Via the Darklands email list, I discovered a Kickstarter project that looks pretty nifty: Serpent in the Staglands. The combat system looks heavily inspired by Darklands (which, as you may remember, I consider to be basically the best CRPG ever). Hard to tell if the rest of Serpent in the Staglands will follow Darklands’ beautiful design principles, but here’s hoping. And it’ll work on Linux! Looks like a great game and a worthy project.
Executive summary: Minicon 49 was lots of fun.
In the same vein as this year’s Con of the North, I was rushing to get to the con on time Friday. If this keeps holding true, I’ll need to start asking for no events before 6pm the first day of the con.
The panel I was rushing to get to:
Fandom or Fandoms?
Is SF Fandom one monolithic thing or a collection of sub-fandoms? Is there a generational difference? “My fandoms are …”
Not particularly gaming-related, but definitely concerned with overall fandom(s) and how we tend to segregate and construe ourselves.
It’s very interesting that this seems to be primarily a generational thing. Younger fans are much more likely to describe their passions in terms of “fandoms”, as in, “My fandoms are Middleman, Utena and BSG”. Older fans are much more likely to talk about “fandom”, as one big thing, with separate sub-fandoms or interests.
Elise made the point that it’s not just about differences of scale, though. People who think in terms of “fandoms” often have very different ways of approaching their passions than those who talk about monolithic “fandom”. We didn’t have time to go into detail about this, and to be honest, it’s a kind of geekery I don’t have a lot of experience with. However, I’m pretty sure that (for example) fanfic and vidding are major parts of it.
I find it particularly interesting that a lot of “fandoms” seem to be major commercial properties, such as TV shows, specific movies or major anime series. Is this necessarily a part of the plural form of geekery?
We discussed this a bit: perhaps it’s because geekery has become a major form of commerce? If, as they say, ‘the geeks have won’, then we’ve won by becoming more mainstream and more accepted, which also seems to mean ‘more exploited by the forces of capitalism’. So it’d make sense that people getting into geekery more recently might think of it in terms of commercial properties.
Another possibility is that the big commercial properties are the ones that are more visible. Seems eminently likely that there are people being fannishly engaged with very small-scale or non-commercial realms that I’ve just never heard of. A parallel with gaming: many people seem to think that D&D is the only RPG in existence. And naturally they would, if they weren’t actually involved in gaming; D&D is by far the biggest, most visible RPG around. You have to be relatively well acquainted with gaming before you necessarily know that other games exist, and it takes some true insider knowledge to be familiar with some of the highly obscure games.
Another difficult issue surrounding this divide is the tendency to see media fans as necessarily ‘shallower’ or ‘less serious’ than [insert other type of fan here]. It’s especially strong, I feel, when the comparison is being made with fans of prose fiction; it seems that a lot of geeky subcultures still seem to assume that ‘published author of prose fiction’ is and should be the necessary highest state of being that all fans aim for. Add in the tendency for older fans to look down on younger fans as insufficiently dedicated, inadequately serious or lacking in the right type and number of battle scars and you have a recipe for misunderstanding and hostility. These fights have been going on since the beginning of geekery, and I don’t think they’re going to disappear any time soon. That doesn’t mean I have to like them, though.
Regardless of how we construe our fandom(s), it’d be nice if we could take pleasure in other people’s geekiness — compersion, in other words. It seems that a lot of us feel threatened by the existence of other ways of being passionate about things, and so we feel the need to tear down other people’s passions in order to elevate our own.
Well, it’s not a zero-sum game, and it’s a big enough world for all of us to be wonderfully geeky. Approach your passions as “fandom”? Approach them as “fandoms”? Well, so long as you’re not trying to tear down other people’s passions, then your fandom(s) are good.
I’ve played Artemis a few times now. It is, as I’ve said, a pretty revolutionary concept. It’s not quite an RPG, not quite a LAN game, not quite a LARP… Artemis is pretty much its own genre. In my head, I’ve taken to calling it a live-action computer-moderated RPG.
And then there are the boardgames along the same lines… The FASA Star Trek Bridge Simulator is, I think, probably the ancestor of all these games. But there have been several more in recent years that work along similar lines.
As I’ve now discovered, Artemis isn’t just a game — it’s now a genre. There are several other games out there with a similar conceit and format. What should we call them? For lack of a punchier term, I’m calling them Simultaneous Cooperative Starship Bridge Simulators. Here are the ones I know of:
Name |
Medium |
Silly or serious? |
Open source? |
Played in a camper converted to look like a starship? |
| FASA Star Trek Bridge Simulator | Boardgame/RPG | Pretty serious | No, but then it’s tabletop | Maybe? |
| Artemis Starship Bridge Simulator | Computer-moderated | Pretty serious | No | Maybe? |
| Space Nerds in Space | Computer-moderated | Pretty serious | Yes | Maybe? |
| Space Alert | Boardgame | Somewhat serious | No, but then it’s tabletop | Maybe? |
| LHS Bikeshed | Computer-based, with human controller | Fairly silly | No | Yes |
| Spaceteam | Computer-moderated | Very silly | No? | Maybe? |
| Space Cadets | Boardgame | Pretty silly | No, but then it’s tabletop | Maybe? |
And that’s just the ones that I know about. I assume there are more! (Please comment to tell me new ones that I haven’t listed.)
What do I make of all this? First off, it’s really cool that these games exist.
Second, it’s interesting that so many of them are modeled so closely on Star Trek. Perhaps because the original game was the Star Trek Combat Simulator. Perhaps because Star Trek is just such a huge cultural juggernaut — probably second only to Star Wars for SF cultural cachet, if that. Perhaps because so many of us think of the Enterprise when we think of a crew working together. (Interesting to note that the Honorverse people at Convergence 2013 were running what amounts to a Star Trek simulator in their room. Star Trek, not Honorverse.)
Third, I find it particularly fascinating that there are so many of them. “Simultaneous cooperative starship bridge simulators” has to be a pretty niche type of game, doesn’t it? Yet there are at least seven of them out there.
Another delay between posts… This weekend is Minicon 49, so for the past nigh-unto-week I’ve been working on the Pocket Program and various other con committee-like duties. (The pocket programs are now printed! Yay!)
At Minicon, I’m going to be doing another round of Let’s Build a World, and I’ll be on a few other panels that may or may not turn out to be gaming-related. Plus I hope to have at least a modicum of gaming — there’s almost always some Zar, Moneyduck and maybe even Star Traders! Look forward to a post-con report or two early next week.
Tonight before gaming, John texted me to let me know that Classified, the James Bond 007 retroclone, was back in stock at the Source. As I walked into the store, Burl greeted me with a friendly, “You must be here to look at Classified!”
I was a little surprised, but also reminded again of how amazing a store the Source is. In fact, as I’ve said elsewhere, I think I could make a pretty strong argument that the Source is the best FLGS in the universe. Follow my logic:
- They have a simply huge stock of stuff. Pretty much anything you could want is already on the shelves. They have a vast selection of D&D books (whichever edition); pretty much any kind of die you could want, from multicolored Fate dice to blank D20s to glow in the dark dice to more common things like Gamescience precision dice or multicolored Chessex dice. They have a whole shelf full of just indie games.
- It’s not perfectly organized, but it’s fairly good. The RPGs, for example, are mostly in alphabetical by system.
- The books are mostly unwrapped, so you can see what you’re getting.
- There is generous gaming space — easily enough for your gaming group to get a table all to themselves, most of the time, even when there’s a major event going on.
- The employees are generally very respectful, even helpful. And there are even women on staff!
- They have RPGs, boardgames, CCGs, comics, manga, miniatures and general fannish paraphernalia, all under one roof. And their selection of any one of those things is quite excellent. They’re not just a comics store that keeps a few boardgames in stock, or a CCG dealer who also dabbles in RPGs; they probably rival any store around for any one of those categories. And put together, they’re a titan of fannish consumerism in one place.
- They understand the concept of a ‘sale’. They’ll occasionally put old, dust-collecting things on special discount. They even usually have a $1 shelf — some of which is just bizarre, but some of which can be buried treasure. I think I found my copy of Arrowflight there.
- They’re very well tapped into the Twin Cities gaming scene. One of the owners is also a co-author for many Tekumel books, for example. They have fairly good bulletin board space, and they have a pretty strong presence at local fannish conventions.
- I keep mentioning their stock, but it’s also worth noting that they have tons of hard-to-find or out-of-print games, right there on the shelves. There’s a recent thread on RPGnet about how apparently the A Song of Ice and Fire game is very hard to find. Well, the Source has apparently spoiled me, because when I read that thread, I found myself thinking “But doesn’t your FLGS keep ASOIAF on the shelves?” I guess not every FLGS does! Earlier, someone was looking for the GM screen for The One Ring. Again, my reaction was “…but the Source has several copies in stock!” And every year, when I hear people getting psyched about seeing games for the first time at GenCon, I wonder to myself, “…but didn’t I already see that game at the Source?” And I could probably name a dozen others books that they similarly stock, in spite of the games’ apparently rarity. The Source has spoiled me for apparently hard-to-find games.
- My personal favorite: they sell Blade & Crown!
Okay, but the universe? That’s kind of hyperbole, but a) the US, being the empire that it is, is probably a center for FLGSs in the world, b) I think that gaming and fandom are a pretty uniquely human thing, and c) humans are probably unique in the universe. QED.
And if you’re wondering, like I was: Burl had talked with John about Classified, and John had told him that he was texting me about the game being in stock. Not too often you get an FLGS employee who has his finger so well on the pulse of the local gaming scene!
All ten of my items are posted now. For the record, they were:
- Dinosaurs! A couple nice plastic dinosaurs.
- Stance markers for Blade & Crown.
- Glass beads as cheap as they come.
- Die-cast vehicles for use in SF games.
- Chess for cheap minis.
- Paints to use with…
- Brushes to paint on…
- Dominoes to make cheap, easy gaming terrain.
- Pencils, because we always need pencils.
- Dry-erase board for tracking initiative, making little maps, etc.
In addition, I bought a few things I couldn’t help myself from buying: an extra set of stance markers, an extra set of dominoes and a set of the creepy-crawlies that John has already blogged about.
Really, I could probably do another set of ten. There were a lot of things I didn’t get: dice, playing cards, various office supplies, etc. etc.
Buying paint for the dominoes has recently got me thinking about miniatures a lot. Not that I use them all that often (and when I do, I pretty much exclusively use Lego minifigs). But I love the craft and artistry that goes into painting minis. Also, I have a box or two of minis that I inherited, and I’ve never gotten around to painting them, partially because I didn’t want to make the initial investment to get paints, brushes, mounting materials, a pin vise, etc. etc. But this project has me thinking about the prospect of getting into miniatures in an affordable way. So, since that initial trip, I’ve been prowling dollar stores for primer and other likely materials. A huge bag of sand, a giant wad of plant-like material (suitable for underbrush or a forest in minis terms) and many other items have been tempting me.
But anyway, that’s my initial set of ten items.
So, what about you? What cool stuff have you found in a dollar store? I’ll continue to update the Dollar Stores Dungeons project page — keep me updated on your discoveries!
Recently I re-watched Ladyhawke for the umpteenth time. It’s always been one of my favorite fantasy movies, but this time, I watched it with a specific eye towards gaming. What ideas could I get from it for gaming? How easy would it be to reproduce that kind of scenario in a game? (If, in fact, it’s even possible or desirable to reproduce — RPGs are a very different artform from movies, after all.)
The story
In case you don’t remember it: A thief, Philippe, escapes from the Bishop of Aquila’s dungeons. Since no one has ever done this before, the Bishop demands that the thief be found and executed, so his men go out in search of Philippe. The thief stays one step ahead of the Bishop’s troops until they finally catch him — but he is rescued by Etienne of Navarre, a mysterious knight in black who keeps a hawk with him. Etienne dispatches the Bishop’s men handily, then Philippe and Etienne form an unlikely symbiosis: Philippe seems to offer Etienne a way into Aquila to seek revenge, while Etienne offers Philippe protection from the Bishop’s men. But what about the hawk?
Philippe eventually finds out that the hawk is in reality a woman, Isabeau, who is Etienne’s estranged love. During the day, she turns into a hawk. At night, Etienne turns into a wolf. The two have been cursed by the Bishop, who was jealous of their love. Now, they are always together but always apart.
The next day, the Bishop’s men attack and Isabeau is struck by a crossbow bolt. Etienne commands Philippe to take her to a nearby abandoned monastery, where an old monk lives. The monk, Imperius, sees to her wounds and reveals that he was the one who (through drunkenness) revealed to the Bishop that Etienne and Isabeau were in love. For this, Imperius feels he owes them a tremendous debt.
But he has a plan: there will soon come a “day without a night, a night without a day” where Isabeau and Etienne can confront the Bishop and unravel his curse. First, though, they’ll all need to sneak into Aquila…
Reflections
There are a lot of little problems with the movie, some that are more obvious and some that are less so:
- The armor is ridiculous. The mail armor evokes “painted sweater” and “incredibly 80s” far more than “actual armor”, and the strips of tin forming the front of Rutger Hauer’s helmet face-guard look like they wouldn’t even stop a football, much less a sword.
- Isabeau’s function is mostly to sit around, look pretty, and occasionally be wounded so the men can have some motivation. Feh.
- At one point, Isabeau, Philippe and Imperius set a pit trap for Etienne (in his wolf form). What exactly were they planning to do with Etienne once they’d captured him? Why couldn’t they just ask him to do whatever they needed him to do? (Etienne in wolf form seems very docile sometimes, and very wild other times.)
- As they get close to capturing wolf-Etienne, he falls into some ‘ice’. And by ‘ice’, I mean “thick-cut sheets of styrofoam that look like no ice I’ve ever seen.” I think the filmmakers even make sure to have one of the characters say “He’s falling in the ice!” A good thing, because otherwise I’d honestly wonder if Etienne was supposed to be falling through a hole in time to a modern-day pack-and-ship store.
- Finally, why does Navarre send Philippe off to get help for Isabeau, instead of going along himself and using his giant horse and sword to protect her? This is narratively convenient — otherwise, Philippe would have nothing to do — but it makes approximately zero in-world sense. There’s even a scene of Etienne sitting and praying. He’s literally just sitting and praying, while Philippe is hopefully rescuing his beloved. Not a very good, or even sensical, plan.
Other than those questions, though, everything else in the story fits together really well. Philippe appearing gives Etienne just the sign he’s been looking for; Navarre was once the captain of the guard, so the guards let him past; how the whole “day without a night” thing works; how Philippe’s thieving skills get used — if this were an RPG, I’d commend the GM on making sure that everyone (well, except Isabeau) gets to contribute something important to the plot, and on making it all fit together so neatly.
It’s tempting to think that the film was designed to ride the wave of D&D-inspired fantasy. The main characters map pretty closely to standard fantasy classes, for example. Etienne is clearly a warrior (perhaps a paladin); Imperius is a priest; and Philippe is one of the better depictions of a thief I’ve seen in a movie. He’s arguably the main character, since he’s the only one who has much of a character arc, and since we effectively see the other characters through his eyes.
Inspirations
Watching the film again reminds me of so many of its set-pieces that make good gaming fodder. The great locations, for a start:
- The ruined monastery with its rickety, collapsing rope-and-board bridge. I suppose I’m a sucker for rope bridges — I just find them thrilling and evocative in games. And Imperius emphatically reminding Philippe to “walk on the left” is genius.
- The dungeons of the Bishop are also a lot of fun. Pretty unrealistic, but a nifty setting anyway.
- The forest houses are another classic. Whole villages in the woods? Again, pretty unrealistic, but fun.
- Maybe my favorite: the trellis outside the inn. Philippe hopping around from grape vine to grape vine is classic adventure. Might be difficult to simulate satisfactorily with RPG miniatures, though.
And the movie has some very inspirational items:
- The bishop’s staff with its secret spike.
- Who doesn’t like Etienne’s double crossbow?
- And last but not least, Etienne’s sword. It’s not magical, but it doesn’t have to be, because it’s full of possibilities. I can’t help but wonder: What did his forefathers do to earn their gems? What stories has this sword been part of?
A few other generally nifty things:
- I’ve always liked Ladyhawke’s subtle take on magic. The only magic in the story is the curse, which is (interestingly) called down by a Bishop. It’s a totally effective, highly mysterious, and completely unique piece of magic. By my standard that magic in fantasy be powerful, mysterious and rare, Ladyhawke’s is nearly perfect.
- The motivations are nice and strong, with some great inter-character tension. Etienne convincing Philippe to go back into the dungeons that he’d barely escaped from, Imperius’ both selfish and selfless reasons for stopping the curse, etc. etc.
- This reminds me — Imperius could be argued to be the other main character, since his arc is probably second only to Philippe’s. And we learn so many interesting details about his past along the way.
All in all, a great movie, with lots of good gaming fodder. It’s easy to imagine trying for a similar scenario in an RPG. Perhaps a reversal, where Isabeau gets to rescue Etienne and Philippa the thief gets to help her along the way. Or where we learn how the gems in the sword of Navarre were earned.
Dave Trampier has apparently passed away.
Trampier, aka DAT and Tramp, was a very influential artist. He of course did the famous Players’ Handbook cover with the adventurers clambering over the giant idol. Emirikol the Chaotic surely has had a strong influence on many owners of the 1st edition DMG. Personally, I remember him most for two things: his art for Kings & Things; and his amazing comic Wormy. Many panels from Wormy have imprinted themselves permanently on my memory:
- Gremorly and the Shadowcat breaking through the heavenly spheres
- Goblins fighting: “This is no ordinary soupspoon”, indeed.
- Gremorly opening a magic portal
His art for Kings & Things managed a cartoony, goofy whimsy — much like Tom Wham’s own work, but cleaner. Wormy is cartoony yet elegant, with a superb sense of line and gorgeous coloring. It reminds me a lot of my favorite Japanese woodblock illustrations, such as works by Hiroshige and Kawase Hasui.
It sounds like the latter part of DAT’s life was a hard one. Not what he deserved.
The last item in my Dollar Store Dungeons project: a whiteboard. Or, as the package says, a Dry Erase Board:
And I suppose it really is a dry-erase board rather than a whiteboard, because the surface is actually a silver color, not white. (Sorry, the photo doesn’t show this very well.)
It comes with a (mostly dried up) dry erase marker with built-in eraser, and there are two pretty decent magnetic strips on the back. Its primary intention is probably for memos on the fridge at home.
I’ll use it for gaming, of course. Probably foremost to keep track of initiative order in Blade & Crown. It could also easily work for tracking mook stats, or for sketching out a simple map. And it would work great as a zone tracker in Fate or other games with similarly abstract mapping.
Dunno if the dry-erase surface will become ghosted or not, but even if it does… hey, it was only $1!
This was the simplest, most practical, most directly usable purchase for Dollar Store Dungeons: a set of mechanical pencils.
There’s not much to say about these, really. Just that people often don’t seem to have writing instruments, or enough writing instruments, when gaming. Having extra pencils around is pretty much always a good idea.
I’ll toss these in my GMing kit and will probably, eventually, have lost them. But, again, they were just $1.