Matt Borselli has a quick writeup of his experience with Crucible Design, and more specifically The 23rd Letter, on his blog, AssHat Paladins.

I enjoyed chatting about it - getting involved in my own narcissism obviously - and it brought back a lot of memories.

Part two will be out in a week or so so subscribe to his blog if you want to catch it.

Robert Bohl, the free minded designer, posted an interesting mish-mash of meta products over on his blog. He combined a playtest report of Apocalypse World with the HfL Frame system to produce a micro actual play vignette. Interesting, quirky and lateral.

On the back of this, I’d like to point you guys to his game, Misspent Youth. I haven’t played it myself, but it looks like my cup of tea. Check it out. Support it.

He’s a good egg.

• RPG Net locked down the Hell for Leather playtest report. Controversial.
• It gets better. Hell for Leather has been banned from RPG Net. Wow.
• Just finished a zero-prep 2 player game of WFRP. Pretty stale. I feel strange. Used up. Hollow. Trad gaming doesn’t do it for me no more.
• A 1min video tutorial for an indie RPG. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHj-lFG8cLA
• You’ve got 10 days to write 7 lines for a game of pursuit and violence. The Hell For Leather Frame contest has begun. http://bit.ly/cRtEqp
• I go forward in time to ride on a Hover Board. Twist ending: Hover boards have been invented but there’s no fuel to make em go. #TwimeTravel
• I won €40 at poker night. Awwwww yeah!

Int: The oldest thing in gaming in Ireland that anybody knows about, Leprecon's been going since dice were carved from granite by nerdy cavemen and wargames featuring flintlock muskets were categorised as science fiction.  It still usually manages to serve up an excellent show.  A full house of Adventurers takes a look at what's on the cards for this year's.  Features:

• Leprecon
• Legless Adventuring Party robot
• Jumptech
• The Camarilla
• Magicians versus Scientologists
• Christmas in Valhalla
• Thor versus Neptune versus Umbongo Big Wooden Mask Guy
• The Demon-Zombie-Ghost-Pirate LeChuck is Dead
• Monkey Island
• Where There's a Will
• Something Shane can get behind
• Unfounded speculation
• Spirit of the Century
• Call of Cthulhu
• MURDER and MUTILATION!
• Mouse Guard
• Furry costumes at the ready!
• Penny Arcade
• Savage Worlds
• World War S
• A day that will live in infamy
• Dark Heresy
• Liam cofuses the Deathwatch and the Legion of the Damned
• Castles & Crusades
• Having fun and playing, with D&D?
• GURPS
• Metagame Disney
• Eberron
• Ridiculous question with a proper answer
• The Writers' Conspiracy
• Race for the Galaxy
• Settlers of Catan
• Doing the right thing
• Power Grid
• Battlestar Galactica board game
• Ruining a stranger's fun for a change
• Ticket to Ride
• humbug's other Klingon impression
• Caylus
• Carcassonne
• Carcassonnes and Catapults
• Chainsaw Warrior
• Magic: The Gathering
• A ton of surprise real information
• Construction of a standard
• Yu-Gi-Oh
• Legend of the 5 Rings
• Construction of a standard
• Warhammer 40,000
• Warmachine
• A bit of speculation
• Society for Creative Anachronism
• Some wargame!
• Pub quiz!
• Hostel!

Discuss this episode on IrishGaming.Com!

I’m looking for help, so I’m holding a contest. This has been posted over on The Forge and Story Games too.

I’m looking for sample scenarios (called Frames—read this?). They’re 7 lines long (see below).

Best entry goes into the book and wins a PDF.

HfL: Standard Frame

Setting: Near future, hyperviolent media, vast public screenings, global slums, sex, drugs and bruises
Adversary: The Network
Gore Threshold: 5
Connection: Class of ‘99
Drop-Off: London Bridge
Objective: Insein Prison, Burma
Checkpoints: Travel to India, Destroy Kalaymyo Barons, Parachute into the Insein Prison

Submissions by the 18th of March.

This week I had a chance to play a trad game[1] without any prep. Boo. Hiss.

What did you play?

WFRP 2nd Ed

How did it go?

Mostly okay. Started off making characters. Hooked them up nicely, plopped them into an interesting starting point…

What would you have done better?

I didn’t play the extras[2] very well. They had no barbs. By trying to paint the world, I forgot about painting the game. Characters that are introduced on the fly are like brush-strokes, colourful and intentional. It’s important to give greater importance to the latter. That is, what can I do with this character[3]?

More problematically, I curbed player interaction, for example, the rain thing. One of the players asked me if it was raining. I said no. Very. Bad. Form. Do you know why? Leave a comment if you do.

Favourite bits?

From my point of view, I particularly liked playing Penny, the pregnant mother who wouldn’t be escorted to the church (fearing for her baby). She had intentions beyond herself which contrasted with the short term goals of the PCs. She was the only character that mattered, and that was because she could cause problems.

I also liked the character creation, and my part in it: Finding out what made the characters tick, asking probing questions, putting players on the spot, enjoying the feedback.

What about the trad style made it bad?

When I said zero-prep, I lied. I spent a few minutes devising a tiny plot for the players after we’d generated characters. But instead of hooking them into it, it just hooked me. By trying to create an interesting story vector which the PCs could steer and alter, I narrowed the bandwidth of creativity, and not in a good way, and only for me. That is, I had an expectation of what would happen and rather than let something novel blossom, I kept regressing to that expectation.

Plus, the zero to hero style of the game rules meant that the PCs couldn’t succeed at anything. It was a lesson in emasculation.

How to trad game on the fly?

Peel the story.

Start in the middle of the action and let the meeting point of the story tell itself. It’s not always interesting to detail character intersection. But it is always interesting to see how new characters cope under stress.

For example, in our game I might have started the session with a night-time chase through the woods: The player characters  are being chased by a mob. They come upon a homely village atop a shallow hill, protected on one side by a babbling river and the other by a tall palisade. How do they escape the mob? Why are they being chased? Why are they together? These things can be worked out on the fly.

Players set scenes.

You don’t know what the players want. So ask them. Where are you now? What time is it? What are you trying to achieve? Who is there? This is all fairly standard stuff if you’re used to indie gaming, but it’s easy to forget when you break out your (proverbial) GM’s screen.

Dangle carrots.

Now you know what they want, drop in the who. If one player sets the scene in a tavern, and he’s looking for glory, it’s time to drop in the wealthy, handsome, wench laden adventurer. If another player sets the scene in a market square and he’s looking for riches, drop in a fancy looking agent with an enormous to-do list. Provide!

Antagonise.

He giveth and he taketh away. Whatever the player wants, they gotta earn it. It’s the “Not soooo fast!” rule of thumb. Either the player gets it the hard way (=consequence) or he gets it easy but has to make a difficult choice (=consequence).

Time out.

And every hour and a half ask for a time out so you can piece some of the characters together. Maybe this sailor knows that wagon driver? Wouldn’t that be interesting! Could the wagon driver be a spy? What happens if that thug wants to betray the barman? Etcetera.

If you’ve run some indie games, nothing here will be new. If you’re like me, though, you may have forgotten to burn your old uniform before you visited the old school.

The full results were:

#Position Name Total Score(Countback) Army Club
1 van Embden Jan 61 Burgundian Ord DGG
2 Aynsley Richard 59(154) Hussite MWG
3 Hessian Mick 59(97) Med French DGG
4 Houston David 57 Alex Mac TTN
5 McKenna Seamus 50 NKE TTN
= Gibson Mark 50 Teutonic TTN
7 Bracken Padraig 43 Toltec-Chichimec MWG
8 Bergin Tony 40 Feudal Spanish MWG
9 Coughlan Willie 39 Anglo-Danish MWG
= McTurk Alec 39 Palmyran DGG
11 Brennan Rob 37 Southern Han DGG
12 Lederer Dave 36 Mongol Conquest DGG
13 Waldron Phil 33 Chola DGG
14 Madeley Tim 30 LIR Eastern MWG

read more

I just got confirmation from the Leprecon crew that there will be a table reserved on Sunday 14th March at 1pm for a demo session of Hell for Leather. If you’re interested, leave a comment below or send me an email.

Leprecon (Ed—Ireland’s oldest gaming convention) will once again be hosted in our home of many years: Goldsmith Hall. It’s on Pearse St., right beside the DART Station there… View Larger Map

At Conpulsion, at the end of this month, I’ll be running a 6 player session of Hell for Leather in the Saturday afternoon slot.

For the full timetable, go here.

• PvE is the shallow end, PvP is the deep end, and if you jump straight into the latter, you might not enjoy it. #rpgtweory
• In a Wicked Age: Things you probably want to do but aren’t in the rules. http://bit.ly/dgGPYk
• I may have posted something too controversial on RPGNet. Oops.
• Phew! I got away with it. That playtest report could have started a shit storm. I’m glad and surprised that people got my point.
• I’ve got to recommend Fantasy Grounds gaming table. Do you know how much fun it is to see other gamers throw 3D dice onto YOUR screen?

GP: Your time is up!  Minions, collect the answer sheets!  Pencils down!  Don't make me take off my sunglasses!  With the opening time of the Pub Quiz past, Shane, Liam, Dave and humbug welcome Cillian aboard as a new fifth Beatle, and make asses of themselves attempting to answer their own questions after having had a month to research them.  Pitiful, really.  Also, the actual winner is announced - assuming that is that it isn't The Adventuring Party.  Features:

• A new contestant
• Scoring our contestants
• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
• Round humbug
• The owlbear question
• humbug forgets about Yorkshire and Black Sea
• Not the Necronomicon
• Round Shane
• Liam's knobulous face
• Round Liam
• Races and political alliances
• Round Dave
• Mysteriously vanishing whiskey
• A short pause
• The losers
• The winner

Discuss this episode on IrishGaming.Com!

(Warning: Contains offensive ideas and offensive language… like the word cunt)

Last week I witnessed the most anarchic HfL playtest to date, a journey of debauchery and violence in old world native America. Loose, wild, and free to make gore, we waded onto the badly woven rope-bridge of cultural identity and tried to tell the story of four banished tribes people. It was the Lord of the Flies of roleplaying sessions.

We had Fleet As Monkey, the Arrogant Brave (Eoin), Hiding Turkey, the Cowardly Unwilling-mistress (Susan), Dancing Fox, the Abusive Wiseman (Daniel), and Soaring Bear, the Obsessive Buffalo Whisperer (ahem).

The Frame

Setting: Pre-colonial native America, many landscapes, people of the forest, brave journey
Adversary: Chief Running Hawk
Gore Threshold: 5
Connection: Family, last in line
Drop-Off/Objective: Bend in the River / Mountain of the Eagle God
Checkpoint 1: Pass through the Lands of the Raven
Checkpoint 2: Desecrate the Tomb of the Ancestors
Checkpoint 3: Kidnap the Dying High Priest

The road to hell is paved…

The game opened wonderfully. It seemed like there was a story to tell as Soaring Bear and Fleet As Monkey pecked for distinction, while Hiding Turkey lay against a tree, bruised from her lover’s temper, and the old Wiseman chewed on a mysterious “dreamroot.” The premise was simple. These four heroes, the last legs of the incumbent ruling family, were to be summoned for their execution. They decided to flee the tribe before they were called, and to make a journey to the great Eagle God to seek the oracle and speak with the spirits of old. Etc.

Checkpoint 1, the long story short: Race through the Lands of the Raven. Great forests. Frothing rivers. Buffalo charges.

But after that, filth and bile spewed forth from the narrative like a bad vomit. We murdered an old sage, showered in his warm blood—spilled from the arteries at his feet—and while the blood caked on our faces, we tripped out for three weeks on the poison of the local toads.

This went on for ages. I mean it. We wanted it to stop, but we kept failing Challenges. Over and over, all our characters were covered in more shit, piss and blood, drinking more and more poison, and doing more and more killing, until finally we could escape, strung out, quivering and stinking like dying dogs.

Kill the Pig, Bash him in!

All sense of our dysfunctionality was abandoned when Hiding Turkey slaughtered the children of the High Priestess before her, made her watch, and then slit her throat like a pig. To persuade the High Priest to co-operate, the Wiseman tore open the High Priest’s innards and pulled out his liver—while he was still breathing—spitting “you’re of no more fucking use to us now, you dying, old, fucking cocksucker.”

I’m not a religious man, but Jesus Christ! You know the worst part? It was fucking hilarious. We were all crying with laughter, slapping our thighs, wheezing. It was horrific. Writing this I practically hear ourselves beating out a dreadful chant “Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!”

We got our comeuppance. Hiding Turkey had her head removed after trying to blackmail a tribal warrior with a piece of woven propaganda (a tapestry of a man with a tiny cock), Fleet As Monkey got unexpectedly savaged by a crocodile, Dancing Fox got a tomahawk embedded in his skull after challenging Chief Running Hawk to a duel, and finally Soaring Bear was peppered with javelins. He dropped to his knees, half of his head burnt off, shit and blood dangling off him in threads, laughing and screaming in total, debauched madness. Ghaaaarlllguglh…

Feedback

All good fun. But sinister and unadulterated. There were more Fucks, Cocks, Shits and Cunts in this game than in any other we’ve played so far. It’s rare that you get to play a game that is so dreadful that you get to offend yourself.

How should you play In a Wicked Age (IaWA)?

In this week’s Playtime I’m looking at the silent partners of IaWA, the unmentioned Do’s of the game that aren’t explicit in the game rules, or tricks at the table that season the experience of play.

Game Play

Desire

Go into every scene wanting something specifically from somebody else. It’s less important to think of how you’re going to get it than it is to know what you want.

Characters are opportunities

Assume that whatever you want, no matter how big or small, is being withheld by another character. Find that person and take it.

Collective Storytelling

Everyone pitch ideas during scene framing. Once in a while, every few scenes, it’s nice to paint a collective backdrop, or even a montage, using the round-robin method.

I say “It’s night time at the gallows,” you say, “a drunk is vomiting against a wall,” he says, “two watchmen are shoving a girl down a dark alley,” she says, “in the window of a high watchtower, a man snuffs out his candle.”

Brevity

Unless you’ve got a grand plan, keep your scenes brief. The more scenes the better, at least until you build narrative momentum. The interesting scenes will organically beget conflict while the less important ones will colour, and each will be apportioned the appropriate duration.

World Building

Expectation

Colour the backdrop. You don’t need to explore every minutiae but it’s useful, for example, to highlight the tone, mood and theme of your setting before play begins. It answers important questions like “is this about betrayal?” and “do they have lasers?”

Invert the Cliché

Inevitably, you or a friend will suggest a cliché. Don’t disregard it offhand. Take apart the components and turn it upside-down.

I say, “there’s a princess held captive by a dragon,” you say, “what if the dragon was being held captive by the princess?” he says, “what if the dragon was dying and it was the last female alive?” she says, “what if the princess was eating her scales to give herself eternal youth, and the dragon is now mangy and ill treated?”

• I’m getting absorbed by the HfL mailing list. Goddam it! Time to turn off the browser… ahh,that’s better.
• What not to do when playing In A Wicked Age http://cobwebgames.com/index.php/playtime-in-a-wicked-age-donts/
• Today I’m off to Itzacon to play, among other things, Team Fortress using Spirit of the Century.
• Last weekend: Spirit of the Century, Mage, Hell for Leather and WFRP. I’m all gamed out.
• Building some CSS for a new wiki. I forgot how late CSS makes you work.

Per: Roaming the night in up to, eh, six or so guises are the members of the Camarilla, White Wolf's ongoing, worldwide LARPs.  Ceire, Boomer and Phil from the Irish Cam contingent join us to give the low-down on just what it's all about, and to spill the beans on whether Dave's actually as much of a badass as we make him out to be.  Features:

• The Camarilla
• White Wolf
• Supernatural tea-party o' the month
• Players versus population
• Going crazy and playing a ghoul
• The vampire redshirt
• Typical game types
• An awful area to drink blood in in Dublin
• Downtiming
• Splat-vampires
• Conflict resolution
• Learning life skills through LARP
• Mage: The Awakening
• Changeling: The Lost
• Death by Internet
• Camunism International
• Geist: The Sin-Eaters
• Vampire: The Masquerade
• Those guys in Edinburgh
• Be afraid of Dave's character
• The Prince of Dublin
• Sparkly vampires again
• Character generation
• How to earn experience points the Dave way
• How to lose humanity and torture people
• Canonical games at conventions
• Costume, signature items and lack thereof
• Camarilla timeline and the real world
• Alliances with Satan
• Local, national and global plots
• Scion
• Hunter: The Vigil
• Mummy: The Resurrection
• Promethean: The Created
• Playing NPCs
• The Werewolves of Hollers Millow
• Kingmakers and puppet-masters
• Powerful roles in vampire society
• Crabs in a bucket
• How to coexist
• Decapitation, my secret vulnerability!
• Combat
• A mildly-embarrassing story about Dave
• Getting involved or starting a group
• Irish Camarilla website
• Vampires on ice!

Discuss this episode on IrishGaming.Com!

This is 28 minutes of chuckles and amazing insight on how everything we touch will become a game. Eventually.

Who is going to lead us?