Archive for August, 2010

[Mortal Coil] That Which Rises

Friday, August 27th, 2010

This is a quick post to announce the latest Mortal Coil Campaign Frame – That Which Rises by Brennen Reece.

That Which Rises is a Southern Gothic campaign frame. Set during the Great Depression in the small town of Elaqua, Alabama, Brennen shows a real grasp of how Mortal Coil really works. The Setting and Magic sections really set a great tone, but the engine of this campaign frame is found in the Villain/Supporting Character section. This truly is a character-driven campaign frame, which plays to Mortal Coil’s strengths. Just like with The Saint-Germain Legacy, That Which Rises presents a setting that I’m just itching to actually play.

As with Old Gods and The Saint-Germain Legacy, brilliant cover photography done by J.R. Blackwell, and the interior character studies by the lovely and talented Jennifer Rodgers.

You can get That Which Rises for $2.00 at DriveThruRPG and Indie Press Revolution.

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[Now Playing] Lady Blackbird by John Harper

Saturday, August 21st, 2010

This post is to inaugurate a recurring series for the blog: Now Playing. I’ll be posting a bit about games that I’m playing with my own groups and our experiences with them. There will be a little bit of story, and more about how the games work mechanically and also within our social group.

First up, Lady Blackbird by John Harper. This is a cool internet freebie game which recently won a Silver ENnie Award for Best Free Product. John is a talented game designer as well as graphic designer, so the game is incredibly beautiful for a 9-page free PDF. Briefly, the PDF includes a quick in media res setup, a one-page summary of the game world, a one-page summary of the heroes’ ship, The Owl, and five player character write-ups with the game rules taking up half the page on each. There is also a GM tip sheet.

My Friday night group currently consists of me, my wife Krista, and one other player named Markus. We decided on Lady Blackbird to start up a new game. Krista prefers long-term play, so even though Lady Blackbird works great as a single session game, we are planning on playing for a while.

I suggested Lady Blackbird for a couple of reasons. The world, although only teased in the rules, is interesting and seems fun to explore. It’s a steampunk sky-sailing setting, with little rocks orbiting a sun, all floating above a thick blanket of caustic clouds. The initial setup is a small crew of smugglers carrying a fugitive noblewoman to meet her pirate lover. They are captured by an Imperial cruiser and begin trapped in the brig of the Hand of Sorrow.

Krista and Markus picked two of the five pregenerated characters. Krista chose Snargle, the goblin pilot of The Owl, and Markus chose Kale Arkam, first mate and mechanic of The Owl. They are playing the crew of The Owl, and the captain and the passengers remain as NPCs.

Our first session went well, but it was very action-oriented. They spent the entire session attempting to break free from their imprisonment, being chased around the Imperial vessel, captured and reimprisoned, and escaping again to make good their escape aboard The Owl, only to discover that they are dangerously low on fuel. All in all, pretty rousing action but not entirely satisfying to everyone involved. There was very little character interaction that went on, mostly a series of rolls for moving around and attempting to escape the ship.

I think this is a bit of a symptom of the beginning setup of the game which demands immediate player action. Also, we only had two players, so there was a bit less character interaction than if all five characters were being played. Nonetheless, I think we will be able to slow things down a bit next session and get in more personal interaction and character development. All of the action in the first session did an excellent job familiarizing us all with the rules. We are pretty well-versed in how they work at this point, and I have a good grasp of the ebb and flow of the bonus pools, which is pretty important for me to understand as the GM.

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GenCon After Action Report

Monday, August 9th, 2010

GenCon 2010 is now over! It has been a crazy week, and I am very tired. I’m composing this in the hotel on Monday morning, waiting for my flight back to New Jersey. Luckily, the convention is still quite fresh in my mind and I can share some highlights before they fade.

I ran the Indie Press Revolution booth at GenCon for the last time, my final duty as former owner of IPR. I had a great staff, and I want to thank Clark and Amanda Valentine, Bill White, Will Hindmarch, Steve Segedy, Ryan Macklin, Carl Klutzke, and Justin Bow for putting in the hours and being such knowledgeable and helpful folks. Without them I could not have pulled it off. Rob Bohl also practically lived in the booth, explaining and demoing games to passers-by, all without being an official staff member. Thanks, Rob!

The booth itself was a great success. I’ve been doing shows long enough that I really know how to set one up for maximum sales, and having the Dresden Files RPG was a big boon to everyone. We sold over 200 copies of that game, and loads of the other games in the booth. It was one of IPR’s most successful GenCons ever.

The great thing about GenCon is being able to connect with gamers and game designers from all over the country. GenCon gets nearly 30,000 attendees, making it without a doubt the biggest role-playing game convention in the U.S. It’s practically an essential to attend if you have a game to sell, it GenCon is often the only opportunity I get to see some of my peers all year.

I didn’t do a lot of shopping for myself, I only made one personal purchase, which was Apocalypse World by Vincent Baker. I pretty much get all of Vincent’s new games when they become available, his designs are always brilliant and I am interested to read through despite the fact that I’m not a big fan of the post-apocalyptic genre. I bought some t-shirts and a hoodie for various family members, and also picked up Carcassonne and Dominion, two games I plan on playing with my daughter (the other hard-core gamer in my family). I also got an autographed photo of Felicia Day for my daughter, who is a fan of her work on Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. I showed Felicia a cute picture of my daughter on my iPhone and Felicia signed the photo to “My favorite fellow redhead.” I’m sure my daughter will be thrilled.

The ENnie Awards were Friday night, and I attended with my “dream date” Don King. Don was a great guy and we hung out and schmoozed in the industry-only portion of the ENnie reception. I didn’t win, but I knew I was up against the stiffest competition. I am still amazed and pleased that I was nominated. There were 235 products submitted to the ENnies, and the judges felt that How We Came to Live Here was among the five best written products in that field. That means a lot. Several of my favorite products won prizes at the ceremony. Lady Blackbird got a Silver ENnie for Best Free Product I thought was deserved, and Cthulhu 101 won a Gold ENnie for Best Regalia (ENnie code for “not a game”). Fiasco and Chronica Feudalis both got Judges’ Choice awards which I was pleased about. Each judge chose a product that didn’t make the nomination cut and singled it out for a special award because they thought it was a quality product. Congrats John Harper, Kenneth Hite, Jason Morningstar, and Jeremy Keller on your recognition!

Among other highlights, I had the privilege of meeting Wil Wheaton when he dropped by the IPR booth to shop. I gave him a copy of How We Came to Live Here, and he picked up a copy of Spirit of the Century. We had a great conversation about pulp fiction and pulp gaming for about 10 minutes. He is a very friendly guy and he really knows his stuff about gaming. It’s nice to meet a celebrity and be able to just geek out with him on a topic of mutual interest.

I really want to give Wil props about his attitude toward indie games. When he was given free copies of games, he insisted on paying for them because he said he knew how tough it was for indie designers. It’s great that he’s so supportive and interested in making sure the creators get their due. Thanks, Wil!

As is typical when I work a booth, I didn’t get a lot of gaming done. I did manage to play a game of Fiasco, and it is really as good as everyone says. It’s a great pick-up game, and it runs in just a couple of hours. The game really delivers on its premise, a fast paced tale of foolish people getting in way over their heads. I’ll definitely be playing this again.

I also got to run a session of How We Came to Live Here for Simon Rogers, Steve and Paula Dempsey, and Graham Walmsley. The Brits had a bit more trouble with the setting than Americans usually do, since they are not as familiar with Native American tropes, but they had a wonderful time and we created an excellent story.

Last, but certainly not least, I need to mention the new craze that will no doubt soon be sweeping the nation. That’s right, I’m talking about Sage Fighting. This new urban combat form was discovered and GenCon and refined by expert game designers Daniel Solis and Jared Sorensen. I’ll be posting more links to this exciting development through Twitter, so keep an eye out for the #sagefight hashtag.

I’m sure I missed a few things, but that’s all I can think of at the moment. If more GenCon highlights occur to me, I’ll post more later. Now, off to my flight!

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