaining the size it is and your own pain tolerance as your foot will not chance size, of course!

Really D&D has always been like this, but as you got to third and fourth, it actually started to focus. Maybe a spectrum of about 20 game types.

But now this takes us back and this is part of why roleplay is so niche - the player base is absolutely fragmented. No one can really play with anyone else, because they are all playing one of the 99 other variants that still all call themselves D&D. It's like calling pizza and roast beef the same name - it ends up a bait and switch (except for the niche who ultimate get the thing they wanted - and the small size of that niche is partly why the RP hobby is so small)

Not to mention how that shuns any new blood. Having the game be around 100 games yet all share the same name means a potential new gamer who'd like game variant #33 has a 1 in 100 chance of bumping into that on his first game. He or she will associate D&D as being some other thing that they don't like, DESPITE the supposed wonderfulness of modularity. Oh, you could make just the game he likes with modularity, thus modularity is great? No, it means there will be 100 game iterations out there and he'll run into one he does not like. He will not try again (or wont try over and over and over, anyway). Modularity blocks out people, it does not include them!

The only person it includes is the GM who buys it and then makes a game which is incredibly specific to them. Maybe you haven't roleplayed before, but you kinda heard that there are dungeons, and dragons, and rogues and lots of battles. Okay, this sounds kind of interesting to you. You turn up and...actually your all plant people having courtly discussions whilst floating in clouds. Don't be silly, it's obvious that Plant people don't have rogues amongst them!

Such is the plant person scenario just swimmingly perfect for some dude out there (he will say "How D&D was meant to be!"). And exactly as it's customised to one person, the more it's a complete non fit to another. The more you customise, the more it wont fit other people - that isn't even a controversial proposition, just boring common sense!

The modularity will just make a disjunct between the advertising (by word of mouth or whatever) and what the person encounters on joining a game (unless they get really lucky and land in a game that modular choices actually align with what they want).

The new person wont see some wonder of modularity. They will just see (most likely) something they didn't actually come for. And they will assume THAT is D&D in its entirety - that it advertises itself as one thing, but does another that they weren't interested in doing.

Driftwurld: Ostrosaurus's!

2012-01-23T18:30:00.000-08:00

I'm not even sure if they are called Ostrosaurus's anymore!

Implimenting things on the Driftwurld map isn't as straight forward as making single pages before. Because I have to intigrate things and put in one thing at a time without actually getting to the fun part. I mean, making a monster attack you. Making you be able to detect them around your map position. Making them form from one side of the map and slowly migrate across the map. The fun bit is tip toeing around them like they are a minefield on the play map. But that's a long way away!

I suppose I'll draw them into the map manually first, and I kind of know how to do the detection coding. So that'll get the minefield part going - it will just be a static minefield. Ideally in future they will move around once a week. And in future you will be able to fight and kill them - and then one a week there's a chance (maybe 50%) another will spawn at the far side of the map (hatched from an egg) and move in!

Whoa! What if there was more than one ending?

2012-01-21T11:00:00.000-08:00

RPG.net has been giving a few surprising posts recently.

what if it all came down to a single roll, before the game even began?

I'm not sure how to calculate the target number needed, or the type of die that's rolled, or even how many rolls would be made, but players would each go around the table and make at least two rolls: one for obtaining their goal, and perhaps another one for survival. No "do overs", no player controlled modifiers, just one roll of the die. Impartial and unyielding. And by the end of the game the outcome of that die roll would be shared around the table. How the players get to that point doesn't really matter. They can't be cut down by a foe before reaching their goal because the dice said so. They can't save the princess because the dice said so. They will found a kingdom and die because the dice said so.

Now I didn't get this at first. Why play out a fixed outcome (even if you don't know what it is until it's revealed at the ending). But then I realised, if you are used to playing in predetermined outcome, railroaded games, then suddenly dice seem a way of having more than one ending! Suddenly those dice things which seem kinda pointless actually open up a surprising, unexpected outcome!

However, the design still surprised me - to go from dice rolls which mean nothing (because the outcome is predetermined in railroaded games) to having one actually determine the ending? That's a massive step. Plus the clarity of it - no fuffing around with a long set of rules to show how dice will determine this, it's right there! Very neat! Another useful one to link to in future!

How'd death become boring?

2012-01-20T23:00:00.000-08:00

I also ran across this post the other day at RPG.net

Old school gaming, for me, has always been a fighter, a rogue, a wizard and a cleric exploring a chain of identifical 10'x10' rooms to find the gold. An orc, a kobold and a skeleton appear and kill the cleric. The wizard steps on a trap. Yawn.

You know, I'd pay if that takes you four hours to do that much, fair enough.

But ignoring time taken for now, what's the issue here? Is there no chance of the cleric avoiding death? Not by luck and/or by player choice? Same with the trap?

Does the cleric not count as anything tragic - a human death? If it's not a glamourous death, its nothing and boring?

I dunno about you, but I get this weird hollow feeling trying to figure the mindset behind this. It's a mindset where death means nothing while granduer and style apparently are the significant thing. All style, really, really big style. But no heart underneath, just a hollow in the middle.

The honest 'No Challenge' gamer

2012-01-19T17:03:00.000-08:00

Wow. I just found a post by someone who openly says they want something that I suspect alot of other gamers do, but just can't openly admit it. Link.

And to quote it

I'll continue to freely admit that I don't want challenge in my games. I want a story about how my character starts awesome (born the chosen one) and then goes about being awesome (fated to save the world). It's already known and decided that the world will be saved, the story is just how that comes about. The drama comes from the NPCs who can't or won't hop on the train of inevitability to awesometown.

I want the game to be a sycophant for me. In the movie Minority Report where there is that virtual "arcade" (or whatever you want to call it) where people are in pods where their fantasies are being enacted, crowds shouting adorations, etc. That's what I want out of an RPG.

See, I hate the game style, but because this guy is honest and open I think that's valid. It's where someone wants this, but they pretend they are gaming in some other way, that strikes me as denial. A kind of gamer closet, if you will.

I'm actually thankful of coming across this. So many times I suspect someone just wants the above but wont admit it - I try and describe it but they will tip toe around it, even as they use a bunch of techniques to make the above happen. Now I don't have to describe it in abstract - I have a living, breathing example of a real person embracing this gaming. One of the things that kept it all in the closet is only being able to refer to it in abstract before. Hell, even the word sycophancy - I've wanted to use that exact word! Perfect example!

Lost in Bloglation

2012-01-18T21:52:00.000-08:00

I just blundered with three posts in a row on another blog, one with a white background.

In my defence, imagine if someone said "Hey, we saw this house on fire today. So, I start talking with a guy about the firehose..."

"The fireman was talking to you instead of putting out the fire!?"

"No, listen, I didn't say a fireman, I just said a guy."

"So you talked with him about the fire, how big it was? What sort of hose you need to put it out, maybe?"

"No, listen again, we talked about the firehose! It's a firehose talk!"

"But...isn't the fire the big thing you first mentioned?"

So, having said that - how do you feel about white backgrounds in blogs?

Any comments that aren't discussing white backgrounds are off topic! >:)

I mean, you can see that's what I wanted to talk about. I did mention it at the top, after all!

Just teasing. ;)

(I should probably note my prior post is a result of such missunderstanding, but I'm too lazy to edit and atleast in the context I wrote it, it's applicable. Even if no one was talking about that at the time!!)

Yet another TPK dysfunction: Death Illusionists

2012-01-17T22:37:00.000-08:00

I was reading Zak's blog and wrote an overly long reply, which I think warrants repeating on my own blog (dang I hate how I tend to be more inspired to write in responce to people rather than simply writing when I decide to) .

I'll quote a sample of the guy Zak was talking to/about. And I'll highlight the important part.

THe way I see it is, I want to have maximum control over the encounter difficulty so that when my party fights a BBEG or other major battle, I can be reasonably sure that they're not going to end up steamrolling it or being TPK'd unexpectedly. In my experience that's not really fun for the players or the DM. To me a lot of the drama from combat is sometimes coming down to the wire. Who is going to win? I want to be able to play my NPCs and monsters to their fullest without either wiping the party or being slaughtered, unless of course that's the purpose of the encounter.

The guy wants complete control over whether a TPK happens, which is to say he wants to make sure a TPK does not happen.

You can actually see the contrast in Zak's post

Zak S - Exactly! I want to be able to play my monsters and NPCs to the fullest knowing It MIGHT lead to a TPK!

You can see the difference between "without" and "might". But even Zak's "might" is problematic.

So, here's my comment:

You do know this guy is trying for the illusion of death/a TPK, by having a system which is so fined tuned it appears your going to die, but actually it's so fined tuned you wont. He just can't admit that, he has to say "I want to better gauge the results". And why does he need to better gauge them/know them in advance? So he can pick the one where the group doesn't die.

It's a recurring phenomena in gamers. I've had this chat with a friend of mine where he was doing everything to stop a PC from dying, yet when I suggested we just acknowledge PC's can't die, just defeated, he couldn't stomach it. And here's a link to another, with the guy quoted. He has a million reasons why killing PC's sucks, yet he can't get that that means PC's will never die (the system certainly wont force him to kill a PC - so if he hates killing PC's, when are PC's ever going to die? Never. But he couldn't admit that).

Not that your own approach isn't potentially problematic
Sure they sometimes steamroll or get TPK'd (maybe 10% of the time)
So let's say a TPK happens 5% of the time. So after, on average, twenty fights the whole party dies and everyone makes new characters? Predictably? So you'd never really make double digit levels, let alone top level. That kind of conflicts with the high levels. Which if your cool with that, okay.

Or does TPK mean one guy actually gets away and arranges some recover or resurrection? Or even if no one gets away, res's can still occur? In these cases the K in TPK stands more for Knock Out than kill. TPKO.

The death thing is a problematic issue (which leads to gamers like the linked guy, who can't admit they are attempting to have the illusion of being able to die, while fiercely demanding rules which will avoid death occuring (always by an apparent skin of the PC's teeth though (though on serious analysis, its not at all skin of the teeth)) or you just get a TPK predictably after X amount of combats. It doesn't matter if it's a 1% chance of TPK, if you do around 100 combats, you eventually die.

SWTOR comparisons to WOW: Why not compare it to any single player RPG?

2012-01-16T16:05:00.000-08:00

If you have a prior game like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, which involves killing monsters and doin' quests, does it seem missplaced to say Star Wars: The Old Republic is a clone of World of Warcraft?

Really that game structure is in alot of single player RPG's.

Of course maybe SWTOR picks up nuances of WOW's overall design. But if WOW's only distinguishing features are nuances of design, it's not like theres some sort of deep substance there to be copied.

SWTOR: Search your feelings...you know it's romance!

2012-01-10T14:06:00.000-08:00

The Star Wars: The Old Republic mmorpg seems to be provoking ground you don't see much in other mmorpgs. A romance thread, for example.

Maybe we'll see more mmorpgs cover this sort of dimension in future, where we consider how we relate to each other in a way that isn't hacking each others head off or counting how many more purples we have than the other guy?

A new hope.

The make money tag was for lol, BTW! >:)

Hawtzorz!

2011-12-22T13:41:00.000-08:00

In the tradition of the travian 'click now, my lord!' lingerie adverts, I just saw an advert for another browser game which makes the travian ones seem a little subtle and sublime.

'One click for a roman orgy! Click now!'

Giggity giggity!

Commenting on Comments: SWTOR: When did you decide to play for years?

2011-12-21T21:11:00.000-08:00

I noticed on another blog, someone saying that star wars the old republic didn't have enough there to be played for years.

I love the implicit assumption there - that you'd want to play for years?

When do you decide that...at what point do you say you want to play a game for, say, half a decade?

Or do you never say that, you just kinda fall into it while playing world of warcraft?

I get some people get really tied up in vitual assets - they too kinda fall into finding it intensely important to build up assets in the game world and then...to just leave it all?

But that's gotta be a kind of madness where you blame a game for not being something that lasts for years so as to make those assets 'matter' for longer, without recognising any of these issues?

Advanced Dungeons & Deadlyness. Kinda.

2011-12-11T19:29:00.001-08:00

I was watching a game of AD&D last night. It seemed really dangerous - a fighter with 6 hitpoints being attacked by an ogre with a tree trunk that does 1D10 damage.

But then I found out criticals were optional in this ed, the GM opting to drop them. And you can go to -10 HP without dying. For example, the 4 HP wizard took 5 damage and...after having a cure light wound latter and a rest, not much.

So was it really dangerous? Or simply the danger of not doing anything on your turn?

Granted if all of your side gets picked off, then your dead. It's like the party itself has HP, and each member equals one hitpoint! Heh!

But instant death for anyone? Even if you only had one HP, being hit by a tree trunk can not kill you!

It just seems deadly.

Seriously? Voice acting ups a game by millions?

2011-11-30T20:08:00.001-08:00

Kind of in the 'Things they'll believe' basket.

Reading on another blog I hear a repetition of the idea that voice acting, even 40 novels worth of voice acting, upped the cost of SWTOR to 300 million dollars?

Now, I'm not saying it'd be free. But even one million dollars for some studio sound work?

I think this goes along with how many mmorpg gamers seem to believe it costs vast sums to run a mmorpg and that any tiny change is moon landing in difficulty to perform.

But I dunno, does voice acting cost that much? I recently heard of a guy who hired the narrator from a game to record some voice work for his wedding. It's not crazy expensive - and I don't think SWTOR is using actual actors for its voice work?

I think there's a culture out there that hears '40 novels of voice acting' and thinks this must be like building the pyramids or running a moon landing?

Character Non Death and are you really a hero for killing?

2011-11-27T14:24:00.001-08:00

That's the thing that bugs me about the many games where you just cannot die, you just respawn or reload. So you kill, but actually your utterly safe from being killed. Oh sure, maybe your character doesn't know that he can't die. But what's going on, eh? Aren't we supposedly playing out the ancient moral imperative that if someone threatens your life, killing them in defence is okayz?

A: The games mechanics basically determine the fiction and those mechanics say you can't die. So that's part of the fiction. And so your playing out a character who cannot die, and so you can't at all be playing out the part of someone defending their life.

or

B: What, your not playing out that ancient moral imperative? So what the you playing out? Nihilism ala carte? If your going to say it's just a game, why pick one with depictions of killing in it over tetris, for example? Maybe fiction doesn't matter to you somehow - if so, okay, it's just a game but you mustn't be able to enjoy novels, which is sad for you. Or if you do, no, I don't think you have managed to turn your sense of fiction off like a light switch when it comes to games. You aught to consider that you are enjoying the fiction, and exactly what kind of fiction it is your enjoying. I bet some would think fiction full of consensual sex would be seen as RL morally wrong, yet this type of fiction, where the guy cannot die yet regularly kills others, as something just fine.

Here I'm basically against just thoughtlessly enjoying, for extended periods, killing while immune to death. If you want to consciously think about those elements when playing, yeah, I get that. But just relaxing into it and turning off your brain - like an Aesop's fable about the ant and the grasshopper that imparts a lesson, so to does the fiction of these games impart a lesson. Over and over, for as many hours that you play, that when your immune to death, killing is just fine.

Some will say it doesn't work that way, that somehow you have infinite free will to ignore that. I would be really interested in a scientific test where a game promotes something a bit more mundane, like eating a red icing cake type of cake over one with white icing. Don't tell the participants about it and run them through a week of gaming. Then send them into a room with actual cakes, see which ones get eaten the most.

Driftwurld: Wurld Shaping

2011-11-13T14:46:00.001-08:00

I'm plotting out the open world part of Driftwurld. It's one of those things where alot of technical fiddling imposes itself on actually putting in gameplay. Just being able to move around AND have some sort of movement point allowance for the day - fiddley. Indeed since I have the code for moving around, I think I'll skip the movement points allowance even, to begin with. Just get it online, perhaps with some nodes where if a player passes over it, they find an artifact (eg, gain cash).

Accumulation Games: The Self Inflicted Harm Model

2011-10-30T18:57:00.000-07:00

I dunno, I think most readers would agree that if you keep eating a meal you like, for example, you'll get sick to death of it. Or if you keep wearing the same T-shirt, you'll get sick to death of it (thus the advice go on holiday with a T-shirt you don't mind throwing away latter).

So, what of the traditional online accumulation style game?

Well, lets say you even like killing the monsters. What happens when you kill them over and over and over again? Do you still actually like doing it?

I would actually pose that the regular gamer actually inflicts self harm on what they like, in order to kill 200 Dohikies so they can get a purple Wakamole. I mean, what's a more integral part of yourself - your skin or what you enjoy? I'd say the latter, yet we call someone cutting their skin with a box cutter self harm, don't we. What about when it's something even more personal?

Worse, this self harm -becomes- the game. It IS game play, to them. They will say that if people didn't need to do raid X to get purple item Y, then the vast majority of people wouldn't keep doing that raid. As if that's a bad thing. People playing things that they find fun has ceased to be the point, anymore. Only the expunging of enjoyable play remains. A flagellant.

"But we love accumulation!"

I think there are ways around it, design wise.

Here's an example - lets say the activity is killing a Dohiky. Okay, the structure is that if you kill one once, sure, it racks up one kill, but each day after, you automatically rack up another kill.

If you actually play and kill Dohikies, then very slowly the amount of automatic kills you get each day goes up to two. Then three, etc to some sort of cap.

This way, you can STOP before you get sick of it, and yet know that you haven't wasted your time playing so far. Because if you wait long enough, the automatic kills will add up to the total.

Table Top Game Design: Does your game generate situation at all?

2011-10-26T15:37:00.000-07:00

I was looking over at 1KM1KT, at the small diceless game "Quick Play"

And I wanted to say something, but it felt like it'd be singling this game out when what I want to say applies to a ton of RPG's, old and new. Particularly in the traditional design. So I thought I'd post here and give a back link to the game instead, which kinda helps out the author.

Anyway, here's what I want to say:

This is me, and my comment goes against the grain of traditional RPG design. But basically rulesets remind me of if you described all the moves of chess, but you never told how to initially set up the board. Situation is the pivotal element, really, but there's no method for generating one. Feel free to say the big names like D&D do the same thing, because I'll agree, they don't help with setting either. But I don't think that's a great situation (though it drives their module sales - perhaps you could write modules for quick play?)

Oh, and another game there was Disparity, which had a cool theme of massive seperation between the wealthy and the poor and you basically play the few who can possibly make some sort of difference, yet the only means to do so are essentially transgressive of law.

Table Top Design Idea: Total Party Kill Handler

2011-10-25T16:26:00.000-07:00

I had a design idea for handling total party kills in an RPG.

Let's be frank, first up. When it comes down to the group all about to die, basically a dues ex is coming up. Often the GM will wave the little rule zero wand the book gives him and make all the bad go away. Prior to that, your characters getting beaten up is scary because you don't know what will happen. You can't be sure this GM is the sort of GM who will wave his wand that way. He might just leave you for the crows.

But once he waves his wand...bah, you now know! And when your party is getting beaten up next time, you'll know.

Okay, so lets take a slant on the traditional design (which technically makes it non traditional, but lets pretend it's stil trad!).

The GM notes the party progress and may assign one single fate point to them at any point PRIOR to a battle commencing (a battle being that initiative has been rolled). This assignment is based on the GM's judgement of the group and basically his whim (like the petty god he kinda is). The GM writes this down on a scrap of paper (this is important) but keeps it secret. The GM can also retract the fate point if he wishes, but again that has to be before battle begins.
The party cannot start play with a fate point. It can only be assigned (or retracted) by the GM mid session.
When a total party kill seems imminent, the GM rolls percentile in front of everyone. A result of 1-80% means a dues ex happens, interupting the battle and the party escapes (make something up as to how that happened!). A result of 81%-100% requires that the GM present his piece of paper with the fate point on it. If produced, a dues ex occurs (and the fate point is used up). If not, the battle continues, most likely to a TPK result (though how awesome is it if they somehow win despite not having favour with fate!?).

The buzz is that when the percentile are rolled, on a 1-80% you don't know if you would have been fine on 81%+ result or not. Unlike above where you begin to know if the GM will wave his wand or not, here you don't know if he would have.

The mechanic also stops the GM deciding in the moment of TPK whether he'll save you. He's likely to be incredibly biased towards doing so at that point. This means it's like an opt out system - at the time, he more has to choose to opt out of saving the group. While with this mechanic, you start play with no fate point and the GM has to opt in. Which he might forget to do, even, because your just not that spectacular. Remember, he has to produce a piece of paper with the fate point note. No, the GM is not allowed to cheat on this. A reminder: you wont be following these rules if you do something else orther than this procedure - if you try and assert you are were doing these rules when doing some other procedure, your in ugly denial.

I can imagine some people don't think that's terribly tough. "1-80% chance? Most of the time you'll live! Ha! We play much more dangerously than that! Our GM is fair and decides how it turns out!". Except I really wonder if that is more dangerous, or given the GM biases involved, considerably less dangerous? In that case, since the final arbiter is hidden in the GM's head, how do you know he's not just saving the group every time? Even the GM could deny to himself that's what he's doing, as the whole process is hidden in a bunch of fictional musings.

Atleast with this mechanic, if the GM didn't write down a fate point note and so can't produce one, that's emperical. Or if the GM quickly fabricates a fate point note, it's alot harder for him to deny to himself (and others) that this is cheating.

Interview with a one man MMO maker

2011-10-23T18:19:00.000-07:00

Good interview giving the inside story of one guy who made the dead frontier mmo. Gives alot of hints and tips for anyone else trying. I think the really interesting part is that he'd made several single player versions of dead frontier (being paid for some, which is significant to development), which helped him nail down the game he wanted to make before he made it massive.

I think that's the key. Make a game that you would enjoy in a single player format and it WILL make a great mmo game!

And apparently the interview was held by the maker of Golemizer, which is also a one man MMO!

It's a really good feeling that individuals can decide their own fate on these things!

[Gamma World 4E Solo Playtest] Dystopian

2011-10-20T16:06:00.000-07:00

Going the solo test was interesting to begin with. See, trying to create some sort of story that either 'hooks in' players or can just be dropped, never to live, not even in bad fiction format, forever, is just an incredible exercise in creative whorism. I'm not attributing this to exclusively to GW, plenty of other games I own operate off the same principle - your supposed to make some compelling story, but if everyone just doesn't feel like it, well, in effect you may as well have just thrown your effort in the bin. And you know, that's fine - the texts in all of them basically tell you that's normal for how you treat your creative outlet. I guess perhaps this read comes to a head in my contact with Gamma World because it's actually succinctly written, while all the other books (rifts, blue planet, D&D 4E and lower, underground, hol, others I forget, etc) use obsfucation methods, primarily very large texts and hiding the tell tale signs in various semi random positions amidst mountains of text that suggest something else entirely. So it feels a bit bad to knock the book that is better written and more honest for it.

As a nod to the recent narrativist threads, what of the idea of not writing a story? "Just let it play out, man!" along with the well written article. It depends - to me, GW and the other books, they allow a dead character, devoid of any desire or hunger, to be brought into play (an exception to this is 'The Riddle Of Steel', I think). Drumming up players to do more just feels like tacking on some sort of TROS spiritual attributes onto it, but being in denial of that modification of the game. It definately wouldn't be just playing the game. I'm pretty damn sure that upon contact with the regular joe gamer, you will just get dead characters. Perhaps with non gamers you wouldn't, interestingly, but I suspect the structure would soon train them into dead characters. Probably from having their alive and fruitful character becoming dead, ironically, at some random moment and that really being a non moment in play due to structure. But anyway, that's my nod toward that idea. Any argument that it doesn't break down that way?

So anyway, it occured to me to skip that self flagellation process (one that feels like being a whore sitting in a window sill facing the street, there for taking or forgetting on whim) and simply play by myself, so instead of just looking at this thing I'd bought, I could actually, you know, play it. Sure, it's kind of an equivalent of masterbating, but a cheap thrill beats not only beats no thrill, it also beats beating yourself up for the hope of a grander thrill that may just not come.

And after a couple of encounters won (one PC), barely, I have this reluctance to play further. I really wonder if I have some instinctual grasp of the crap shoot and that comes out as reluctance to play further. Because the odds will eventually add up and kill me. There is no other mechanism that'll make anything else happen. And that'll be it. If it were a book you were reader, the character just gets pinched out and no eplilogue, nothing, the book just ends. How bizarre is that?

And I've kind of being trying to think of ways to get to level 10 or continue play and in as much, experience play.

But the reason I type this is because I suddenly thought I have experienced play. And it is utterly dystopian. All the bright and colourful monsters - do they make it some mario-esque fun land? No, they actually add to the dystopia. Are you going to find it fun dying to a wierd moving cactus that shoots spines at you? Unless as a person you heartily enjoy schadenfreude, the cartoonishness of the monsters adds horror instead of levity. The world is a cartoon and joke filled - and it's going to murder you just as much. Whats the difference between a scar faced man or a clown faced man murdering you - the latter makes more of a joke of your end. That reminds me of Hol as well - haha, the soddomy bikers! How funny is that idea! And yet if you play it out, is it funny when they are going to either kill you or incapacitate and rape you? There's like this family guy-eque humour in making them and thinking about them, but if you actually make fiction via playing the rules, how is that funny anymore?

So I was basically trying to dig through the bleak stone to find the seam of gold to follow in play. Until I realised that either the bleak stone is the seam is the fun of the game, or don't play it.

Now, you get alot of bullshit advice, just like in the other books I mention, where it's all about the fun and...what the hell does that mean? I'm guessing it involves stuff which, since it's advised in the text, is essentially in game stuff, but in terms of experiencing the system in play, it's advice to stop the players experiencing the system. Well, every time the GM thinks they don't seem to be having fun. It's classic 'stone soup' design, where the game insists its fun ... if you just add an ingrediant ... or two ... or three ... or a dozen. And after two dozen things your GM adds into the pot, isn't this game just freaking awesome!? Except it's the classic stone soup - it was just a pot of water that is vacant anything. What tastes good isn't the pot of water.

Except Gamma World isn't vacant. Revealed of it's stark core, just as much as drinking straight whiskey has its place, indeed you might want an evening of drinking straight whiskey and being in a world where joy and hope and sense of noble death are utterly, utterly blown away. No, I'm not being sarcastic. It's be a hell of a frightening ride to just feel the dead world and maybe beneficial for it. Beneficial if you don't go in expecting a mario fun land. If you've ever written fiction and no one gave a shit about it but you still did (and good on you), well play this and expect to make fiction that doesn't even care about itself. Zip, a critical, that PC is gone and...so what.

There's a feeling in that. One that does not confirm your existing beliefs. One that does not comfort. GM, resist the temptation to put 'fun' first, and you might find another type of fun. One which requires nothing of you. One which might require a few stiff drinks to get over.

It depends though - I don't think that was the intention of the designers. So is it really playing the game to play it that way? Probably not. And yet when you get rid othe GM pulling the wool over your eyes every time you stop having fun, it is the truth of the game.

And where else would dystopia be, but beyond good intentions?

Handle with care.

2011-10-18T15:51:00.000-07:00

First some other stuff, then the video...

Speaking of zombies, I think the better storyline is that the virus is airborne, not just wound transfered. I'm just not sure the world would have much trouble mopping up zombies. But, if it's airborne and yet a small percentage of the population are resistant to it (they can only get infected by wounds), then you have the classic survivor scenario. Or perhaps whatever brings the infection hits large areas of the world with an airborne virus, but that disperses - which also allows

Oh, how quickly nightmare scenarios come to mind. I was watching a review of batman, arkham city last night on good game. The reviewer was really excited about the dark world of batman and...I thought, really that's a kind of hell for the actual character? It's a really aweful place for them. Ever watched Jason and the argonaughts, and wondered at the gods watching the plight of the mortals as mere entertainment? How could they just be so detached? Yet, here we are, getting off to the fantasy of a dark world. But Arkham City does sound a good game...

Now onto the video for prototype 2. I think the youtube comments cover what I wanted to say.

CupboardNinja: Wait, wait, wait, so you're telling me that you can either just button mash and be successful or use strategy and be successful? So why the hell would anybody use strategy? I can already tell this isn't going to work out.

The responce

guppo26: Maybe because just buttonmashing isn't everyone's preferred way of playing. If you take on the strategical way, you have way more control over what exactly your character does, you have more choice in precise actions instead of just mashing everyone untill they're dead. Saying this will be a failure, when you don't even really know the details yet, and without thinking a bit further into it, is just sort-sighted.

What has happened? A generation who think strategy is a 'preference'? That strategy is something you just do when you feel like it, but if you don't feel like it, you don't.

Sorry, no. That's doing fancy moves for the sake of doing fancy moves, which is fine and everything.

Strategy is something where if you don't attempt it, you will just lose. Your hand has to be forced to it, for it to be strategy.

In an endless game, if you can die, everyone dies...

2011-10-17T19:17:00.000-07:00

There's a new multiplayer persistent world game (correction: evolving persistent world) zombie game coming up. Here's the link.

I like the info dump being done in story format. Makes it more than a spreadsheet.

But the big thing is, the ability for a character to permanently die! Not to mention become zombiefied!

From the look of it, it sounds like you have to really, really lose bad to actually die.

But all the same, it's a striking move. I play the Finnish survivalist roguelike 'Unreal world' (as you can see here) and death - it really makes living more alive, if that makes sense? There's a hint of a legacy system, which sounds good - starting over exactly from scratch with no prior history just seems to cut off, when really people die and others go on to live off what they achieved while they live. This is a poignant part of stories as well.

But it seems it'll be on X-box only, so sucks to it all! Unless I buy an X-box...but their online stuff sounds sucky.

Still, if it's popular enough it'll find its way elsewhere...

Is the word 'game' going through a slow hijack?

2011-10-16T15:54:00.000-07:00

Recently someone tried to say the regular definition of 'game' is an entertaining activity or sport.

Of course feeding ducks or watching a sunset are entertaining activities as well. Thus they must be games.

I think for thousands of years the way people have (to not use a name yet) engaged certain activities is in a verses mode, where one of them is trying to beat the other. For millions of years we didn't have computers, only another person hungry to win.

It's really hard to imagine after millions of years of that, it's not atleast a small amount of evidence towards the word 'game' being primarily about winning/having win conditions.

But computers are entirely new on our cultural horizon. And computers...well, they can lose to you a million times, if you keep the supply of electrickery coming.

This really allows the developer to project a falsehood - have the program 'lose' to the player where if the developer were playing the opposition, he would attempt to win. And this falsehood can be extended until what is there is farcicle. Just a veneer of opposition.

Computers have made it really easy for people to think they are beating something of note, when really they are simply engaging some busy work the developer thought up. Thus allowing the slow hijack of 'game' into anything that makes money for the commercial, or anything thats artsy, for those craving artistic recognition but hiding it under the credibility of 'games'.

Yet another MMORPG 'Difficulty' post - Open Pandoras Toy Box...

2011-10-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

I was reading a forum...let's not say where. And the person described coming across warhammer onlines first chaos side public quest. And that there was this greater demon and only two players, so they were just gunna die and he doesn't even...

You know, I think commercial mmorpgs will eventually click to never ever have the player die at allllllll. Wow is already shooting for this, from what I've read.

They'll just have them slump a little bit when their health is low (though there will be adverse forum reactions to this as well "Is my toon a looser or sumpting? Dis game makes meh play loosa! Bad gahm!"), but the health will never go any lower and perhaps you get a tiny, tiny bit less loot points (but this is never messaged - only careful scrutiny (the sort the competitive will actually give) would show this)).

And so the player will never have to be faced with their own inadequacies ever again (granted the inadequacy of not having bum on seat for a longer period is one of them), and so they wont then go on forums and put down the game. Because they instantly rationalise how it was the games fault and the game has a problem with it. Never them - it's always something else that's at fault. Which is bad press for the game, of course.

And maybe the commercial mmorpgs will eventually just click and quit trying to present a game and instead just present the toybox that so many really want, ala minecraft. Yup, I said it - "OMG, I feel token threat from monsters - hell, I just have to build a scale model of the starship enterprise to protect myself! That's totally playing to win and I winnar!". Yes, yes, you totally had a reason to build all that shit. No, it does look pretty and interesting. I just think the whole 'game' idea of it is bullshit. Call yourself sculptors and the respect that comes with that, instead of gamers (unless 'gamers' has just come to mean toybox playing people, in which case stay as you are...).

Driftwurld: Even farmier...

2011-09-30T16:44:00.000-07:00

I like some of the modifications I've made to the farming stage of Driftwurld.

What happens now is that every single person who has registered has a chance each day of generating goods on their farm, since they went and made the difference of registering. The bigger their farm, the higher the chance each day. Over time their farms can collect up to $30 worth of goods.

And new players can claim such goods if the other player has not visited their farm in the last ten days. Just new players though - once you aquire a crawler transport, this option isn't available anymore. You've moved on and other farmers lay claim to the goods.

This means new players can rapidly collect goods, but NOT because I just made the collecting faster, but because of the effects of other players (ie, their choice to register and to an extent how much they build their farm). This also means people who register but don't continue to play are, with their original choice in terms of registering, still part players in the lands of Driftwurld!

Also I've set a cap on how much you can harvest from your own farm per day. When you don't have a crawler, it's $2500 worth of goods. Once you own a crawler, it's a big drop down to $100 per day. This basically represents how prior to owning a crawler transport, you had spent most of your early preteen to teen life farming and so could have collected quite alot of goods. But once you get into the fast lane...crawling (?!), then you don't have that much time to spend on the farm.

I guess some people could just play the game by staying farmers and never advancing to owning their own crawler transporter. This way they could earn $2500 worth of goods each day, but what would they use it on? Aquiring hard wood logs? Once they own 200 or more of those, other players can buy from them. Which is a way of making game money directly, but not really the fastest. Though hey, maybe you only aspire to be a farmer, and it works out in a way?

In the end, I like how it's not just me, the designer, waving a wand and making things faster. It's a direct result of people signing up for the game. The code I put in wouldn't make any difference if people hadn't done that!