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Continuing the discussion about the rush to create something to fill the perceived void left by the closing of Gleemax, I have to ask myself: Why? And if you build such a thing, who will come?

The idea of a social network for gamers is a nice idea, I have to admit. Having one that’s not a house organ, like Gleemax was supposed to be for Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro, is an even better idea. Home pages, blogs, forums, all of that stuff in one place? Great.

The problem is that there are already places that fill those needs. There are a couple of existing social networks for gamers already. Wizards will have their forums again. Most game companies have their forums. There are places like ENWorld, RPGnet, theRPGsite, and more with active forums. There are tons of folks writing about gaming on LiveJournal, Blogger, WordPress, and one our own sites. And of course, there are no shortages of gamers at Facebook, MySpace, and [yourfavoritesocialnetworkhere] Why do we need a centralized “solution”?

The truth is we’re going to form our own tribes, and we’re going to form overlapping tribes, and we’re going to do it for our own reasons. Some folks will visit sites because they’re busy and get a lot of traffic; others will go for smaller sites that have a more intimate feel and everyone knows your name. Companies will continue to roll their own and hope people choose their brand over any others. There will be schisms over ideologies. As with games themselves, there is not and cannot be a One True Way with a social network for gamers.

So, again, why try? What could one hope to accomplish?

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Roleplaying games are my creative life. They’re my anchor to sanity. Over the past few years, as I’ve struggled through health issues, financial issues, sucky job issues, general life stuff, I can always fall back to either playing in a game, running a game, writing and fussing around with game stuff, or just blogging and forum-posting about games. It is called escapism for a reason. It’s a light spot in a sometimes dark and dangerous world. It’s my happy place.

There was a thread at The Dire Cafe recently where we talked about commitment to gaming, and people missing birthday parties and other events because they had a game. We talked about how, if you were on a softball team or a bowling league or something you could say “Sorry, that’s my X night” and folks would understand, but somehow view a standing roleplaying game group as in an entirely different category and something that can be blown off. Either way, people are counting on you to show up, and either way, it’s a recreational activity meant to help decompress, blow off steam, and continue to function in the stress-filled “real world”.

Roleplaying is my point of light, and I’m sure it is for many other people. It may sound silly, but it’s important to me, and to my health and well-being. It’s one of the reasons that, in spite of all kinsds of other things going on in my life, I need to be involved with SAGA, and my wife is encouraging me to take a larger active role in the organization. It’s also a non-profit, a by-gamers-for-gamers thing, which is important, because…

There’s a meme currently blowing through GTD blogs and sites about how over 100 studies have found that doing stuff for pay is a buzzkill. I’ve experienced it myself – I write UncleBear and other game stuff because I wanna, not because I gotta; when I feel like I gotta, it stops being fun, it starts feeling like a job, and ceases to be my point of light. Some stuff you have to do simply because you have a passion for it. It’s something in the way our brains are wired that we’re only beginning to understand.

Which brings me to the awkward segue to my next topic. Yesterday I was approached by two (2) different companies who want to be “the next Gleemax”. In the successful, let’s-make-a-social-network-for-gamers way, not the let’s-suck-ass-until-we-crash-and-burn way. They want to launch with a fair budget. Both of them want me “on the team”, and variously cite my track record with UncleBear as a nice site to visit with a clean layout, the way I’ve built The Dire Cafe into a nice little community, and my management experience in the real world. They want me involved, and they really want my input. The one thing no one’s stating, and the one thing I’m still figuring out how to ask, is how much they’re gonna pay me. Maybe that sounds a bit prickish, maybe it makes me sounds mercenary, but if it’s important and there’s a budget and my input is desired, that’s worth something. If I’m going to be helping you run a business at which you hope to turn a profit, I need cash. If I’m gonna do this –and yeah, on a lot of levels I wanna, but it will be work — I’m going to need some compensation. And if it’s going to end up being a buzzkill, something with the potential to blink out some of my points of light, I need something in return.

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Sometimes an item going into the Random News Table and that’s it. Sometimes I run across something that merits special attention. Graywulf’s Dungeon Masters Creed is definitely of the latter ilk. While I don’t agree with it 100% (my tastes in roleplaying aren’t D&D-centric as with most gamers) I agree with better than 99% of it, and see that it fits with the needs and wants of the majority of roleplayers.

What do you folks think?

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• Worldbuilding 101: The Mashup
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Most roleplaying historians look at Encounter Critical as the first “kitchen sink” setting. Empire of the Petal Throne (the “Tekumel” setting) also combined science fiction and fantasy elements, recieved wider distribution, and has enjoyed greater longevity and critical success, but EC claims the earliest publication date, as well as True Scientific Realism.

I think the first time I ever heard of both EC and Tekumel was at summer camp, when a camper and a counselor were debating the relative merits of both games. The camper, Doug, was a huge EC fan and I later found out he went on to do some writing for Palladium Games on some early Rifts material. Kirsten, the counselor, was deeply into Tekumel and drawn to its rich history, Professor Barker’s development of languages, and the variety of character types. Doug’s final argument was that Tekumel could be if it had doxies. We were 14 year old boys. It was difficult to argue with Doug’s logic.

I frequently cite my friend Murat’s statement against kitchen sink settings, which boils down to “when everything is possible, nothing matters”. More recently he uses the infamous Pun-Pun to make his point, but he used to talk about being able to create Thri-kreen sorcerer-paladins that fart nerve gas. I’m thinking that, depending upon how high the Thri-kreen’s Robot Nature score was, that would make an awesome EC character. He and Pun-Pun could wander the world together, having adventures.

Kitchen sink roleplaying game settings drawn upon some of the finest traditions in science fiction and fantasy. Flash Gordon was a kitchen sink setting. Marvel and DC Comics’ universes are kitchen sink settings. Samurai Jack is a kitchen sink setting. I’ll be spending a little more time going over each of those, and howe they relate to Encounter Critical, in future posts.

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I’ve talked about using shemps for pregenerated player characters, and now I’ll show you how I actually applied the concept. I want to acknowledge that this would not work for every setting or in every system; it works for Brimstone and Gall because all the characters all essentially normal humans, so creating that baseline character and adding flair fits very well.

To begin, I looked over the “Typical Pirate” template on page 237 of the Pirates of the Spanish Main core book. This is a character intended to be used as a NPC, but with a few tweaks can be used as the foundation for a player character. It is what I used to create the original pregens as well.

Here’s the pregen shemp:

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit d6, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Boating d6, Climbing d6, Fighting d6, Guts d6, Intimidation d6, Notice d6, Shooting d6, Stealth d6, Swimming d6
Pace: 6 Parry: 5 Toughness: 5
Hindrances: Greedy, Mean
Edges: Dirty Fighter
Gear: Knife (d6+d4), cutlass (2d6), flintlock pistol (Range 5/10/20; Damage 2d6+1), shot and powder (20)

Starting characters begin with a d4 in all Attributes and 5 points to bump that up; the template in the book had a d4 in smarts, so I bumped it to give the shemp a d6 in everything. The template has 18 points worth of skills and 3 minor Hindrances; a starting character gets 15 points of skills and a Minor Hindrance is worth a skill point, so that balances. I removed the Garrulous hindrance because it really won’t come up in play (Greedy and Mean are simply appropriate roleplaying bits, so I’m leaving them). In the flair, then, I’ll add a Major Hindrance and an additional Skill point.

continue reading…

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Pirates! Lost Worlds! Mad Science! And the Spanish Inquisition!
This is a very basic overview of the world of Brimstone and Gall, intended to give new players the basic information they need to know about the setting.

Where, Not When
This isn’t the setting of the Pirates of the Spanish Main RPG/Pocketmodel game, but borrows the concept of a location filled with anachronisms. Panama is an island chain, rather than a solid land mass, making it a primary trade route and a feeding ground for pirates. The expansionist Spanish Empire controls the area, much to the chagrin of the United States; agents of the Spanish Inquisition, as well as American spies, are everywhere. The islands are filled with native ruins, and the ruins are filled with gold — as well as hostile, magic wielding natives, dinosaurs, and other perils. The islands also make a quiet place for the heirs of Dr. Moreau and Henry Jekyll to practice their fiendish science, and the black ships of the beast men are constantly on the prowl for slaves to be used in dark experiments.

Player Character Roles
You’re the crew of a pirate ship, sailing the Caribbean and the Strait of Panama (explained in a moment). For one-shots, game days and conventions, the pre-generated characters are the crew of a 3-mast vessel called the Ides of March. The pre-generated characters include the captain, the ship’s surgeon, the bosun, the navigator, the master of sails, and the master of guns. All of them have secrets.

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You roll the die type assigned to the ability you’re using. You also always roll a Wild Die, which is a d6. You use the better of the two dice.

The target number is always 4. Every increment of 4 above that (8, 12, etc) is a “raise”, a better success. When rolling an attack, a raise lets you roll an extra d6 for damage.

Dice “explode”: if you roll the highest number on the die (a 4 on a d4, a 6 on a d6, etc) you roll again and add the result.

Initiative is based on the draw of a card. High number goes first, down the line to low number.

Wounds are taken when damage exceeds your character’s Toughness by a raise (4). If your character’s Toughness is 5, you take a wound when damage is 9 or higher. Wounds give you negative modifiers to rolls.

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Welcome to Haiku Monday! I’ll provide the topic, and your task (should you choose to accept it) is to write haiku on that subject. Pretty simple. Today’s topic is:

The geek movie that changed your life.

Haiku Monday appears twice a month at UncleBear.

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Have you been reading Hyperspace Gremlins of Racine, WI? Why not? It is a blog full of True Scientific Realism, as well as Planetary Apes, Frankensteins, and Damnation Vans.

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It all started when I got these two boxed sets of old horror and scifi movies. 50 movies per boxed set, 100 movies total. For some reason, I made a new year’s resolution to write about them, one movie per week for at least a year.

Boris Karloff plays an Asian detective. That’s right, keep moving, nothing to see here, because there’s no way you’re going to buy Karloff as Chinese and once your suspension of disbelief is destroyed there’s no point in watching the rest of the movie. Not even kitschy, campy or weird, just bad.

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