Thrones of 'Mail (Redux)

So, after some reconsideration I am probably NOT going to do any type of Chainmail mash-up with Game of Thrones. Probably. And for a couple reasons (neither of which has anything to do with me lacking the time, or having too many projects as is). No, instead I've realized:

A) The project has limited usefulness considering my actual resources. Which is to say, I have neither the money nor the time to purchase and pain hundred of different minis of different Westeros armies, much as I might like to. Even using a Chainmail scale of 20:1, we're talking about battles featuring thousands of troops on both sides. I mean, who runs that kind of thing? Well, war gamers (obviously), but I've never been that hard core. And folks who are tend to be pretty devoted to a single genre, historic time, and/or game system. And I'm just not that devoted to GoT.

B) Despite its popularity as a television program, a lot of fans quite frankly "don't get" what the show is about. And I don't mean "blood-and-soft-core-Tolkien-porn;" I'm talking about the overall story of the show.

Take my wife as an example. She is a very smart lady. She is a fan of the show and has watched every episode. After watching last night's episode (twice...something we tend to do as we'll often miss parts of the first broadcast while putting kids to sleep and whatnot), we had a brief conversation and I realized she has almost no clue as to how the whole backstory-plot ties together. She didn't know why the blonde girl is on the other side of the world, or who Ned Stark's sister is, or why those Dornish chicks seem so upset, or...well any of the setting's history, really.

Which is fine: you don't need to know this stuff to enjoy and be a fan of the show. There's plenty of Hatfields-McCoys stuff to latch onto ("You killed my brother/sister/father/child/cousin, so now I must kill you.") She knows Ramsey is an asshole. She thinks Jon Snow is the hero. She thinks Tyrion is great (though she doesn't get why he's helping the dragon lady). She knows Cersei has problems with the religious zealots.

Etc. There's plenty of engrossing, immediate things going on to keep one's interest. But when you ask "do you know who these people are" or "what their relationship is" or "why are they doing these terrible things," my wife is like, huh, I don't know. Hadn't thought about it.

And honestly, I would probably be the same way if I hadn't read the first two novels of the series and spent a ton of time surfing the A Song of Ice and Fire wiki researching Martin's world and characters for various projects over the last couple years. That to me is the most fascinating part of the fantasy epic: the fictional world, its history, and the complex way in which its history unfolds.

[the wife's special area of interest is actually in the technical side of filmmaking...she can tell you all the gaffes and editing snafus that occur in a show, which such things go right over my head]

But as I said, you don't really need a "deep understanding" to enjoy a thing. One of the few memories I have from when I was five years old is the first time I got to go over to a school chum's home without the presence of my parents. My best friend at the time, his name was Eric Foy...no idea what happened to him, he left the school the following year and I never saw him again. Anyway, we spent the morning watching Spectreman on a television in a shady basement, then emulating the show the rest of the day. To this day, I honestly don't know any more about Spectreman now than I did then...some guy turns into a giant (hero) robot and fights giant monsters, generally by flying around and shooting bullets/missiles out of his fingers...but, really, what more do you need to know? Do you like giant robots shooting bullets at giant monsters bent on destroying the Earth? Here you go!

It's the raised arm that gives
you the "Shazam effect."

[I realize there was a similar, more popular Japanese import called Ultraman, but that was a show I never did get into, and thus no little about. Why not? Because I already had Spectreman...duh!]

[on a mostly unrelated note: considering how little I actually remember from when I was five...the same age my son is now...I wonder if our years spent in Paraguay will leave more than a handful of memories in his mind. I don't know. My parents were never ones to rehash the past and retell old stories, whereas Diego's father is an excessively long-winded dweller on "what-has-gone-before" and spends a lot of time conversing and reflecting with the boy. Who knows. He just went over to his best buddy's house (Seba) a week ago...the first time he's been allowed to go on a playdate solo]

SO...(getting back to Game of Thrones)...while for me, Chainmail (or something like it) might be a good way to model the basic (fantasy) war-game of the setting, I'm really not sure it would appeal to anyone but me. People fascinated with history and war (and war-games) often could care less about a fantasy world like Martin's, and folks interested in fantasy worlds like that in Martin's books don't need to recreate the fiction they're enjoying.

I'm a strange duck.

Painted by a different strange duck.

I would also like to say, for those who did read my last post on the subject, that I was talking out of my ass when I started talking about "Braunstein sub-plots." I don't know shit or shinola about Braunstein...other than what I've read about its part in the historic origins of the hobby. However, a game that could be used to model the political machinations and alliances of Game of Thrones (as an add-on to a war-game) can be found in the old Dragonriders of Pern board game (which, in the past, I've compared to a kind of "proto-RPG").

In fact, if I did change my mind about doing something with GoT, I would probably START with Dragonriders of Pern (rather than Chainmail), as there are some strong similarities in its premise: like Game of Thrones, it features a world of bickering, feudal lord types who must find a way to resolve their differences to combat a greater, world-threatening menace.

[yes, they both have dragons, too, but they're not really used the same...]

Yeah, that's an idea...but NO, no, no it still doesn't change my points A and B above! Plus, my copy of Dragonriders is back in Seattle so there's no way for me to cannibalize for rules at this juncture. So I'm going to stop talking (and thinking) about it now.

Really.

Well, I'm going to try to stop anyway...

Dragones, Navidad, y Comida Mexicana

"Dragons, Christmas, and Mexican Food"

Se acabaron las fiestas. The parties are over...at least for 2011. There's looking to be at least one more late nighter for the New Year, but the next few days should be on the quieter side. Kind of. I'm supposed to be singing Metallica covers with my wife's cousin's band at a bar tomorrow, part of a six-band set (I don't know what order we're in...sometime around 10pm) but I might bag it. The kids aren't bad, considering their age (about half mine or a little more), but only two of the members bothered to learn the song they told me to prepare (Iron Maiden's Hallowed Be Thy Name), and they want me to learn a SlipKnot song (*barf*) by tomorrow so I can "come in on the chorus."

I'll probably do it anyway...my chances at "rock n' rollin'" these days are slim and far between, and I can pretty much do Enter Sandman and Master of Puppets in my sleep...besides that's a lot closer to "singing" than Pantera or Trivium (the band's main influences...oh, and Slayer, of course). The things I do for family (and ego)...

But up until tonight, the partying has been pretty much non-stop since I arrived. Let's see...party Thursday, wedding on Friday, Christmas Eve (till 4am) on Saturday, Christmas Day (party, late night Mass, relatives, party) on Sunday, birthday party (for my son, who doesn't turn 1 till the 19th of January) on Monday (involving about 50+ assorted relatives), birthday party for my wife's other cousin (involving many, many more people) on Tuesday...

Today's Wednesday, right? Yeah, just (very loud) band practice and a quiet chocolate and churros with the wife and baby today. We did some laundry.

In between partying and stuffing myself with excellent food, I've managed to accomplish exactly 0 (zero) as far as writing is concerned. Hell, this is the first chance I've had to type ANYthing (the baby requires quite a bit of wrangling, too)...and I can see it's actually Thursday around 1:14am. And I should be hitting the hay soon.

However, I have managed to squeeze in enough reading time (on planes and busses and in quiet moments) to finish Anne McCaffrey's Dragonflight, something I've long been meaning to do. What an utterly fantastic book...I see how it launched such a successful (critically and popular-wise) series. I'll have to pick up the sequels when I'm back state-side. Just ridiculously good and interesting...it wasn't until about halfway through the thing I realized that it had not ripped off D&D's "chromatic spectrum" of dragons, having been written in 1969, well before Gygax and Arneson (and thus was probably part of the inspiration for the RPG).

And I have to say I prefer McCaffrey's version of dragons to those created by TSR. That is, her color/size/personality/role descriptives for dragons makes more "biological sense" to me than the different color = different breath weapon thang. And this despite the totally bizarre "telepathic/teleportation/time travel" abilities of the Pern dragons. I guess it's just a matter of taste, but her animal mounts had more personality and "reality" (for me) than any of the dragons in the Dragon Lance books (for example).

I have much more to say about the Dragonflight book (not pertaining to dragons), but I'll save that for a later post. I've had an epiphany or two reading these old school SciFi/Fantasy books (I'm halfway through MZB's classic Sharra's Exile, and I hope to finish it in the next couple days) and I want to collate my thoughts in a way that will be useful from a gaming perspective.

Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to bed. Have to get up early tomorrow and download SlipKnot.

Dragonriders of Pern

As others have mentioned around the blog-o-sphere, the scifi world mourned the passing of Grand Master Anne McCaffrey this week. Her accomplishments are a little too numerous to mention here, but folks interested in Old School D&D would do well to read her books, which readily mix science fiction and fantasy...she IS one of the authors listed in the inspirational source material of the Basic rules, and I know she's been an inspiration for me, even mentioning her Pern books as "game setting" material in my B/X Companion.

Though I haven't read a single one of her novels.

Nope, I haven't. Don't look at me like that! I have read many of her short stories, and I do know quite a bit about Pern. And her Pern novels are high on my list of "books to read" that I just haven't got around to yet.

[truth be told, I don't do much fiction reading these days, except for "research" purposes. Right now I'm in the process of reading someone's rather dry, if fascinating, doctoral thesis on the state of science fiction literature for young adults and children]

Thing is, when I was first introduced to her books (back in grade school by older friends), her stuff was a little "over my head." I was busy reading Piers Anthony and Robert Aspirin and Steven King...sleezy fantasy of the type that appeals to adolescent boys, in other words. But then, I'm a guy that didn't even get through The Lord of the Rings trilogy until after high school...

Anyway, that's all beside the point. I recognize her work and DO intend to read more of it (as soon as I can find it at my local used book store); however, my interest is more in the "game design" department than "classic literature" anyway. For me, I celebrated Ms. McCaffrey's life by picking up a copy of the Mayfair Games' old boxed set Dragonriders of Pern. There was a complete (though used) copy down at Gary's for $20 and I was more than happy to snatch it up.

Dragonriders of Pern was published in 1983 and I can recall seeing it at a game shop or bookstore "back in the day" and wanting it (my friends and I were into Anne McCaffrey, even if I personally hadn't read the novels at the age of 10-11), but having no money to spend. Or maybe I did, but I was put off by the fact that it was a board game and not an RPG (in my younger days, I snubbed many a game for not being of the "cooler" variety). As I hinted earlier, I was a pretty dumb kid when it came to some things.

I can say "pretty dumb" with my adult hindsight now because I spent yesterday reading and exploring the game: what a great piece of design!

[the following is a gross simplification, but I'm pressed for time at the moment]

Dungeons and Dragons started its existence as a war game (via Chainmail) and has (since then) moved into the realm of true "role-playing," given birth to numerous "role-playing" games, and then morphed (in its current state) into some sort of board game with computer RPG sensibilities.

Dragonriders is a bit of what Chainmail might have morphed into with an Indie-game sensibility and a strong commitment to the source material. By "indie-sensibility" I mean, the indie concept of making a game with a specific purpose in mind, rather than a generic "this game system can model EVERYthing approach." Dragonriders has definitive, specific objectives of play, not the least of which is being true to the themes of the novel. This in addition to being a fun, balanced game.

But what is this? you ask. Is Dragonriders of Pern some sort of role-playing game? Yeah, I'd actually go so far as to call it a primitive form of RPG...definitely moreso than Chainmail, maybe a bit less than OD&D. Here's how it works:

• Each player takes the role of a specific weyr (i.e. "dragon rider clan") with specific named personalities.
• Game play is played in turns consisting of two phases, an alliance (political) phase and a combat phase (where players must repel the spaceborn menace, thread, from threatening the planet).
• Play continues until all city-states (called "holds") are aligned and all thread destroyed OR until the thread has managed landfall in enough locations wreck the ecosystem and cause mass extinction; in the former case, the player with the most political alliances wins, but in the latter ALL players lose.

Doesn't sound like much of an RPG, does it? It's not "open-ended." Play is divided into distinct phases (alliance and fighting). There's a definitive "endgame," and nothing in the way of serial/campaign play or character development/advancement. In addition, a number of external factors are determined by random "event cards" drawn each round.

And yet...

Players represent specific, named persons (characters from the novel); those familiar with the books can add their own spin to their actions. Each of the two phases have distinct "role-playing" opportunities...decisions that need to be made by players that are completely at the discretion of the players.

For example, the alliance phase...which dragonholds characters decide to "woo" to their cause, where they devote their resources (money and personality-wise) are all determined by the individual strategy of the players. However, players also have the option of playing (or not playing) Event cards that cause gatherings of individuals...conclaves, weddings, dragon hatchings...that are "invitation only," based on politicking and jockeying for position.

Likewise, the combat phase seems fairly simplistic...commit certain troops (dragon flights) to areas of thread incursion, roll dice and determine victory and casualties sustained. However, it's NOT straight-forward as that as:

- weyrs need to commit strong forces to fighting thread lest they risk threadfall hitting the surface and burrowing.

- damage to weyr forces means full-strength flights are not always available

- invitations to other weyrs can be extended...and the other weyrs can either choose to come or not

The invitations are complicated by the penalties imposed on ALL forces for failing to defend against thread, but calling for help means rewarding (monetarily) those forces that respond...possibly heated rivals or those who have been thwarting your alliance attempts or otherwise being a pain in the ass. And yet NOT inviting help can have absolutely disastrous consequences for your own weyr and for the planet in general.

It's an interesting, fine line, couple with the game's own explicit instructions regarding diplomacy:

Any deal may be made between players including exchange of Event cards and Marks, and permission to use another player's Weyrleader or Weyrwoman for an Alliance Attempt. No rule requires any player to fulfill his end of a bargain.

That's from the basic rules and is similar to what one finds in Monopoly...except in Monopoly there's no risk that the world will end and EVERYONE loses due to the petty squabbles and in-fighting of robber-barons.

I find it fascinating...especially with the addition of the Masterharper character, available in games of 4 or more. This Taliesin-like wild card picks his own agenda, not shared with the other players, of either favoring a specific weyr leader or maintaining the status quo. He then lends aid (or hindrance) to the various players during the alliance phases, along with his little apprentice helpers. It's a nice way to play "spoiler," though if he rocks the boat too much and the weyr leaders are unable to effectively fight thread then everyone dies...again, it's a fine line.

Couple all that with the in-gam glossary and discussion of how to curse with Pernese expressions...plus the example of McCaffrey's novels...and you have a game that can allow you to live the danger and intrigue of the Pern dragon lords.

Only if you want to, of course. I'm sure there are those completely uninterested in this kind of play, just as there are players of Once Upon A Time who don't give a shit if the story told is any good, so long as they can empty their hand of cards (yes, I've played Once... with players like that...it's a bit frustrating). Again though, to me the interesting thing is the rudiments and potential of an RPG in the game...one can see how one could easily elaborate on the existing system (much as D&D is an elaboration of Chainmail) to create a true RPG.

Not that I'm interested in doing anything of the sort...I've got plenty to do with my own RPG projects as it is. And Dragonriders of Pern is a fine game as written...I wouldn't mind playing it with some like-minded folks.

; )

The Eras of the Apocalypse

There’s nothing quite cut-n-dry about apocalyptic fiction in any media. It probably stems from the fact that most people use the term “Apocalypse” incorrectly (including myself). The Apocalypse is the last book of the Bible…i.e. the Book of Revelation. “Apocalypse” is the English translation of the Greek word that means “revelation” (in other words saying the Book of Apocalypse is the same as saying the Book of Revelation); however, because of the general belief that the Book of Revelation provides a prophecy of the “End Times” for humanity, we have allowed the term “Apocalypse” to become synonymous with the End of the World.

Or as I would call it, “the end of civilization as we know it.”

[by the way, in case anyone cares I don’t believe that what St. John describes is a Doomsday scenario but rather a symbolic blueprint of the path to enlightenment based on tearing down one’s selfish separate self / “ego” and re-building the psyche in terms of being a tool for following the divine will, the Seven Seals being the seven chakras that need to be activated through meditation and right-mindedness. Not that humans don’t run the risk of destroying themselves or anything, but I don’t think John’s revelation was anything about some extra-dimensional divine being saving us from THAT…accepting and following the teachings of the enlightened masters, like Jesus, WILL save your soul from the cycle of death and rebirth, but taking Communion isn’t going to give you a chair in some Astral Plane. Read your Edgar Cayce, folks!]

ANYWAY…so when I write “post-apocalypse” (or “PA”) keep in mind that I’m using the common, slangish parlance of “After the Doom of Mankind” not “post-revelation.” The latter phrase would be mean a state of enlightenment (I guess), while the former means a miserable pile of rubble that used to be society as we know it.

SO there are many shades to PA fiction; it ain’t all Gamma World and Mutant Future, that much is for sure. And part of writing a PA game is considering which SUB-GENRE of PA we’re deciding on. ‘Cause, after all, we can’t use every sub-genre at once, can we?

[that’s semi-rhetorical: my original idea DID try to include all sub-genres in one book, hopelessly overwhelming me and being a decided FAIL]

To my mind there are four or five PA sub-genres based on proximity to The End (proximity time-wise, that is):

#1 PRE-APOCALYPSE: Society hasn’t quite broken down, but it’s at the breaking point. Things are pretty frigging bad all over, the end is nigh, and there’s little to nothing anyone can do about it. Possible examples of this in fiction/RPGs include: Blade Runner, Mad Max, Cyberpunk, Car Wars.

#2 IMMEDIATE POST-APOCALYPSE: The end has come and gone and we are left to pick up the pieces. Society has been shattered and will probably never be what it once was, but it’s still within memory of those who lived through the apocalypse. Those who live weep for what they lost and try to maintain normalcy, even as they make do and attempt to survive. After effects of the Cataclysm (nuclear winter, radiation, disease) are as dangerous as the break-down in law and order and starvation (as a society not used to rustic life gets used to a lack of electricity, plumbing, and supermarkets). Examples of this genre are many: The Stand, The Day After, Dies the Fire (and Ariel), Reign of Fire, Damnation Alley, The Postman, Deathlands, The Road Warrior/Beyond Thunderdome. RPG examples are actually few but include the Rifts supplement Chaos Earth and Twilight 2000. Shadow Run could be a fairly wimpy entry into this category.

#3 MULTI-GENERATION POST-APOCALYPSE: The End occurred generations before living memory. People have learned to survive in the wilderness that is the new world, and have rebuilt some semblances of civilization. The wonders of the pre-apocalypse world are rarely understood entirely correctly but here and there people remember and pass things down. Working artifacts from the pre-cataclysm days are scarce except for well-preserved fortifications that have gone un-looted or ruins long abandoned due to multiple dangers. In some of the farther fetched genres helpful/beneficial mutations have become common, as have giant mutant monsters. Examples include Planet of the Apes, A Boy and His Dog, Water World, Logan’s Run, A Canticle for Leibowitz, Battlefield Earth. RPGs in this category are numerous: Gamma World, Mutant Future, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, Paranoia, and Rifts to name a few.

#4 ANCIENT APOCALYPSE: The Cataclysm occurred so far in the past that is understood only as a legend, like we might think of Noah’s Ark and the Antediluvian Age. Humans know almost nothing of the pre-apocalypse Earth, having long histories of their own new societies and civilizations and any ancient technology that has survived is more akin to “magic” than anything properly understood or even legendary. Mutant people and monsters are simply part of the local fauna and peoples of this new land. Examples in fiction include Thundarr the Barbarian (yes!) and the Storm Lands, the Dying Earth, maybe Bakshi's Wizards, and possibly some of the darker sword & sorcery pulp like Karl Vagner’s Kane series. Besides RPGs based on the mentioned fiction (Thundarr and DE both having games), Ron Edwards's “Sorcerer and Sword” supplement works, as does most any fantasy RPG you choose to adapt to this…Arneson’s Blackmoore campaign setting falls into this category which means OD&D works just fine.

#5 SPACE EXODUS: The Apocalypse destroyed the Earth and the only survivors of human society have been forced to make a new home…off world! The state of civilization may be any of the types #2 through #4, and may even be close to #1 (the Mutant Chronicles is an example). An example of #2 in space would include Battlestar Galactica or Titan A.E. An example of #3 in space would be Firefly/Serenity or Metamorphosis Alpha. An example of #4 might be McCaffrey’s Pern series, MZB’s Darkover series, or M.A.R. Barker’s Tekumel: Empire of the Petal Throne.

Now in one of my original PA posts I talked about what I found LACKING in the PA RPGs out there, namely the grim struggle for survival and the re-building of community/society. However, after writing up my list of PA sub-genres, I can see that these two “integral” parts of PA fiction don’t always apply…or don’t always apply the same.

#1: In this sub-genre, there is a grim struggle to HOLD IT TOGETHER. Society hasn’t collapsed yet, and things may be dangerous, but the main thing is holding on to what one has and knows and trying to keep from bottoming out.

#2: Both integrals apply, but SURVIVAL is emphasized.

#3: Both integrals apply, but COMMUNITY BUILDING is emphasized (for example, in Gamma World it is assumed your village has learned how to acquire food and shelter, etc. already).

#4: Neither "integral" is integral; at this point you’re simply playing a standard fantasy game.

#5: The integrals emphasized depend on which sub-genre of the sub-genre applies.

Now scoping all that out, the next question is: which game do I particularly want to design? Granted, one of the harder game concepts I’ll need to work out are rules to integrate the grim struggle for survival and community re-building into the game system, but before I get to THAT I need to figure out the setting for the game. I’m kind of thinking the #2 category (Immediate PA) is the less saturated category of RPG, but besides being awfully depressing (rape, looting, cannibalism, radiation sickness) it’s…well, too much firearms and not enough homemade spears. Unless, of course, I go the “Change” route (aka the Steve Boyett/S.M. Stirling “all-technology-just-stopped-working-for-no-good-reason” plot)

Nah, if I do #2, I’m most likely to set it in space (the #5 qualifier), kind of based on Titan A.E.: humanity has got to learn to come together in a hostile universe if they’re going to survive and rebuild themselves. Earth’s been wiped out to make way for a new hyperspace bypass; hopefully the survivors remembered their towels. ; )

I think #3 holds a lot of potential (probably so many of the RPG entries already out there fall into this category). I’d prefer something less whimsical than Gamma World, much more like A Canticle for Leibowitz (I love that book…it’s similar to a PA version of Asimov’s Foundation series). However, I’m not above adding some psionic mutations to the mix…the mutants Beneath the Planet of the Apes and those found in DC’s Kamandi comics being bizarre enough without throwing in talking animals.

'Course in the words of one PA film: nothing is certain, the future is NOT set.

More later...