Sunday, 30 December 2012
Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson at Dragonmeet
Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson talk at Dragonmeet (London 2012) about the very humble origins of Games Workshop as importers of Dungeons and Dragons, the start of Fighting Fantasy (and Sorcery!) right through to the recent Blood of the Zombies, books and apps.
I was excited to hear the mention of the Puffin School Book Club from which I got my copy of Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Usually I’m fairly down on Games Workshop’s rejection of imported RPGs and yet they appear to have been under a lot of pressure by TSR to innovate and create products to which they owned the intellectual property because TSR controlled their lifeline to the supply of D&D products. This leads to the invention of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (1st ed). Unfortunately GW eventually walk away from RPGs altogether.
There’s also some talk on FF documentary related Kickstarters towards the end - which I’m more than a little dubious about. Just write it and publish to Lulu … enough, already..
(This edit doesn’t cut to Russ Nicholson's art when talking about Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and the volume is very low, but I’ll forgive GMS, because there’s some real gold in this talk ;) )
Source: GMS Magazine
http://youtu.be/FYqooWqbD8Q
http://www.gmsmagazine.com/
-Thanks to Scott Craig on Facebook for drawing my attention to this!-
Sunday, 23 December 2012
DriveThruRPG Goblin Santa Savings
Click on promotional graphic to hurtle your wallet towards a Christmas RPG bonanza of festively reduced prices ... and so on, you get the idea... :)
Friday, 21 December 2012
Cardboard Snowballs for all!
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| Snowball Wars on DTRPG for $5 http://bit.ly/snowballwars |
If you're not planning a Christmas themed dungeon or snowy horror game, may I draw your attention a current talk-to-of-the-town, children friendly, and just in time for evil snowmen in Doctor Who, standalone game* ...
Snowball Wars from Okum Arts Games.
It's a fast and furious battle in a winter wonderland.
Snowball Wars is a minigame complete with full rules, figures, terrain, bases, game tiles and game cards.
Snowball Wars is a minigame complete with full rules, figures, terrain, bases, game tiles and game cards.
I haven't played this, but I have always found David Okum 's art to be superb. Just cutting out and assembling the figures may be the perfect way to keep children entertained when the weather is bad outside and the batteries have all failed on the new Christmas presents.
*I've said "standalone" but there is a booster pack "Elf Help" also available for a dollar.In case we don't chat before - and we probably will, but then again we might all be doing a big blog read catch-up closer to the new year, have a Merry Christmas and I hope that you've helped Santa bring everything that you and your loved ones desire -i.e. presents, toys, games ... not icky love and togetherness, etc. bah humbug!
Remember that shopping (and adventuring) is for life, not just for Christmas. ;)
Saturday, 15 December 2012
Baldur's Gate - it's a type of fetish
So, I've been playing Baldur's Gate ... on the iPad. I have got very far, but that's BG for you. I haven't really tried the arena fight Black Pits side game, and I've barely looked at any "enhancements". In Baldur's Gate -Enhanced Edition- proper, you crawl inch by inch, you die, or a party member dies, you sell weapons for resurrection fees, you learn something, someone tells you to go somewhere, you die, you have a think, you go back to an earlier save, you crawl, you fight, and you may even be victorious! You pray that in the next inn there isn't another assassin who attacks you right at the point you need to sleep, heal and regain spells, but no, someone wants you and your Chaucerian travelling crew obliterated, for a paltry 200 gold coins.
I discovered Baldur's Gate a few years later than when it came out - a friend insisted I played it. It was already dating but it still ticked all the boxes with regards to simulating the mechanics of D&D, right down to the fact that at first level wild dogs can kill you. When I played the game on the PC around 2000 I marvelled at how it combined managing a party, a traversable campaign world, character speech etc. with good old fashioned AD&D rules. Except I had played AD&D 1st edition and despite what people say, there are differences with 2e plus whatever small changes Bioware had made. Talking to NPCs can be a real drag -way too much text, laboured acting, with some humour - reminding you that across the table this would be an actual conservation - but therein lies the 30 year rub with computer RPGs, so all that left is the graphics and the system.
The graphics, in terms of the map backgrounds, have always been a pleasure to look at. The extra zoom on the iPad is a nicely up-to-date feature. With BG I always got the sense that I was exploring a whole world - you can literally wander anywhere -within plot limits- of course, you may also die, but hey, you choose to stray... The character graphics will be a disappointment to new players, but there is customisation there with armour and weapons which amongst the whole party which you didn't really see in older games like Diablo and is one of the reasons that Dungeon Siege blew me away (Neverwinter series aside). What you're left with is the story and game system.
The story is pretty slow -location triggered mainly- and since I didn't finish BG first time around and got diverted by the expansions I can't say whether or not the story arc is a selling feature - but what I can say is that many of the sub-quests and purse holding patrons connect with the background of the main plot, always reminding you of bigger politics. It isn't just a series of meaningless dungeon and forest locations. However, random encounters when trudging across different areas (oh yes, you walk, no-one rides horses in old Faerun) can feel a bit "samey" - but they fit into the action more than in, say, Fighting Fantasy (I'm playing FFIII on the iPad atm and random encounters really are just a grind for XP).
The main point I wanted to make here was about the game mechanic/system. I think that many of us who choose to play solo D&D PC games because we are armed with, quite literally, tomes of rule knowledge, and we experience pleasure when we strategise regarding strengths and weakens based on our knowledge of weapons, spells, class abilities, and monster stats. It's a fetish! The love of rules, exercised as a fetish! ;) Your character casts a spell in an allotted round and the hobgoblin fails the save - you even see the results of the die-rolls.
There is even a part of me that really enjoys the fact that first level characters can barely load a crossbow without tripping over and dying in a ditch of rats. I'm going to go as far as saying that if you don't think you like D&D (in the very specific sense, my WoW friends, I'm looking at you) then Baldur's Gate is not for you. The controls, actions and equipment and spell choices are about as intuitive as string theory. However, as with the PC version, the D&D player in you forgives the fact that the game drags itself along like overweight sea-lion in a desert, D&D players are a patient and cautious lot. Unfortunately the D&D player in me is tuned to AD&D and D&D B/X, not 2nd edition AD&D - where class rules do differ.
About this time last year I finally bought (and had bought for me) copies of the core rulebooks for AD&D2e. So this time around playing BG, I am armed with the knowledge! Therefore I'm flicking through the Player's Handbook, only to find that I can't find anything yet about Monks (or is that new character one of the "enhancements"?). Then I remember, AD&D2e was a huge tree of supplements and add-ons, naturally better organized that AD&D (with it's bolted-on Unearthed Arcana etc.). Oops. Oh well, at least I have the basics. You really don't need AD&D2 to play BG, but understanding any of the early flavours of D&D can go a long way I reckon.
I discovered Baldur's Gate a few years later than when it came out - a friend insisted I played it. It was already dating but it still ticked all the boxes with regards to simulating the mechanics of D&D, right down to the fact that at first level wild dogs can kill you. When I played the game on the PC around 2000 I marvelled at how it combined managing a party, a traversable campaign world, character speech etc. with good old fashioned AD&D rules. Except I had played AD&D 1st edition and despite what people say, there are differences with 2e plus whatever small changes Bioware had made. Talking to NPCs can be a real drag -way too much text, laboured acting, with some humour - reminding you that across the table this would be an actual conservation - but therein lies the 30 year rub with computer RPGs, so all that left is the graphics and the system.
The graphics, in terms of the map backgrounds, have always been a pleasure to look at. The extra zoom on the iPad is a nicely up-to-date feature. With BG I always got the sense that I was exploring a whole world - you can literally wander anywhere -within plot limits- of course, you may also die, but hey, you choose to stray... The character graphics will be a disappointment to new players, but there is customisation there with armour and weapons which amongst the whole party which you didn't really see in older games like Diablo and is one of the reasons that Dungeon Siege blew me away (Neverwinter series aside). What you're left with is the story and game system.
The story is pretty slow -location triggered mainly- and since I didn't finish BG first time around and got diverted by the expansions I can't say whether or not the story arc is a selling feature - but what I can say is that many of the sub-quests and purse holding patrons connect with the background of the main plot, always reminding you of bigger politics. It isn't just a series of meaningless dungeon and forest locations. However, random encounters when trudging across different areas (oh yes, you walk, no-one rides horses in old Faerun) can feel a bit "samey" - but they fit into the action more than in, say, Fighting Fantasy (I'm playing FFIII on the iPad atm and random encounters really are just a grind for XP).
The main point I wanted to make here was about the game mechanic/system. I think that many of us who choose to play solo D&D PC games because we are armed with, quite literally, tomes of rule knowledge, and we experience pleasure when we strategise regarding strengths and weakens based on our knowledge of weapons, spells, class abilities, and monster stats. It's a fetish! The love of rules, exercised as a fetish! ;) Your character casts a spell in an allotted round and the hobgoblin fails the save - you even see the results of the die-rolls.
 |
| Manuals and reference cards. If you already own these from the original game, they might help. |
About this time last year I finally bought (and had bought for me) copies of the core rulebooks for AD&D2e. So this time around playing BG, I am armed with the knowledge! Therefore I'm flicking through the Player's Handbook, only to find that I can't find anything yet about Monks (or is that new character one of the "enhancements"?). Then I remember, AD&D2e was a huge tree of supplements and add-ons, naturally better organized that AD&D (with it's bolted-on Unearthed Arcana etc.). Oops. Oh well, at least I have the basics. You really don't need AD&D2 to play BG, but understanding any of the early flavours of D&D can go a long way I reckon.
Edit: Oh, you fool, Billiam, Rassad the Monk is one of the new characters in the Enhanced version. At this rate you'll find that there are no Monks in AD&D 2e.
In fact, the original BG game manual and the pamphlets in Tales of the Sword Coast give you a boiled down version of D&D, with strange extras, like by having a Lawful-Good character with high charisma, the prices in all shops become reduced, plus or minus some "party renown" points (if I remember right).
The Help button on the iPad version brings up some context specific symbol definitions, but it still makes you work. So tonight I'm going to be reading the BG manual and prepping myself with the old reference cards. Maybe it would help if I visited the website as well? Again, perhaps it's just like real D&D, when you find yourself reading-up rules between sessions. ;)
Edit: There are tutorials for each class, but I'm an impatient player... Maybe I should try playing through the tutorials...
On the iPad the stylised font text is tiny. Bear this in mind when you're thinking about trying to run it on a lower resolution iPad. The picture symbols for the spells and actions can be hard to make out - even if you know what they mean in advance. Maybe this is like the old days, when learning to type INGLISH (TM) in The Hobbit computer game, finding out what all of the icons do is part of the charm? Selecting items and walking through doors has it's own learning curve as well. There's a knack and your brain will eventually rewire itself, hopefully.
I believe that this is a nostalgia game in the sense that a majority of the customers will have played the game before, or wanted to - and so far (apart from changes in cut-scenes) it's incredibly loyal to the original game, right down to the overly clunky interface, except this time you don't have any keyboard short-cuts. No keyboard short-cuts? It's a tablet. Oh crap. The quest log seems easier to follow than on the PC - but maybe that's because I'm still in the infant stage of the campaign and my parchment rolodex isn't very full. And now, of course, you don't have to insert different discs when you go to a new map area. Bonus.
If you're new to Baldur's Gate, the only advice I have to give is take a careful look at the "Auto-Pause" settings - and read the text at the bottom of the screen- otherwise you quite literally won't know what hit you in combat. Maybe, avoid robbing every shopkeeper you meet, but that's an alignment choice, I guess.
Baldur's Gate is also available on other tablets - site link
You must gather your party before venturing forth ...
 |
| Map from Tales of the Sword Coast -a BG Expansion- because you really needed more CD-Roms Never mention "Durlag's Tower" to me, I get very upset. |
The Help button on the iPad version brings up some context specific symbol definitions, but it still makes you work. So tonight I'm going to be reading the BG manual and prepping myself with the old reference cards. Maybe it would help if I visited the website as well? Again, perhaps it's just like real D&D, when you find yourself reading-up rules between sessions. ;)
Edit: There are tutorials for each class, but I'm an impatient player... Maybe I should try playing through the tutorials...
On the iPad the stylised font text is tiny. Bear this in mind when you're thinking about trying to run it on a lower resolution iPad. The picture symbols for the spells and actions can be hard to make out - even if you know what they mean in advance. Maybe this is like the old days, when learning to type INGLISH (TM) in The Hobbit computer game, finding out what all of the icons do is part of the charm? Selecting items and walking through doors has it's own learning curve as well. There's a knack and your brain will eventually rewire itself, hopefully.
I believe that this is a nostalgia game in the sense that a majority of the customers will have played the game before, or wanted to - and so far (apart from changes in cut-scenes) it's incredibly loyal to the original game, right down to the overly clunky interface, except this time you don't have any keyboard short-cuts. No keyboard short-cuts? It's a tablet. Oh crap. The quest log seems easier to follow than on the PC - but maybe that's because I'm still in the infant stage of the campaign and my parchment rolodex isn't very full. And now, of course, you don't have to insert different discs when you go to a new map area. Bonus.
If you're new to Baldur's Gate, the only advice I have to give is take a careful look at the "Auto-Pause" settings - and read the text at the bottom of the screen- otherwise you quite literally won't know what hit you in combat. Maybe, avoid robbing every shopkeeper you meet, but that's an alignment choice, I guess.
Baldur's Gate is also available on other tablets - site link
You must gather your party before venturing forth ...
Friday, 14 December 2012
Reflections upon product description
Apologies, I'm going to mention my new geomorph tiles again. Although this time it's more of a lesson in assumptions of terminology. I was under the impression that the word "geomorph", mainly in the inherited context of TSR's Dungeon Geomorphs, were recognisably distinct from Dungeon Tiles, Floor plans, Battlemats and so on. I am aware that many of these terms are possibly trademarked, but there are also common in the linguistic shorthand that is part of the gaming table. But then I too have described products as "geomorphic" when I've meant that they tesselate and fit together in a modular way, so confusion abounds, but still the it is refer to the original concept of Dungeon Geomorphs, which weren't always square... or dear...
In the OSR community, on blogs and in select forums there is little doubt as to what geomorphs are. Although for many players, I suspect, they seem to be an exercise in tessellatory map doodling and planning, but not necessarily something used in actual play. There are very unlike the 1 inch scale battlemats and 28mm figure friendly tiles - which are the staple of the in-game tabletop. Geomorphs are fun to draw and play about with - but do you really use them in your games? Do you know people, perhaps old school players, who use them on the table when other gaming aids are to hand?
In relation to this, my geomorph tiles have had reviews praising the art, but there's also a consistent bemusement at the fact that they are of such small scale. I'm getting similar feedback on forums, emails and PMs. This worries me - don't people know what geomorphs are? It's completely natural, that by looking at my other products to wonder why these are not "1in=5ft" compatible. Curiously, I found drawing the tiles very liberating precisely because I wasn't concerned with breaking up large areas over several pages. Have I created an unusable product? Am I miss-selling my maps? They are selling well, right at the moment, by the way. As a result of the confusion (and requests) I've had to add a disclaimer and clarification: Inked Adventures entry: on blogger, main site.
My message to small or indie RPG publishers is to never assume that your customers are identifying your product correctly based on your well thought out description - even if it's in the right category, cheap as chips, with more pictures than you can shake a stick at. The customer base may be a lot broader and more diverse in interests than your expert-community-bubble. I mean, you're probably already publishing within several layers of niche. Yes, yes, get the description right, this seems obvious, but I'm having a bit of a reality check here. I'd rather sell almost nothing, then to sell well and disappoint.
Similarly, I occasionally get queries about how best to print, mount and assemble my (normal scale) Square Tiles and Modular Sections. I thought my modular sections and square tiles were self explanatory as products - because I was refering to my own almost-ancient gaming experiences, rather than seeing what players are currently doing with tiles.
When I was first playing - floor plans for figures were either on fold-out paper or re-usable designs printed on thin card and sold in a box. Today, most computer printers can cope with thin white card (-stock) - I'm still fairly impressed about colour printers being in the home. As a teen used to dream of unlimited access to a photocopier or a colour printer. As a result, I'm replicating 70s/80s low cost printing, when I suggest that products should be printed straight to card and trimmed. I'm impressed by the result. Maybe I still find colour DTP as exotic. ;) Also, I think of print-outs from PDFs as fairly disposable - with my designs you can overlap sections, glue them, print more. Perhaps I underrate my Inked Adventures tiles - print them, burn them - I don't care. After shelling out for a downloadable PDF some gamers have told me that they like to have designs printed onto foam card - or they try to recreate the heavy locking jigsaw connections from Space Hulk, Descent' or the WotC's D&D boardgames. Thin card can overlap without creating a step - some of the 3D-wall effects imply that pieces need to overlap - this falls apart when printed to chunky foam card. I like the fact that my tiles don't employ complicated (actual) 3D elements (apart a set based on nothing more elaborate than a cube). I look in astonishment at the fiddly creations of pillars and paper locking systems from other publishers - some of whom seem to be using 3D modelling software and then provide step by step instructions with photos of cutting boards and advice on paper-crafting tools. Man, these Dungeon Masters are dedicated - after all, it's probably cheaper than Hirst moulds... Including thorough assembly instructions is both professional and responsible. There are some utterly amazing and beautiful 3D dungeon features out there, but I prefer to just attack a glossy print out with a big pair of kitchen scissors, so sometimes instructions and eloborate support pages would seem perhaps a little patronising, or am I assuming too much again? Is this complexity and support customers expect as standard? Am I belittling the products (or the customers) by not celebrating a world of the multifarious materials and crafting techniques, when my art would work just as well on the back of a cereal packet with nothing more than some dotted lines. But I digress...
I've lost points in reviews for not using "layers" in my PDFs -I totally get why layers are used- on the right product layers are powerful tools- but just explaining how to use layers practically requires a video tutorial. Generally I prepare the work in non-Adobe open source software and set them viewable on a majority of browsers and platforms. Layers and special macros just don't work in non-Adobe browsers. Why should the absence of layers detract from the substance of the product? Maybe I will start using layers at some point, but my avoidance of them so far could be deemed a "feature" of usability.
I think the lesson here is that as a publisher I am making assumptions about my products and their audience, whilst the customers are comparing my work to some very high quality products designed for fearless paper-modellers who take pride in their purchases. I guess it's really important to get the description right, but I get really anxious when I have to say what a product is not.
Heh, I've just remembered that Dungeons & Dragons used to be described euphemistically as "a game without a board". Maybe detractive descriptions are not so bad?
Insightful or just a bit moany? I have no idea, I just wanted to share.
Always confused, and perhaps fretful that I could be held accountable for neglect under the trade descriptions act. ;)
Thanks for reading.
 |
| The original Dungeon Geomorphs - not to scale for minis?! |
In relation to this, my geomorph tiles have had reviews praising the art, but there's also a consistent bemusement at the fact that they are of such small scale. I'm getting similar feedback on forums, emails and PMs. This worries me - don't people know what geomorphs are? It's completely natural, that by looking at my other products to wonder why these are not "1in=5ft" compatible. Curiously, I found drawing the tiles very liberating precisely because I wasn't concerned with breaking up large areas over several pages. Have I created an unusable product? Am I miss-selling my maps? They are selling well, right at the moment, by the way. As a result of the confusion (and requests) I've had to add a disclaimer and clarification: Inked Adventures entry: on blogger, main site.
My message to small or indie RPG publishers is to never assume that your customers are identifying your product correctly based on your well thought out description - even if it's in the right category, cheap as chips, with more pictures than you can shake a stick at. The customer base may be a lot broader and more diverse in interests than your expert-community-bubble. I mean, you're probably already publishing within several layers of niche. Yes, yes, get the description right, this seems obvious, but I'm having a bit of a reality check here. I'd rather sell almost nothing, then to sell well and disappoint.
Similarly, I occasionally get queries about how best to print, mount and assemble my (normal scale) Square Tiles and Modular Sections. I thought my modular sections and square tiles were self explanatory as products - because I was refering to my own almost-ancient gaming experiences, rather than seeing what players are currently doing with tiles.
When I was first playing - floor plans for figures were either on fold-out paper or re-usable designs printed on thin card and sold in a box. Today, most computer printers can cope with thin white card (-stock) - I'm still fairly impressed about colour printers being in the home. As a teen used to dream of unlimited access to a photocopier or a colour printer. As a result, I'm replicating 70s/80s low cost printing, when I suggest that products should be printed straight to card and trimmed. I'm impressed by the result. Maybe I still find colour DTP as exotic. ;) Also, I think of print-outs from PDFs as fairly disposable - with my designs you can overlap sections, glue them, print more. Perhaps I underrate my Inked Adventures tiles - print them, burn them - I don't care. After shelling out for a downloadable PDF some gamers have told me that they like to have designs printed onto foam card - or they try to recreate the heavy locking jigsaw connections from Space Hulk, Descent' or the WotC's D&D boardgames. Thin card can overlap without creating a step - some of the 3D-wall effects imply that pieces need to overlap - this falls apart when printed to chunky foam card. I like the fact that my tiles don't employ complicated (actual) 3D elements (apart a set based on nothing more elaborate than a cube). I look in astonishment at the fiddly creations of pillars and paper locking systems from other publishers - some of whom seem to be using 3D modelling software and then provide step by step instructions with photos of cutting boards and advice on paper-crafting tools. Man, these Dungeon Masters are dedicated - after all, it's probably cheaper than Hirst moulds... Including thorough assembly instructions is both professional and responsible. There are some utterly amazing and beautiful 3D dungeon features out there, but I prefer to just attack a glossy print out with a big pair of kitchen scissors, so sometimes instructions and eloborate support pages would seem perhaps a little patronising, or am I assuming too much again? Is this complexity and support customers expect as standard? Am I belittling the products (or the customers) by not celebrating a world of the multifarious materials and crafting techniques, when my art would work just as well on the back of a cereal packet with nothing more than some dotted lines. But I digress...
I've lost points in reviews for not using "layers" in my PDFs -I totally get why layers are used- on the right product layers are powerful tools- but just explaining how to use layers practically requires a video tutorial. Generally I prepare the work in non-Adobe open source software and set them viewable on a majority of browsers and platforms. Layers and special macros just don't work in non-Adobe browsers. Why should the absence of layers detract from the substance of the product? Maybe I will start using layers at some point, but my avoidance of them so far could be deemed a "feature" of usability.
I think the lesson here is that as a publisher I am making assumptions about my products and their audience, whilst the customers are comparing my work to some very high quality products designed for fearless paper-modellers who take pride in their purchases. I guess it's really important to get the description right, but I get really anxious when I have to say what a product is not.
Heh, I've just remembered that Dungeons & Dragons used to be described euphemistically as "a game without a board". Maybe detractive descriptions are not so bad?
Insightful or just a bit moany? I have no idea, I just wanted to share.
Always confused, and perhaps fretful that I could be held accountable for neglect under the trade descriptions act. ;)
Thanks for reading.
Sunday, 9 December 2012
More geomorph mock-up-ery
I've been having fun mocking up layouts with my geomorphs, since actual photos just won't do! ;)
For other pics:
http://billiambabbleinkedadventures.blogspot.co.uk/ or http://inkedadventures.com/main/
(and Deviant Art: http://billiambabble.deviantart.com/gallery/4084911 Tumblr: http://inkedadventures.tumblr.com/)
Inked Adventures Hand Drawn Geomorph Tiles are available on DTRPG: http://bit.ly/IAgeomorph
Saturday, 8 December 2012
Baldur's Gate on iPad -"My house is as clean as an elven arse"
 |
| Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition on iPad $9.99 |
I’ve downloaded BG for iPad.
Yet again I have bought Baldur’s Gate.
Yet again I will almost certainly never finish it.
But it’s worth it ...for the acting. ;)
I have not yet left Candlekeep. Doing errands, basic shopping. I settled for a human ranger called “Fayril Baneslew” which seemed liked a good idea until I imagined Dungeon Bastard shouting it in my face as though I was a homosexual gnome with a proficiency in origami. Baneslew will come through for me, I'm sure.
I cannot comment upon how "enhanced" it is as I haven't explored the extras. The movies are different - a sort of well illustrated moving graphic novel in Flash (if you know what I mean - like Thief 2? my references date quickly), but so far it feels very similar to the game I hunched over night after night on the PC. At least with the iPad I can sometimes lie down. The text at times is tiny - Curse you retina-someting-something-HD definition! Hopefully it's soon to be released on Android as well.
At least this time around I have copies of 2nd edition AD&D (I mainly cut my teeth on AD&D 1e and bought AD&D2 more recently) so when I’m being decimated by denizens of Faerun I can look them up in the Monstrous Manual.
Racial Enemy: Gnoll.
Oh, to be able to add Gibberlings, Xvarts and Kobolds as well!
Oh God, this and Final Fantasy III on iPad…
I can barely afford to charge my iPad as it is.
Friday, 7 December 2012
December Lulu Code, Ebooks vs Print
It's nearly half way through December but there's still time to exploit a code and get yourself a little gift for Christmas. ;)
Books and eBooks from Lulu.com 20% off- Enter code
DECBOOKS12
- Save up to $25. Expires December 31, 2012. Only valid in the US Store.
Like many other people I fascinated by wrestling match between traditional book markets, ebooks and print on demand. If I can afford them and they are actually available on the shelf I often favour great big musty reference manuals - or even pamphlets of printed rules over reading on a screen - but the convenience of PDFs and other ebook formats is beginning to appeal. Certainly educational texts do very well on tablets - tutors can annotate the texts - they are searchable, reading lists can be downloaded in minutes. However, when it comes to gifts, it's difficult to beat the physical artefact, and being a fan of indie published games, sometimes that would mean a print-on-demand purchase from a site like Lulu.
Recently I received an email drawing my attention to a graphic of charts and comparisons between real book use and the electronic form and how the future of libraries may be affected by the way we perceive and access texts. Like Allison, I definitely believe that there will always be a role for physical dead tree books.
Allison Morris's graphic:
(Please Include Attribution to TeachingDegree.org With This Graphic)
Interesting stuff. :)
DECBOOKS12
- Save up to $25. Expires December 31, 2012. Only valid in the US Store.
Like many other people I fascinated by wrestling match between traditional book markets, ebooks and print on demand. If I can afford them and they are actually available on the shelf I often favour great big musty reference manuals - or even pamphlets of printed rules over reading on a screen - but the convenience of PDFs and other ebook formats is beginning to appeal. Certainly educational texts do very well on tablets - tutors can annotate the texts - they are searchable, reading lists can be downloaded in minutes. However, when it comes to gifts, it's difficult to beat the physical artefact, and being a fan of indie published games, sometimes that would mean a print-on-demand purchase from a site like Lulu.
Recently I received an email drawing my attention to a graphic of charts and comparisons between real book use and the electronic form and how the future of libraries may be affected by the way we perceive and access texts. Like Allison, I definitely believe that there will always be a role for physical dead tree books.
Allison Morris's graphic:
(Please Include Attribution to TeachingDegree.org With This Graphic)
Interesting stuff. :)
F.I.S.T. Fantasy Interactive Scenarios by Telephone
Does anyone remember playing this? It appears you needed one of those hi-tech touch tone phones to play. :)
(Own scans from original flyer)
Thursday, 6 December 2012
Don't touch my dice, kids!
Teach your Kids to Game Week always feels slightly evangelistic to me, especially where roleplaying games are concerned. Or somehow that RPGs are a forbidden pleasure of our generation like boxes of Star Wars Lego which needs to be smuggled past our life-partners. Indoctrinate the new generation, we say, they know nothing of games without a screen and controller, how dormant there imaginations must be! Poor things, we're forever forcing them to read "classics" by J.R.R.Tolkien or C.S. Lewis, or failing that, just getting them to read a book is seen as educationally noble, and if that isn't working maybe they'll find comics "quaint". Oh God, please save the children from television and computer games (bearing in mind that some children socialise with xbox live - whilst learning co-operative team skills - it's just a shame that they are shooting terrorists - no, wait, a healthy sense of evil and good is positive, especially after Lucas confused everyone with the prequels, I mean Stormtroopers are the bad guys, right? Okay, shush Billiam, enough about the prequels, already!) ...Let's just put my anti-pro-book face-to-face-is-supposedly-better-than-screen cynicism aside. RPGs are fun. It's not a conspiracy, they're just fun. :)
Judging by my friends on Facebook, and blogger dads, there's a very real sense of parents wanting to share the archaic, yet timeless, love of board-gaming and roleplaying with their youngest, and actually that's just dandy. I was thinking this afternoon whether or not guided imagination / conversation-based play for very young players really need dice, cards or character sheets? I mean let's face it, toys, maps, figures, art, general visual stimuli, should almost be compulsory - but rule systems? But then I realised that I'd missed what is a major opportunity here for the benefits of exploring a structured universe and logical learning. No, really, it's about fun...! If a ten year old wants to learn chess, I wouldn't throw out all of the rules and put the chess pieces on a un-checkered board. Metaphorically speaking chess is war (WAAAR!!!) - but it's a structured simulation (boriiing) - the pleasure of the victory is from applying abstract knowledge -even remembering the rules is part of beating the puzzle for learners. Hit Points, Wounds, Stamina, Endurance are an excellent way of representing (and abstracting) how far the player should imagine themselves as being from the threat of the near-miss/fall/fail/death situation and this inspires thrill (well, dur, Billiam).
Let's say your kid's Superman character has a whopping 100 (one-huuuuun-dred) HP and normal punches only hurt him for 1 HP and bullets cause 4 damage (let's say puny humans have 2-6 hps) ... and he regenerates damage (or shock or whatever) every round. There doesn't seem much point rolling the dice and writing down the numbers, but, no wait, kryptonite multiplies everything by 20. A K-bullet from Lex Luthor's Astro-gun can cause 80 points of damage. Blam! Wowzers, must get out of the way and now! Suddenly there's a parameter or limit - the world gets gravity. Those numbers, those dice, they do stuff.
Maybe your system is just a success or fail on a six-sided die - so when your players find +1 magic swords, those swords become almost solid because maths and dice are the gravity and physics of the magic "if". But hey, if you roleplay, you already know this, what might be just as important is the fact that learning new rules can be a skill in itself.
I have a terrible attention span (Look, Goober Fish!). Lord knows how I ever learnt any game rules. In fact, thinking back, my own family rarely played boardgames, especially those which had little pamphlets where you looked up rules. My entrance into gaming was through Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, the Hawk the Slayer movie etc. So my approach as a DM to D&D Basic and Tunnels & Trolls was all about how I could make those rules fit the narrative. If I'd been a player-character more I probably would have been a lot sharper on which spells and skills are more effective in different situations.
Like it or not, I am coming to accept that I'll always be a sort of B-movie fantasist over being a metagaming strategist (with rules "edge"). How you like your games and why you play with a certain system will always have a profound effect on those first games, no matter what the age of the player.
I'm often drawn to rule systems which are classed as "introductory" or being for younger players. I like something which appears complete rules-wise and yet is simple enough to convey in one game sitting. I think I favour story-telling, but in the "old school" sense. The story just happens - the rules of world are set - magic zaps, swords hurt, but after that your character can talk to anyone in the town before visiting the dungeon and at least be nudged towards a main quest. You discover your flaws, maybe there's a backstory, but it's flexible. By which, I don't mean an open sandbox hex-crawl -ye god's- I like to have very solid buildings and dungeons to roll about in - and following this line of thinking, I'm guessing that it's better to set scene in a way that your young players have to instantly react: Trolls! Run away? Cast spell? Talk? Scream? Hide?
I think what I'm getting at is that if I was to play games with youngsters or even just novices, I'd definitely need game structure - at least a map to retain focus. There has to be a very simple, consistent task resolution system - but nothing too patronising, and maybe it emulate the system that the kids know you like - i.e. if they see you play D&D, at least use a d20 in your scaled down version of the game, let them play with the funny shaped dice. Lord knows how I'd play a game like Wrath of Ashardalon with 6 year olds, but then I could always adapt the Lego Heroica rules... The trick with kids and roleplaying games is defining how they should be different from children just freeform playing. I see roleplaying as more passive-"reactive" than free-form play - the player-characters push creatively against the challenges set by the Dungeon Master. Perhaps presenting a game as a story or film may at least explain why the players have to stay in the same one role throughout. Again, this all depends upon the type of game - if there's a board and figures - moving the Barbarian figure is a pretty good way of reminding the player to talk like a Barbarian if your game has situations where characters get to talk. And, hey, if the player wants to trade with the orcs, let them talk and trade.
I'm guessing that learning from an actual rulebook for older kids must have positive effects in terms of it being fun "text-book" and being comfortable with reference books has to be a really useful life-skill. Just using an index must seem really strange to the Google-Wikipedia generation.
Okay, enough of this unfocussed babble. On an end note I was really bowled-over to have my attention brought to this and other pictures (from here) on Rab's Geekly Digest. The author is working on a fair few projects, I am delighted to say that this home-rules game with his children is using my Inked Adventures dungeon sections.Excellent. :)
So, whoever your playing this week, no matter what age, I hope it's filled with imagination and cool looking props (toys?).
Monday, 3 December 2012
Hand Drawn Geomorph Tiles by Inked Adventures are out!
Cross-posting, self-promoting and other obsequious acts, force me to announce that the following product is now available...
Available now at DriveThruRPG and RPGNow $5.50 (reduced from $7.50)
http://bit.ly/IAgeomorph
Available now at DriveThruRPG and RPGNow $5.50 (reduced from $7.50)
http://bit.ly/IAgeomorph
Saturday, 1 December 2012
Delving Deeper OD&D-clone bundle (Immersive Ink)
Now for something that really is a proper Original Dungeons & Dragons clone:
Delving Deeper (free download bundle)
Delving Deeper (free download bundle)
Quickly, flipping through these I must say that I'm almost enjoying this as much as when I was reading S&W Whitebox. If you have a broad minded approach to all things (early) D&D then this will be right up your cobbled street. Also, it may be as close as some of us get the playing the earliest editions of D&D.
Dungeon Raiders (Brent P. Newhall's Musaeum)
Dungeon Raiders! Free, retro-ish, sort of OD&D-like, uses funny poly dice, lovely little pick-up-and-play RPG.
There's class based combat hit rolls, but to my surprise, there's no armour. D&D without armour?! Heresy!
Still it's a really nice pamphlet of rules -classes, spells, some monsters. Perfect for when away from home without any rules and maybe good to play with kids, or with drunk old schoolers.
Dungeon Raiders free PDF download on DTRPG:
http://bit.ly/dungeonraiders
(Art by Jaydot Sloane - http://jaydotsloane.tumblr.com/ )
Dodecacember
For enthusiasts and folks in the UK with disposable income before Christmas (who are you guys?) Dragonmeet 2012 is now in session!
Happy December 1st - start opening those advent doors! Watch this space for new Lulu codes and something about teaching kids to game ...
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