Given that my Comic Book reading/collecting has burgeoned into an all consuming junky habit of late, I settled on DC Adventures. I began reading the core rule book in spits and spurts over the last month or so, but haven’t made much of a dent. I think I have made it to second chapter.  I am pretty busy with work and young kids these days that my free time is fairly limited and occurs mostly while I am fighting off exhaustion, so when I look at consuming and mastering a new game system I feel like there is a pound of lead in my shoes.  I don’t think there is any surprise that both the potential systems I chose are d20 based as the familiarity seemed comforting.  The biggest sticking point however is how second nature 4^th edition has become for me, I don’t really have to put much thought into prep and I can easily handle any in-game adjudication that might possibly come up. I am finding it very hard to move from this warm cocoon that I have enveloped myself in.

I don’t think this inertia has as much to do with my love of 4^th edition as it is my reluctance to change.  Change in any form whether it is good or shitty can be difficult or stressful and can result in a retreat. I am beginning to think that some of my apathy and disdain for D&D Next is colored by this inertia (aside from my dislike of WOTC‘s business model in general).  Armed with some insight I need to push myself a little and embrace this kind of change. I think I will set a goal of running mini-games (I am going to stay away from longer more open ended campaigns for the time being) in some different systems over the next while and see how it goes. In the meantime I am going to run the season 4 Lair Assault tonight. I am looking forward to it as there is no need for any of this collaborative storytelling bullshit or alternative goals, it’s just straight up DM vrs douche bag munchkin players with coup de graces for everyone…you know the way D&D was meant to be played….. ;0

I just find assertions like these a little rigid and myopic. Don’t get me wrong this has nothing to do with the OSR. I fully understand the desire to dust of those old 1^st edition texts on the shelf and head off into the bowels of the Moathouse, holy symbol in hand, to kick Lareth the Beautiful’s ass six ways from Sunday. When I hear assertions about role-playing and how 4^th edition discourages it or has an absence of it, I feel like that person is erroneously applying their subjectively held schema about what role-playing is for them in a weird sort of nerd pattern recognition.

Look I will grant you that the rules/mechanics can make combat pretty long in 4^th edition, which can be off-putting to some, but I don’t find that it reduces or discourages role-playing in anyway…well at least based on my subjective schema of what role-playing is. You see for me combat is or can be role-playing. It’s all there for the taking; you get character-character interaction, character-npc interaction, character-environment interaction, character-monster interaction, collaborative storytelling, and narrative descriptions of character actions/moves and the corresponding DM narrative moves. Combat itself can be a rich, flowing tapestry of smack down, that is if you want it to be. So are we then talking about a lack of exploration or interaction scenes? I don’t find this to be true either as these things seem more dependant on group play-style and taste, as games can have as much or as little of each as desired. Are we then talking about how the clearly defined and codified combat and pc mechanics stifle creativity? I haven’t really found that to be the case either, maybe even the opposite for some people as this allows for easy fluffing..er I mean re-fluffing (fuck why does my mind always go there first?) or re-skinning as desired. For example I had two wizards in my last game that weren’t even recognizable as wizards. One was essentially Green Lantern and the other was a dumb as rocks gladiator.

I think in reality I have found 4^th edition’s rule set to be the most flexible and inclusive of multiple play-styles. I have seen or heard about games that run the full spectrum of the continuum. On the forums one guy was describing his multiple 1-30^th level campaigns that don’t even have a DM and are a series of delves and completely combat focused. While at the other end of the spectrum I have heard many descriptions of peoples games were they proudly declare having an entire session without any dice being rolled.  As an aside this seems to be the gold standard seal of approval for grognards when championing the greatness of the older editions and the bastard demon spawn that is 4^th edition. This is something I don’t really get as I tend to get kind of jittery if I don’t smash something in the mouth during an evening of gaming, but that’s me.

Role-playing isn’t necessarily inherent to a system, unless were talking like a diceless system such as Amber or some heavy story game, it really seems more related to the individual people playing the game and what they do with the rules. Take Battletech as another example. That game is essentially a tactical Mech Fighting game but some cats have created such deep role-playing rich campaigns that would make some of my 1^st edition campaigns look like a game of checkers. So when people say that the older editions of D&D encouraged or had more role-playing in them I just don’t buy. My personal experience and anecdotal research shows that a lot of people just killed things and took their stuff through endless dungeon crawls back then just as much as they do now.

I know what you’re thinking. How on earth can you argue about something that is so subjective and tied to an individual’s unique inner experience that trying to get a common definition of what it means is like trying to grab smoke let alone what would break it? It makes me think of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance where the main protagonist had a mental breakdown trying to quantify quality. Despite this, I find that people are pretty quick to condemn others actions or play styles as immersion breaking with the underlying implication that your game is a steaming pile of shit….and you suck. I’ll give you brief example of the subjective nature of immersion. If you look at mood music during the session some people will say that it enhances their experience and makes them feel like they are living the moment through their character. Conversely, others might say it distracts them and pulls them out of the situation because there is no music when you do things in real life or the music makes it too “cinematic”. Finally there will be others who won’t give a fuck or even notice. Yet these terms get argued and applied as absolute truths.

On the forums I usually see the argument go something like this: DM starts a thread complaining that his players aren’t following the adventure hook or plot that they have created either intentionally or through confusion resulting in a frustrating play experience. The responses often include ideas like don’t write plots/railroad,  provide more “meta” game information about what the options are, incorporate more collaborative story telling, or sharing story/plot idea in order to facilitate buy in. This is usually about the time that the flaming begins with accusations of immersion breaking, dick players, and lazy DMs getting hurled about.  I have to admit when I read people bash others play styles like this it evokes in me a sense of dissatisfaction or lack of power in their real lives. There also seems like a little anal rigidity happening in their not being able to tolerate things going differently than what they’ve imagined or planned out, but I digress..

Coming back to the subjective nature of “immersion”, I think people need to keep in mind that what immersion means and feels like is different from person to person as well as what would “break” it or even how important it is at the gaming table.  So statements like “that’s breaks immersion”, should really be replaced with “that breaks immersion for me”. My blogger buddy Mr. Morrison’s recent post pushed me to thinking of immersion as being a component of what someone might conceptualize as their overall play style. The more people play with others that share similar conceptions of play style or at least who’s play style range overlap the less in group conflict there might be. In the end maybe people are better off finding and playing with people that have a similar vision of what immersion is and the degree of its importance at the game table.

I am going to stop it here as this rant seems like it;s becoming a little incoherent or at least I am beginning to confuse even myself, but rest assured this “exposure therapy” helped a great deal towards recovery from my relapse into forum reading.

In a similar vein I have been avoiding any participation with D&D Next whether that being the ongoing play test or the forum talk. The only exception has been that I read Mike Mearls’ weekly Legends and Lore column. It is just enough of a toe in the water that I can use as fodder for my inane, ill informed, and half-cocked rants. When I read the February 18th offering I audibly sighed and groaned at my desk, so much so that my office mates thought that something that actually mattered had occurred, like my wife was leaving me or someone had died. What irked me so was his statement that they were going back to the cleric as the default healer for the game on account it was the easiest solution to the divergent pleas emanating from the play test and a desire by the design team to keep the core rules of the game simple… and well gosh darn it people are just used to it being that way anyways…..well BLAH

I don’t know what irked me so much about this, other than I hated the default heal-bot approach of editions yore. It just seems so regressive or placating or defeatist, I don’t know. He then went on to point out that there can be lots of modular add-ons that can change the nature/amount of healing available in the game. Again my office mates looked over at my audible groan and sigh and I again had to sheepishly explain that yes this reaction was for nothing evenly remotely serious or important.

I am really starting to sour on this modularity thing that they seem to be using as a blanket answer to soothe any edition war hackles. I haven’t even seen what this vaunted modularity will look like but I already hate it with a white hot irrational anger. It smacks of cowardice, although maybe that’s a little harsh. I don’t want a million options or a need to cobble together levels of complexity to get a game that I want to play. I just want one set of rules that encompasses the whole game and if I like it I’ll play and if not I won’t. Trying to make everyone happy or maybe more accurately preventing them from being pissed off just seems like a recipe for a shit game. I don’t know what the answer is for them, but I guess this is the consequence of trying to continuously re-package and sell the same rules. Don’t get me wrong I am still going to buy the core rules cause really what else am I going to do with my money. I am just not looking forward to it.

As I dissect the session in my head several factors come into play that contributed to this massive steaming pile of a session. The scene began with the players climbing out of the Tarek pit of pleasure after killing the pack of rabid –insert name for a Dark Sun lizard type creature- and earning the right to walk amongst the Tareks without being killed on sight. I gave a brief history of the Tareks transmitted through song by the head shaman during a campfire on the eve of the “Great Hunt”, a kind of Tarek bar mitzvah where they send the young out into the desert to slay a great beast and claim their place as an adult in the society. The song told of the great Tarekian empire during the green times and how society was split into three castes (warrior, shaman, and tinkerer/engineer). Much knowledge was lost as the empire was shattered during the brown times and Ranjaat’s racial cleansing war.

The newly reformed “empire” consists of several of the elder houses and the conclave of shamans. The major player’s involved were the Emperor, head Shaman, Tar Ugu (a former pc), and the Tarek player’s hidden brother. Each major npc had some motivations and possible moves. In terms of the emperor I went with the Son of Mogh story line from STNG where he had falsely accused the Tarek player’s father of selling the newly reborn empire out to the sorcerer king Kalak, thereby seizing control of the empire and having the player’s father executed and house stricken from the stories.

So what went wrong? Well overall my mood was a little off as I had just gotten word that I would not be accepted into medical school for the fall. I was a little bummed and it kind of took some wind out of my sails. Now in the grand scheme of life this is not a major disappointment. I already have a doctorate in clinical psychology and a full time job plus a part-time private practice, so it’s not like I am in my mid-twenties and trying to figure out what to do with my life or stuck in some dead end job that I loathe. I also only applied to one school so I new the odds were slim. None the less I was a little bummed with a sense of loss at missing out on a new challenge. So blabity blah blah basically I was a little flat.

I also think I didn’t frame the scene as well as I could have in terms of layout and positioning of the NPC’s and Tarek faithful. This made the exploration at the beginning of the night a little awkward as things became jumbled with people going off and talking to different factions. It also made coming up with a plan or strategy on how to deal with any potential threats or desired shenanigans more difficult and less clear. Sometimes I forget how dependent we have become on maps and tokens in 4^th edition, particularly when playing online, to set the scene adequately compared to the olden days. I can get a little lazy and forget to put tokens out to help frame the scene. Often this is because I haven’t planned anything out, partly due to said laziness and partly due to a desire to be reactive to player choice.

Now in terms of the socially reticent player who I thrust into the narrative limelight, he reads this blog and was game for it but….perhaps it was a bridge to far and we need more baby steps and supportive coaching. In improv terms he kept blocking himself at every turn, it was literally like he was pulling a gun on himself while shouting no. In one instance he stated that he was going to intimidate the emperor and before I could say anything he stated that wouldn’t work because the emperor was un-inimitable. He also had some good ideas but they mostly came off as incoherent and not fully formed. He had established that he was going to use the inherent psionic link that Tareks have to do something but then abandoned what he had started (later I would learn that he wanted to see if a member of the tribe had any memories of the betrayal that would be helpful). He eventual just rushed up and slapped the emperor which then prompted a battle royal in the middle of the camp that essentially ended with him being dead..again (unconscious and the emperor threatening to coup de grace him if the others didn’t stand down). In talking with him after the game he explained his intent wasn’t to fight the emperor but it was more of a klingon challenge type thing. Which my response was “awesome but how would I know that unless you tell me”. I think I really needed to ask more questions to try and draw his ideas out, but like I said I was a little flat. I think this is important to remember when trying to impose collaborative story telling on less experienced players or those that it doesn’t come as naturally to.   

Overall, I also think I need to be more prepared in terms of potential skill challenges, even though I loathe them. At a minimum I need to think/be prepared for the use of skills to overcome challenges or adjudicate player driven hi-jinks on the fly. I feel like I have sort of hit the proverbial wall in terms of running the campaign and need to bear down and push through it. I figure I have 6 to 8 session left to wrap everything up for the end of the heroic tier and I need to end strong…or at least crawl through the finish line like one of those depleted nut jobs at the end of an Iron Man Triathlon.

It all happened so fast, I can hardly make sense of it. I clearly remember leaving an assessment session at a school and stopping for a brief workout at the gym. At this point things are kind of a blur of images, feelings, and sensations. Next thing I know I am back at my office staring with utter disbelief at what is strewn across my desk, the fog of war clears slightly and the realization hits me like a cock punch: I just bought fucking comic books…again. Then in an almost dissociative like fugue I watched myself create a back issue want list, place an order from Mile High Comics, purchase the Overstreet price guide, buy tickets to FanExpo Comicon, and set up and online subscription service. I am awash in a maelstrom of emotions, vacillating from utter shame and disgust to arousal..er I mean excitement. That line from the Godfather III keeps echoing through my head: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in”

I guess it’s not really a surprise, once a junky always a junky. I had been getting a little taste digitally over the last year or so and foolishly thought digital comics was the answer. It seemed ideal, low cost no fuss no muss. In hindsight, it was only a matter of time before I wrapped my big fat lips around the comic book crack pipe again. I think the tipping point was when I started listening to comic book podcasts. Now once again I find myself accumulating and storing things that will never even be worth the paper they are printed on, it just seems so stupid except for the fact that reading actual comic books is so fucking awesome I can’t even tell you. I just want to rub and smother myself in them like some creepy Scrooge McDuck scene, that’s how fucking awesome they are.

How long will this last? Who knows, as an addict you generally want your relapses to be briefer in duration and longer between episodes. I went with an online subscription service from All New Comics to try and mitigate the hurt, as they offer 20% off the U.S. cover price and reasonable shipping rates. If I was in the States I would have gone with DCBS and their redonk 30-40% off cover price deal. I also have purged some of my collection, mostly stuff I don’t want to hold onto anymore. The problem I am running into is what to do with them as they are not worth anything and I don’t really want to throw them out (that would make me physically ill).

This relapse has also got me thinking about gaming. My Dark Sun game is hopefully wrapping up soon and I was thinking of taking a break from the fantasy genre and running some limited stuff with superheroes. The question is which system, I have several editions of Hero, Mutants and Masterminds 2^nd & 3^rd editions, and the Marvel Heroic rpg (notice a trend here, I assure you my wife does as well). I also think I might post occasionally about comics and what I am reading or finding interesting, so bear with me.

The Midgard Bestiary for 4^th Edition (Open Design) by Richard Green and Brian Liberage is one of these new products that really scratched an itch for me. I have written before that one of my major gripes with 4^th edition is that they didn’t get the monster math sorted out until later in cycle, causing the majority of the monsters designed for the system to be full of suckage and virtually unusable. When I flip through the Monster Manual 1 and 2 I actually feel embarrassed for the monsters, like I am embarrassed for them. It would literally be a crime to have them square off with the veritable plethora of twinked up pc’s I am frequently assailed by. Listen I know what your gonna say “the players don’t always have to be physically threatened, you can have alternative combat goals…blabity blah blah blah” Sometimes you just wanna smash the pc’s in the mouth and let them know you mean business.  

The Bestiary does not suffer at all from this monster impotence as it utilizes the updated damage progression. The monster ecologies and fluff are based, not unsurprisingly, on the Midgard setting, another Open Design project and originally Wolfgang Baur’s homebrew world. I enjoy reading fluff, you might even say that I am a bit of a fluffer (kidding), and the Midgard Bestiary really delivers in this regard. Don’t let this push you away from the product though, as the monster mechanics are not tied to the setting and are easily re-skinned. For example, I have used dudes exclusively from this book to stock the latest location in my Dark Sun game full of Tareks. In the end it is really the mechanics that matter most and the book offers some interesting and cool variations for a little freshness. I particularly liked the several different Hags and Babba Yaga’s Horseman.

I managed to snag this bad boy through a Kickstarter project. I got a full color soft cover print edition and a pdf (if you’re reading Wizards take some notes) for 25$, well worth it my opinion. Overall, I really like this product and find it refreshing to grab a monster book that isn’t the “Monster Vault” for a change when I am looking to make my players crap their pants

This player tends to stick to the rear in social interactions and collaborative story telling scenes (in fairness he does have a bit of social anxiety and often worries he will make a mistake or do/say something foolish) but that is all about to change because I am going to drop him squarely into the centre of a shit storm. In the “business” we call that exposure with response prevention (although in fairness it is going to be and feel more like flooding).  I am going to start the next session with the party in a large pit surrounded by the Dark Sun equivalent of wolves and a mob of Tareks looking down, cheering, hurling feces, cursing, and betting. Then with some Q&A we’ll try and sort out how this all came to be.

*Warning* if you are some kind of Dark Sun cannon purist then this next part might make you feel like I dropped trou and bricked in your mouth. I am going to model the Tareks on Klingons from Star Trek The Next Generation. They are going to be a nomadic collection of clan/houses lead by an overall war leader. Perhaps in the green time they had a larger nation/empire but where almost extinguished during the racial cleansing of the brown times. One of their motivations might be to create another great Tarek empire. I have been researching some Klignon terminology so I can mix that into conversations.

With regards to my player (and the group) it should be interesting to see what they create. In my mind I have a couple of possible elements of fiction I can add such as the Warf story line from STNG where he is considered an outcast because his family was falsely branded traitors or if they survive the pit they might prove themselves worthy to be hunted ala  “The Most Dangerous Game”. Well whatever it turns out to be it should be interesting; I just hope it is not too traumatic for the Tarek PC

The alternative goals can be almost anything from needing to protect a high value target during an attack or transport to acquiring an item before time runs out. In the later example imagine a scene where an item is guarded by powerful opponents, perhaps much more so than the players where a straight up brewhahah could go either way. The players then have the option to either throwdown, hopefully survive, and acquire said package or do they have some players defensively engage the guardians while one player grabs the item followed by a measured retreat?

Alternative goals are meant to not only make choices interesting but also failure interesting. Take the former example of protecting a high value target during transport. Say the players are tasked with protecting the king’s daughter on a diplomatic mission to a warring neighbor. During the journey they are attacked and while perhaps they defeat the enemies in the traditional fight mode but fail to protect the princess because the attackers had the alternative goal of killing/kidnapping the princess and not necessarily wiping out the players. What are the consequences of that failure? Probably pretty interesting, particularly of your a sadistic mother fucker like me

I will give you an example from my Dark Sun game. I set up an encounter in the desert where the players were ambushed by the Muto Tieflings. I had several ground troops followed by some Muto’s swooping in on giant bats as I piped in Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries. The Muto’s had the goal of capturing one of the player’s (Quell) who they were calling the Muadeeb for a ritual sacrifice.  It played out rather nicely with the players adjusting strategy to try and protect Quell (I kept trying to have the bat riders grab him and fly away) and the associated tension/urgency it generated. The defenders were overjoyed as the Muto’s repeatedly violated marks to try and get at Quell.

One of the side benefits of having encounters with alternative goals is that you don’t’ need to be so neurotic with encounter balance or scaling (if that is your thing) because there is usually a win button that doesn’t involve total annihilation of the monster(s). A word of caution, like most things in life, with the exception of gaming and maybe porn, moderation is probably best with alternative encounter goals. I don’t think you want them in every encounter or your players might start rolling their eyes every time you frame a scene while fondly reminiscing about the good ol’ days when you could just kill things and take their stuff.