dumnbunny

When discussing SotC with the players, one thing I've pointed out is that there are no throw-away skills. A character could have any one of the skills as Superb, be built around that, and rock. The authors provided a set of stunts for each skill and, as I mentioned in a previous entry, copious advice on a skill-by-skill basis on how to use those skills to make the character interesting.

So, here's my project for the next month. I'll be taking the list of 28 skills and creating a character built around each one. It'll be a good exercise for me to get to know the system in depth. I'll be posting the characters on my LJ, and updating this list with links to the entries.

Academics
Alertness
Art
Athletics
Burglary
Contacting
Deceit
Drive
Empathy
Endurance
Engineering
Fists
Gambling: Johnny Dorado, International Gambler
Guns
Intimidation
Investigation
Leadership
Might
Mysteries: Eduardo Martinez, El Padre
Pilot
Rapport
Resolve
Resources
Science
Sleight
Stealth
Survival
Weapons

Update: Dec 20, linked to character I did up for Mysteries, Eduardo Martinez, El Padre.

Update: Feb 15, had the worst cold I've had in many years, which took the wind out of my sails even after I got over it. Anyways, I'm diving back into my gaming habit hobby, and this project. I'll be adding a link to the Gambling character momentarily.

It's occurred to me that there can be an issue with certain combinations of schticks in a group. A player can invest heavily into her character's schtick, through picking the appropriate skill as Superb, picking up two or three (or more!) stunts to support it, and having a handful of aspects supporting it as well. What happens when the schticks are fairly diverse?

Shtick Protection
Something I've noticed with SotC, something I never really grasped with FATE, is how the skill pyramid tightly focuses a character. With SotC, you get one and only one skill at Superb, forcing you to ask "what is my character best at, what is her thing, her shtick?"

It then follows that this is a useful tool for shtick protection (more commonly known as niche protection, but I like shtick better when talking about SotC). In fact, I've give my players the following guideline (not hard-and-fast rule): try not to give your character the same Superb skill as another player's character. If you really have to, consider carefully the other character's Great skills, and pay special attention to their stunts.

Pulp Love
While I'm on the topic of guidelines, one of my players asked if I wanted to stick to physical and social skills and stunts, or if he could have a more mystical character.

Manys a time when I've come up with some idea for a game in a different genre, something a little over the top, and thought to myself, "Hmmm, I'd better tone that down." With the pulp genre, I'm more likely to think "Hmmm, that's only a little over the top. I'd better kick that puppy up a few notches." Yeah, I love that about pulp.

So, I told the player to go nuts.

I thought I'd post a few of the thoughts I've had while prepping for an upcoming SotC game.

SotC neatly solves a couple problems I've had with prior games.

In CoC (which I dearly love), I've always had a problem with things like the Library Use roll. There's the much talked about problem with failing the Library Use roll, missing the crucial clue, and then the world is destroyed. But it's also always struck me as odd that someone skilled in doing research in a library, someone familiar with the various resources available, could fail. Given sufficient time, success should be pretty much automatic. (I also had a problem with the time it takes to read a mythos book. It's always seemed both too long and too short to me. But that's a subject for another post.)

And this is the approach taken with SotC. The Academics skill can be used for research, and so long as the library the character is using is sufficient, your character will find the information, its just a matter of time. And the GM can use this time factor to good effect. Can the character finish his research before the cultists find him?

When I played James Bond (way back in the day, and another game I dearly love), I felt compelled to try to grab as many Bondian gadgets as possible. I just had no idea what was coming up, and what gadgets would be handy. The problem is that in the movies, when Q handed Bond some new toy, you just knew that later in the movie it would be just the right gadget to have. As a player in an RPG, I was at a disadvantage compared to the writer of a Bond flick.

With SotC, in addition to the Personal Gadget stunt which allows you to define some signature gadget your character always has, you can take the Universal Gadget stunt. Universal Gadgets are less impressive than Personal Gadget, but they can be defined on the fly; "Hey, I have just the thing we need!" The gadget is then "stuck" in that form for the rest of the adventure, after which it resets.

So I have my hardcover copy of Spirit of the Century in my hot little hands. Back in the first week of September when I placed my pre-order, I had to hold my breath a bit. It was 50 bones US, plus another 15 for shipping-and-handling. That's about 73, 74 bucks Canadian. Then when it showed up, Canada Post wanted $8.32 CAD, GST plus about 5 bucks fee for collecting the GST. [insert Canada Post rant here]. So, all together it was a smidge over 80 bucks Canadian.

Having pre-ordered, I've had the PDF in my hands for awhile now, and print-outs of some sections, but to hold the actual book in my hands ... it's a thing of beauty. It's a 411 page love letter from Donoghue, Hicks and Balsera to the world of pulp. At the same time, I'm struck by the professionalism. Not content with a nice ToC and extensive index, the authors also added extensive cross-referencing throughout the book, greatly enhancing the ease-of-use.

So, was it worth it? Totally, without reservation. That 80 bucks will provide hundreds of hours of entertainment for myself and my group. And that's just counting the actual SotC play. Over and above that, there is a fraking gold-mine of advice in this book. The advice on running the game, the advice on running an improv game, the advice on taking each individual skill and turn it from a blah skill check into something that leaps up and smacks you in the face with 50 kilos of awesome ... I've been running games for a couple decades now, and SotC is a book that will make me a better GM no matter what game I'm running.

We played out second session last Friday. Having learned a few valuable lessons from the previous week, how did this week go?

Two Friday's ago evening, I ran a game of Don't Rest Your Head for one player. I discuss the set up in this post.

The session had it's moments, and overall it was fun. The setting is every evocative leading to some nice scenes, and the mechanics worked very well. For instance, at one point Leon uses his Wierd Science madness talent to come up with a ray-gun to blast some nightmare's minions. Deciding how many madness dice to use was very smooth; how powerful do you want your gun to be, and how much do you wish to risk by making it that reality-bendingly powerful?

However, there were some problems with the session, and the cause of the problems was me.

I'm getting ready for my first DRYH run in a few days. So far, I only have the one player, and we spent a few minutes yesterday discussing how to create a character. Last night, he emails me the following. I'd appreciate any feedback anyone has to offer on this. In particular, he's stuck on what to pick for Exhaustion and Madness talents, and I'm chewing on this some myself, trying to come up with some bangs.

Themes jump right out at me: exotic science ("exotic" isn't quite the word I'm looking for, but it's pretty close), conspiracies, cover-ups, pride.

So my copy of Burning Empires arrived today. I've heard about it, but until it's 656 full-colour glossy pages between beautiful hardcovers was sitting in my hands ... wow. Just incredible.

And I'll be putting it to good use tomorrow. I'm looking for a couple more players for my Friday game. I work in an IT office with about 350 other geeks. Odds are good there's someone there looking for a game, but I can't just go from stall to stall in the cube-farm, and management wouldn't be too keen on my sending out a mass mail.

So I'll be dropping that brick on my desk, and taking it with me to the lunch room. Something like that is hard to miss, and I'm hoping that it will spark some interesting and fruitful conversations.

Here's a handful of pulp resources for those looking at running or playing Spirit of the Century, or some other pulp game:

The Pulp
Pulp Fiction Central
Hero Pulp

I had blown the budget and then some, buying those last five games. I had stopped for awhile. Then those magnificent bastards at Evil Hat started taking pre-orders for Spirit of the Century.



I've been waiting a long time for a game that scratches my itch for a pulp game. And this ... it's got a motherfucking gorilla flying a motherfucking biplane. That gorilla is Gorilla Khan who "stalks darkest Africa from conquered Atlantis." Damn, that's pulpy! If this were a carton of orange juice, it'd be solid pulp. I was powerless to resist!

They're taking pre-orders now for a limited hardcover print run. I could have just gotten the softcover, but I love the physical qualities of a good book, especially a nice hardcover. And in fact, I had decided to just settle for the softcover. But my dear wife, duskborn, urged me to get the hardcover, and to jump on it now while I could still get in on the pre-order.

Now I just have to wait a couple months for the book to be printed and shipped. In the meantime, I'll have the PDF to tide me over (you get it free with a pre-order).

Go here for the full scoop, description and ordering details.

Spirit of the Century Hardcover
by Rob Donoghue, Fred Hicks, and Leonard Balsera
Format: 6 x 9 hardcover, 420 pages
Price: PREORDER FOR $50.00 - FREE PDF!

http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/products.php?publisherLink=evilHat#197

Spirit of the Century Softcover
by Rob Donoghue, Fred Hicks, and Leonard Balsera
Format: 6 x 9 hardcover, 420 pages
Price: PREORDER FOR $30.00 - FREE PDF!

http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/products.php?publisherLink=evilHat#196

I've gone on an RPG spending spree over the last month and a half, or thereabouts, and I'll be putting these games into circulation in my group over the next few months.
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A friend of mine turned me on to Death From Above 1979, a two person indie punk/rock group out of Toronto, after he heard them open for Nine Inch Nails. For only having two members, they have an amazing sound. In a certain respect, they remind me of Rush. Their musical styles are completely different, of course, but Rush (a three person group) was known for producing this amazing wall of sound from such a small group.

Ah crap. I just checked the official site while digging up the link. As of today, the band is officially no more.

Well, if you're into indie music, I'd still recommend checking out the site above. They have one of their singles available as an MP3 to give you a taste.

I've compiled a rough list of RPG/Storygames that I want to pick up at some point, over on Ta-da List.

I'm going to use this entry to link to some online resources suitable for this game. I'll update it from time to time. Being 2:30 am, I'll just start off with the most obvious:

Wikipedia entry

This is excellent, a web-based version of the original stories, in various translations. They've got a nice way of handling footnotes, too.

Sir Richard Burton's translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, courtesy Project Gutenberg. This is the unabridged version.

And speaking of 1001 Nights ...

This is an amazing little game taking place on two levels. Each player has a character, an inhabitant of the court of the Sultan. They can have various roles within the court, come from different social strata, but they have certain restrictions in common, such as not having the Sultan's permission to leave the court and the lack of social mobility.

Each of them also envies something about the other characters. For example, a scribe might envy the water girl for the simplicity of her daily tasks. Of course, the envy doesn't have to be firmly rooted in reality, and our scribe might be blind to the aches and pains the water girl's goes through daily slogging buckets of water through the palace.

So they gather together to tell their stories. The players take turn as GM. The GM comes up with a rich, evocative title for their story (look at the titles of the Thousand Tales for inspiration), and their character in the game assigns roles within this story-within-a-story to the other players characters.

I love the milieu, and I love the sensuality of the game -- and I mean sensual not (necessarily) in the commonly used sexual meaning, but more the "pleasing to the senses" meaning. Each character is described in terms of the five senses, and players are encouraged to engage their own senses:

Also, consider the space in which you play: Can you burn incense or candles? Can you have tart grapes and dates and honey and sharp peppery crackers? Can you have music softly in the background?

I also love the whole story-within-a-story. But what really nailed it for me was this quote from hamsterprophet:

... because it’s the only way to do things like express dissent or complain or say the forbidden in the Sultans palace without incurring his displeasure.

Kick. Ass. The players characters in the story aren't just telling stories as a pastime. They're doing it for much more interesting reasons, such as expressing subversive thought, or simply living vicariously through their characters (sounds familiar, eh?), perhaps exploring that which they envy (as mentioned above).

I hope I'm doing this game justice, writing about it at 2:30 am :D . I should soon have a copy in my hot little hands, and I'll be running it ASAP thereafter.

PS: The author of the game posted an actual play report. Cool stuff!

The problem with indie RPGs is that there are so many of them that are so cool, so gottahaveitnow good, that it plays hell with my budget. Ah well. I'll live :D .

In the meantime, gaming has, for me anyways, entered a golden age. I'm getting a lot more enjoyment out of gaming these days than I ever had in the past.

I ordered 1001 Nights yesterday, and Shock: a couple days ago. And as soon as Dictionary of Mu hits IPR, I'll be ordering it and Mortal Coil.