Today I learned that one of my original gaming group's old standbys, Earthdawn, is going to be seeing a new edition. Mongoose Publishing, a British game company known primarily for producing D20 games based on properties such as Babylon 5, Slaine, Starship Troopers, Conan, Judge Dredd and Lone Wolf, will be producing Earthdawn Third Edition sometime later this year. There was a time when this would have made me somewhat concerned, as Mongoose's early D20 books were a little sloppily edited and characterized with the sort of large font sizes that were typical of, say, AEG's 7th Sea. But Mongoose seems to be doing well with the newest iteration of Traveller, Paranoia and RuneQuest, which uses their own systems, and despite their good intentions, I think it would be difficult to disappoint to the degree that Living Room Games did with Earthdawn 2nd Edition.
Mongoose has PDF previews available on their website. I haven't yet looked closely at what snippets they've shown (which includes a table of contents) so I'm unaware of what changes they'll be making to the rules. But they've already taken a step in the right direction by having Jeff Laubenstein design the covers of the Player's Guide and Gamemaster's Guide (and dang, they look cool).
Prior to this, RedBrick Limited had been keeping the flame alive, is it were, and doing quite well. The quality of their work has been consistently high, and I've been glad to hear of their adoption of Fading Suns and Blue Planet, dead games with brilliant settings. Unfortunately, they're based in New Zealand, and with the price hike for printing through Lulu, purchasing their books hasn't really been a possibility for me. Furthermore, with the change of hands, RedBrick will be phasing out the availability of their Earthdawn Classic publications. The two core books (which are the most expensive) will only be available until the end of this month. While I would very much like to purchase them both before then, I honestly don't know if I can swing that. It would be hard to justify to my wife when I already own the original books. I've wanted to see how RedBrick re-organized the rules for some time now.
On the plus side, while the Mongoose books will likely be expensive, at least they should be available at game stores in the U.S., so it's conceivable that I'll be able to purchase them with Christmas money or something.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The 'Good' Old Days
I recently came into possession of a few PDF scans of the very first issues of Dragon Magazine, back in the 1970s when it was known as The Dragon. It featured authors such as Fritz Leiber* and Gardner Fox coupled with some truly awful artwork and articles that really demonstrate how the roleplaying game in those days was only just beginning to distinguish itself from the wargaming hobby.
On one hand, you've got interesting articles describing how to wargame the Battle of Five Armies from The Hobbit, or innovative tables to determine the circumstances of a character's birth. On the other hand, you've got some striking relics of the era, such as a cartoon poking fun at the recycling craze (adventurers run from a "Recyclosaurus", who wears a t-shirt that reads 'Ecology Now!' and munches on a can of 'Tree Frog Beer'), and truly odd articles like "The Idiot Class", which describes an NPC that player characters can hire "to confuse the enemy so that it will run away, attack a wall, commit Hari Kari, eat all its treasure or some related act, just so it will not attack the troop." Suddenly Gamma World seems like a pillar of sanity.
Lest we forget that there was a time when gaming was an almost exclusively male hobby (and, as the TV show "Life On Mars" tries to tell us, the 70s were a very different culture), one needs only look to a truly insulting article titled "Notes on Women & Magic - Bringing the Distaff Gamer into D&D". The author stipulates that female characters should not be able to fight as well as their male counterparts (though they "in some ways surpass men as thieves"; mid-level female thieves get to be titled "Succubus." Was the author in the middle of a nasty divorce?), and that the Charisma ability score should be replaced by Beauty, which is "important to thieves, fighters and magic users." It is further noted that "Clerics may not use beauty if they are lawful or neutral. Chaotic clerics may use their beauty score." "Fighting Women (warriors) may incorporate the spells of Seduction, Charm Men or Charm Humanoid Monster depending upon their level and beauty scores (see spells of seduction, et al). Women's strength scores range from 2-14." (Emphasis mine)
In case you were wondering what 'Humanoid Monsters' might include, here's the list given: "Hobgoblins, Ogres, Trolls, Giants, Mummies, Vampires, Gargoyles, WereWolves (either shape), Werebear (man only), Lizard Men and Centaurs."
...Dang. I don't know what women do for mummies, exactly, or why wolves are turned on by women while bears aren't, but I don't really feel like speculating.
Perhaps it's telling that in a number of the illustrations there is a recurring character who looks like a fairyland elf (you know, the kind with pointy shoes and hat that peaks in a curl?) and is always smoking some sort of hallucinogenic substance from a suspiciously-shaped pipe...
*A surreal and amusing article where he tries to explain wargaming to Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.
One of my favorite lines: "Oh, so they fight only with their minds?" Fafhrd said. "That sounds sick to me. I keep my mind solely for enshrining the images of beautiful women."
Also: "About these wargamers or mind-fighters," the Mouser said, turning back to me. "I'll wager some of 'em aren't above using a real knife under the table, especially if the games goes against 'em."
"A man could keep on playing a table game, though hamstrung," Fafhrd put in.
On one hand, you've got interesting articles describing how to wargame the Battle of Five Armies from The Hobbit, or innovative tables to determine the circumstances of a character's birth. On the other hand, you've got some striking relics of the era, such as a cartoon poking fun at the recycling craze (adventurers run from a "Recyclosaurus", who wears a t-shirt that reads 'Ecology Now!' and munches on a can of 'Tree Frog Beer'), and truly odd articles like "The Idiot Class", which describes an NPC that player characters can hire "to confuse the enemy so that it will run away, attack a wall, commit Hari Kari, eat all its treasure or some related act, just so it will not attack the troop." Suddenly Gamma World seems like a pillar of sanity.
Lest we forget that there was a time when gaming was an almost exclusively male hobby (and, as the TV show "Life On Mars" tries to tell us, the 70s were a very different culture), one needs only look to a truly insulting article titled "Notes on Women & Magic - Bringing the Distaff Gamer into D&D". The author stipulates that female characters should not be able to fight as well as their male counterparts (though they "in some ways surpass men as thieves"; mid-level female thieves get to be titled "Succubus." Was the author in the middle of a nasty divorce?), and that the Charisma ability score should be replaced by Beauty, which is "important to thieves, fighters and magic users." It is further noted that "Clerics may not use beauty if they are lawful or neutral. Chaotic clerics may use their beauty score." "Fighting Women (warriors) may incorporate the spells of Seduction, Charm Men or Charm Humanoid Monster depending upon their level and beauty scores (see spells of seduction, et al). Women's strength scores range from 2-14." (Emphasis mine)
In case you were wondering what 'Humanoid Monsters' might include, here's the list given: "Hobgoblins, Ogres, Trolls, Giants, Mummies, Vampires, Gargoyles, WereWolves (either shape), Werebear (man only), Lizard Men and Centaurs."
...Dang. I don't know what women do for mummies, exactly, or why wolves are turned on by women while bears aren't, but I don't really feel like speculating.
Perhaps it's telling that in a number of the illustrations there is a recurring character who looks like a fairyland elf (you know, the kind with pointy shoes and hat that peaks in a curl?) and is always smoking some sort of hallucinogenic substance from a suspiciously-shaped pipe...
*A surreal and amusing article where he tries to explain wargaming to Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.
One of my favorite lines: "Oh, so they fight only with their minds?" Fafhrd said. "That sounds sick to me. I keep my mind solely for enshrining the images of beautiful women."
Also: "About these wargamers or mind-fighters," the Mouser said, turning back to me. "I'll wager some of 'em aren't above using a real knife under the table, especially if the games goes against 'em."
"A man could keep on playing a table game, though hamstrung," Fafhrd put in.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Modeling After MMORPGs
There's been a lot of talk about how 4th Edition D&D attempts to emulate many of the features of MMORPGs. I don't have any firsthand experience of this; I haven't played 4th Edition, and my decision to pass on the entire thing was based on a lack of disposable income and the realization that I already have all of the editions of D&D I'll ever need to play D&D. I've got Moldvay Basic/Expert D&D and a half-dozen variants on it (Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy, etc.) if I want a simple, nostalgic game, I've got True20 if I want a simple version of d20, I've got Microlite20 if I want a REALLY simple version of d20, I've got OSRIC and Swords & Wizardry if I want a REALLY nostalgic game...and I've got D&D 3e and 3.5, with about a million supplements for that system.
So I didn't really feel a need to remain cutting-edge. In fact, I rather enjoy being a little behind the times, because all of the books I use suddenly start getting cheaper.
Back to the point, one of the complaints people seem to have with 4th Edition is that it attempts to emulate many aspects of "World of Warcraft" and other MMORPGs. While I'm sure you could easily look up any number of threads about this on RPGnet's d20 forum (though I'm guessing you'll have to navigate a fair amount of flames), the gist of it seems to be that a) there are things a pen-and-paper RPG can do that a computer game can't, and b) vice-versa. Trying to mold a PnP RPG after a computer game may be an exercise in futility; if the idea is to attract MMORPG players to the tabletop gaming hobby, why present them with a product that tries do what their computer-based game does better? Wouldn't it be better to focus on the unique aspects of tabletop gaming?
Well, people seem to react both ways - some people like it, others hate it. My impressions after reading some of these reviews put me in the camp of "I'd play if someone wanted to run it, but I'm not interested in buying it, much less running it." Still, I'm intrigued by the idea of adopting certain aspects of MMORPGs to tabletop games.
Leave it to Paizo Publishing to come up with an interesting way of accomplishing this. For those outside the loop, Paizo is a company that took over the publishing of Dragon and Dungeon magazines when 3rd Edition D&D came out. The quality of that venerable company organ boosted noticeably; the artwork was gorgeous, the articles were interesting, the adventures were interesting, and the entire enterprise was given a much-needed injection of fun. Shortly before 4th Edition was formally announced (if I'm remembering my timeline correctly), Wizards of the Coast decided to repossess both publications from Paizo in preparation to take the magazines to an online-only format. I think. I haven't really kept up with what WotC did with them after getting them back from Paizo. Anyway, shortly after that came WotC's decision to leave the Open Gaming License and the d20 System behind, and the ultimatum to third-party publishers: you can publish works for 4th Edition (the GSL, I think is what that license is called) or for d20/OGL, but not both. While most companies took the 4th Edition route, Paizo seemed to think there was still a large enough market for d20 (possibly based on the sizable outcry that 4th Edition came too soon / 3.5 is good enough for me) and stuck with the OGL. They published the Pathfinder RPG, what they describe as "D&D 3.75". While the rules have met with a bit of criticism for being even more "overpowered" than its predecessor, the quality of Paizo's design and content seems to have made this a feasible business decision.
One of the nice things Paizo does is periodically send out free PDF preview copies of upcoming publications. They did this with the Pathfinder RPG, and more recently, they've done it with their campaign setting book, The Legacy of Fire Player's Guide. Aside from being a fantastic model for how to make a player's guide to a campaign world, Legacy of Fire introduces something they explicitly describe as MMORPG-inspired: Achievement Feats. My knee-jerk reaction is to say, "This is how you adapt ideas from MMORPG mechanics to a tabletop medium." It takes the 3rd Edition concept of Feats - special abilities that characters can do that are kind of like skills or powers or spells, which you accumulate as you progress in level - and adds a "World of Warcraft"-inspired twist: Achievement Feats are feats your character can earn by accomplishing certain tasks in the campaign, just like Achievements in "WoW". For example, you can earn "Healer's Touch" after curing a cumulative total of 1,000 hit points of damage for other creatures using healing spells; this feat treats your healing spells as if they were Maximized (as per the Maximize Spell feat), so long as they are cast upon others. "All Gnolls Must Die" can be earned if your character delivers the killing blow to 20 gnolls, hyenas, dire hyenas, werehyenas, jackalweres, or minions of Lamashtu; as long as you carry some sort of trophy harvested from a gnoll, you gain a morale bonus to all your Will saves and a competence bonus when fighting that variety of monster. They're not game-breaking, and while they require a bit more bookkeeping and planning on the part of the player who wants to attain them, Achievement Feats can be used by a creative GM to encourage PCs to accomplish something pertinent to their campaign.
I thought that was pretty sweet.
So I didn't really feel a need to remain cutting-edge. In fact, I rather enjoy being a little behind the times, because all of the books I use suddenly start getting cheaper.
Back to the point, one of the complaints people seem to have with 4th Edition is that it attempts to emulate many aspects of "World of Warcraft" and other MMORPGs. While I'm sure you could easily look up any number of threads about this on RPGnet's d20 forum (though I'm guessing you'll have to navigate a fair amount of flames), the gist of it seems to be that a) there are things a pen-and-paper RPG can do that a computer game can't, and b) vice-versa. Trying to mold a PnP RPG after a computer game may be an exercise in futility; if the idea is to attract MMORPG players to the tabletop gaming hobby, why present them with a product that tries do what their computer-based game does better? Wouldn't it be better to focus on the unique aspects of tabletop gaming?
Well, people seem to react both ways - some people like it, others hate it. My impressions after reading some of these reviews put me in the camp of "I'd play if someone wanted to run it, but I'm not interested in buying it, much less running it." Still, I'm intrigued by the idea of adopting certain aspects of MMORPGs to tabletop games.
Leave it to Paizo Publishing to come up with an interesting way of accomplishing this. For those outside the loop, Paizo is a company that took over the publishing of Dragon and Dungeon magazines when 3rd Edition D&D came out. The quality of that venerable company organ boosted noticeably; the artwork was gorgeous, the articles were interesting, the adventures were interesting, and the entire enterprise was given a much-needed injection of fun. Shortly before 4th Edition was formally announced (if I'm remembering my timeline correctly), Wizards of the Coast decided to repossess both publications from Paizo in preparation to take the magazines to an online-only format. I think. I haven't really kept up with what WotC did with them after getting them back from Paizo. Anyway, shortly after that came WotC's decision to leave the Open Gaming License and the d20 System behind, and the ultimatum to third-party publishers: you can publish works for 4th Edition (the GSL, I think is what that license is called) or for d20/OGL, but not both. While most companies took the 4th Edition route, Paizo seemed to think there was still a large enough market for d20 (possibly based on the sizable outcry that 4th Edition came too soon / 3.5 is good enough for me) and stuck with the OGL. They published the Pathfinder RPG, what they describe as "D&D 3.75". While the rules have met with a bit of criticism for being even more "overpowered" than its predecessor, the quality of Paizo's design and content seems to have made this a feasible business decision.
One of the nice things Paizo does is periodically send out free PDF preview copies of upcoming publications. They did this with the Pathfinder RPG, and more recently, they've done it with their campaign setting book, The Legacy of Fire Player's Guide. Aside from being a fantastic model for how to make a player's guide to a campaign world, Legacy of Fire introduces something they explicitly describe as MMORPG-inspired: Achievement Feats. My knee-jerk reaction is to say, "This is how you adapt ideas from MMORPG mechanics to a tabletop medium." It takes the 3rd Edition concept of Feats - special abilities that characters can do that are kind of like skills or powers or spells, which you accumulate as you progress in level - and adds a "World of Warcraft"-inspired twist: Achievement Feats are feats your character can earn by accomplishing certain tasks in the campaign, just like Achievements in "WoW". For example, you can earn "Healer's Touch" after curing a cumulative total of 1,000 hit points of damage for other creatures using healing spells; this feat treats your healing spells as if they were Maximized (as per the Maximize Spell feat), so long as they are cast upon others. "All Gnolls Must Die" can be earned if your character delivers the killing blow to 20 gnolls, hyenas, dire hyenas, werehyenas, jackalweres, or minions of Lamashtu; as long as you carry some sort of trophy harvested from a gnoll, you gain a morale bonus to all your Will saves and a competence bonus when fighting that variety of monster. They're not game-breaking, and while they require a bit more bookkeeping and planning on the part of the player who wants to attain them, Achievement Feats can be used by a creative GM to encourage PCs to accomplish something pertinent to their campaign.
I thought that was pretty sweet.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The Day Everything Changed
February, 2009. That's going to go down in history as the month everything changed.
Sure, 1999 is what everyone remembers. Those were grim times for everyone. After the 1980s, I thought I'd never have to live in fear of nuclear war again, but things quickly turned south and we'd barely had enough time to take a breath before we were at war again, and the threat was looming over our heads again. If the NEACaPS had ever gotten nukes, I think we might have seen the West Coast go up in mushroom clouds. Really, it was just a matter of time - that was what was on everyone's minds, I think. So it's a good thing that the Stranger came.
Look, I'll be honest with you - I was never a proponent of Unification. I kept pointing to the litany of evils the old United Nations was involved with - internal corruption, financial misdeeds, turning a blind eye to genocides while their own troops were committing atrocities... It's like democracy - it sounds like a great idea until you actually meet some of the people who are allowed to vote. America was unique, I said; other countries don't think like us. A vast portion of the world is composed of tyrannies and theocracies that have anything but human rights in mind. Why would we want to place ourselves under their jurisdiction?
But the utopians got their wish. After the Global Civil War, I guess everyone was tired of being afraid. The one good thing that's come out of this whole thing is that people started looking at each other as fellow human beings, rather than a package of "otherness". I always believed that the One World Government would come - as a Christian, it's one of the things you associate with the reign of the Antichrist - but I guess I never really believed I'd live to see it. It's eerie. Don't get me wrong, I was happy as the next guy when the War ended, but I kept wondering, "What's next? What's the next big axe to hang over our necks?"
So if you think about it, these last ten years have been amazing. But what happened this month...
Maybe it was inevitable. I mean, the Stranger came from somewhere, right? Someone built it - who knows how long ago, really - so it stood to reason that someone would come to get it. You know, you see all these movies about aliens coming to Earth, and most of them are of the "Mars Attacks!" variety. We've had that particular phobia since, what, H.G. Wells? But there was also "Close Encounters", and "E.T.", and "Star Trek"...it seemed more likely that anyone who came so far would want to be diplomatic, at least. There were scientists who insisted that their psychologies might be utterly alien to us - that we would be incapable of understanding each other. But I think that, while I agreed that it was a possibility, I privately thought it might be more like what Lewis proposed: any other intelligent life out there would either be sinless and enjoying communion with God, or fallen creatures like us. I suspected we'd be able to understand each other to a degree that would surprise the scientists. And to a longtime science fiction geek like me, that possibility kept me excited even when the details of the Unification troubled me.
So I think I was right, and unfortunately, they turned out to be of the Fallen variety. All we know about them is that they thought nothing of coming to Earth with guns blazing, and that they're huge. Well, I guess we know more than that - if the allegations are correct (and the attack footage proves that the UEG knew something all along that they didn't tell anyone about), then hopefully we're going to start hearing a lot more about what our leaders know about the Giants.
Not that we can do anything about it. They took the SDF-1 and left. They took Macross Island, for crying out loud. Who knows what else they can do? What do we do if they decide to come back?
Sure, 1999 is what everyone remembers. Those were grim times for everyone. After the 1980s, I thought I'd never have to live in fear of nuclear war again, but things quickly turned south and we'd barely had enough time to take a breath before we were at war again, and the threat was looming over our heads again. If the NEACaPS had ever gotten nukes, I think we might have seen the West Coast go up in mushroom clouds. Really, it was just a matter of time - that was what was on everyone's minds, I think. So it's a good thing that the Stranger came.
Look, I'll be honest with you - I was never a proponent of Unification. I kept pointing to the litany of evils the old United Nations was involved with - internal corruption, financial misdeeds, turning a blind eye to genocides while their own troops were committing atrocities... It's like democracy - it sounds like a great idea until you actually meet some of the people who are allowed to vote. America was unique, I said; other countries don't think like us. A vast portion of the world is composed of tyrannies and theocracies that have anything but human rights in mind. Why would we want to place ourselves under their jurisdiction?
But the utopians got their wish. After the Global Civil War, I guess everyone was tired of being afraid. The one good thing that's come out of this whole thing is that people started looking at each other as fellow human beings, rather than a package of "otherness". I always believed that the One World Government would come - as a Christian, it's one of the things you associate with the reign of the Antichrist - but I guess I never really believed I'd live to see it. It's eerie. Don't get me wrong, I was happy as the next guy when the War ended, but I kept wondering, "What's next? What's the next big axe to hang over our necks?"
So if you think about it, these last ten years have been amazing. But what happened this month...
Maybe it was inevitable. I mean, the Stranger came from somewhere, right? Someone built it - who knows how long ago, really - so it stood to reason that someone would come to get it. You know, you see all these movies about aliens coming to Earth, and most of them are of the "Mars Attacks!" variety. We've had that particular phobia since, what, H.G. Wells? But there was also "Close Encounters", and "E.T.", and "Star Trek"...it seemed more likely that anyone who came so far would want to be diplomatic, at least. There were scientists who insisted that their psychologies might be utterly alien to us - that we would be incapable of understanding each other. But I think that, while I agreed that it was a possibility, I privately thought it might be more like what Lewis proposed: any other intelligent life out there would either be sinless and enjoying communion with God, or fallen creatures like us. I suspected we'd be able to understand each other to a degree that would surprise the scientists. And to a longtime science fiction geek like me, that possibility kept me excited even when the details of the Unification troubled me.
So I think I was right, and unfortunately, they turned out to be of the Fallen variety. All we know about them is that they thought nothing of coming to Earth with guns blazing, and that they're huge. Well, I guess we know more than that - if the allegations are correct (and the attack footage proves that the UEG knew something all along that they didn't tell anyone about), then hopefully we're going to start hearing a lot more about what our leaders know about the Giants.
Not that we can do anything about it. They took the SDF-1 and left. They took Macross Island, for crying out loud. Who knows what else they can do? What do we do if they decide to come back?
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Heirs of the Hood
Not entirely certain why, but as I was trying to fall asleep last night I began to think about Robin Hood. I had been thinking about Sean Connery, because one of the characters in my NaNoWriMo novel is "played" by him in my imagination. Sean Connery, of course, played King Richard Coeur de Leon as a cameo in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," but he also played Robin himself in "Robin and Marian."
The movie looks at an older Robin (in real history, it would only be about five years after Richard's return to England), a trusted captain of King Richard, reluctantly fighting on behalf of his liege in France. Robin doesn't like it and, after Richard gets killed, returns to England with Little John. He finds out that Marian is a nun, and goes to see her. Somehow the Sheriff of Nottingham becomes his enemy again; I don't really remember how it all happens. I have only vague memories of the movie, and while I recall it being fairly dull, depressing, and at times, a little disturbing (why isn't Robin wearing any pants?), the concept behind the film - whatever happened to Robin Hood? - always interested me.
I started to think about how "Prince of Thieves" ended, with Robin and Marian's wedding. Robin's noble status is presumably restored by King Richard, so he's got to have a manor and all that attends a feudal lord. Presumably - given not only the social obligations, but also their passionate love for each other and the lack of contraceptives - they'd start making some babies.
So how about a medieval campaign in which all of the PCs are Robin and Marian's children? Their parentage signifies them as "special" (in that glowy Player Character way), and they'd likely have no end of interesting patrons who would have influenced the development of their abilities and political ideals along the way. How many of the Merry Men are still around? How many of them have gone straight and are honest peasants now, and how many are still outlaws? As a landed lord, was Robin forced to issue justice and hunt them down? Or does he turn a blind eye to them out of gratitude for their past deeds?
(Wikipedia tells me that in the earliest tales, Robin is a yeoman - a commoner. The trend of later tales turning him into a nobleman suggests to my modern American mind a strain of elitist thought - "only a nobleman could or would choose to lead commoners in a just cause" - but for the moment I'm ignoring all of that and focusing on the image of Robin Hood that's currently most recognized.)
At first I was looking at it as a sort of investigation of what happens when the rebel outcast becomes The Establishment. But as I started reading up on the events following Robin's royal pardon, another story began to present itself.
1189 - King Henry II dies; Richard I becomes King of England and goes on Crusade. He doesn't take Jerusalem, but negotiates a truce that allows access for pilgrims.
1190-1191 - John attempts to overthrow William Longchamp, the Bishop of Ely and Richard's justiciar. John promises the city of London (who likes John more) the right to govern itself as a commune in return for recognition as Richard's heir presumptive. Robin of Loxley, Earl of Huntingdon, begins his opposition of John.
1192 - Richard is taken prisoner by the Duke of Austria as he returns from Crusade. Robin urges his fellow nobles to collect his ransom, but is made into an outlaw by John's machinations. Robin becomes the leader of the Merry Men of Sherwood, stealing from the nobility to pay for Richard's ransom (going with the Good Guy model, this is what he does with his share of the loot, the rest going to aid the poor and oppressed).
1194 - Richard's ransom paid, the king returns to England in February. He restores Robin's status as Earl of Huntingdon, puts down John's rebellion and pardons him for trying to steal his authority. He is crowned again in March - in case there's any doubt about his claim to the throne - and names John his heir. Robin and Marian wed. Richard leaves England for France in May.
1199 - Richard dies in Chaluz, slain by an arrow fired by the boy Peter Basile. He pardons the boy, then dies. Mercadier, his faithful freebooter companion, has the boy flayed alive and hung. John Lackland becomes King of England, but faces revolt in the name of Arthur of Brittany, son of his dead brother Geoffrey. [5 years after Robin + Marian]
1200 - Mercadier dies, assassinated by another freebooter in John's service. Philip II recognizes John over Arthur of Brittany (who, by modern standards, has a better claim than John). [6 years after Robin + Marian]
1203 - Arthur attempts to kidnap his own grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, at Mirebeau, but is defeated and captured by John's forces. Arthur is imprisoned first at Falaise and then at Rouen. No one is certain what ultimately happens to him. In addition to capturing Arthur, John also captures his sister, his niece Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany. She will remain a prisoner until her death in 1241. Through deeds such as these, John acquires a reputation for ruthlessness. [9 years after Robin + Marian]
1205 - In hope of avoiding trouble in England and Wales while he's away fighting for his French lands, John forms an alliance by marrying off his illegitimate daughter, Joan, to the Welsh prince Llywelyn the Great. John begins a dispute with Pope Innocent III over who would become Archbishop of Canterbury. This conflict will last until 1213. [11 years after Robin + Marian]
1207-8 - Franciscan order is founded.
1208 - Albigensian Crusade against Cathar heretics in southern France begins, continuing until 1229. Philip Augustus is strengthened by ruining southern nobles. [14 years after Robin + Marian]
1209 - John is excommunicated, and England is placed under Papal interdict. No religious services, including baptisms and burials, are allowed. Some of his barons rebel against John. Cambridge University is founded. [15 years after Robin + Marian]
1211 - John puts down the Welsh Uprising. [17 years after Robin + Marian]
1213 - Innocent threatens England with a Crusade led by Philip Augustus of France. Philip wants to place his son Louis, the future Louis IX on the English throne. John, suspicious of the military support his barons would offer, submits to the Pope, making England a papal fief. Innocent III quickly calls off the Crusade that he never really had any intention of carrying out. [19 years after Robin + Marian]
1214 - John turns his attention back to his overseas interests. The European wars culminate in defeat at the Battle of Bouvines, which forces the king to accept an unfavorable peace with France. The defeat finally turns the largest part of his barons against him, joining those who rebelled at his excommunication. The nobles join together and demand concessions. [20 years after Robin + Marian]
1215 - John meets the rebel nobles' leaders at Runnymede, near London on 15 June to seal the Great Charter (Magna Carta). Because he signs under duress, however, John receives approval from his overlord the Pope to break his word as soon as hostilities cease, provoking the First Barons' War and an invited French invasion by Prince Louis of France (whom the majority of the English barons have invited to replace John on the throne). John travels around the country to oppose the rebel forces, including a personal two month siege of the rebel-held Rochester Castle. [21 years after Robin + Marian]
1216 - Retreating from the French invasion, John takes a safe route around the marshy area of the Wash to avoid the rebel-held area of East Anglia. His slow baggage train (including the Crown Jewels), however, take a direct route across it and is lost to the unexpected incoming tide. This loss deals John a terrible blow, which affects his health and state of mind. Succumbing to dysentery and moving from place to place, he stays one night at Sleaford Castle before dying on 18 (or 19) October, at Newark Castle (then in Lincolnshire, now on Nottingham's border with that county). Numerous, possibly fictitious, accounts soon circulate after his death that he had been killed by poisoned ale, poisoned plums, or a "surfeit of peaches." John's nine year-old son succeeds him and becomes King Henry III of England. [22 years after Robin + Marian]
1217 - Although Louis continues to claim the English throne, the barons switch their allegiance to the new king, forcing Louis to give up his claim and sign the Treaty of Lambeth. [23 years after Robin + Marian]
So, the way I read it, the PCs take after their parents and oppose King John as he makes England's situation worse by the year. They might rally and/or champion the barons who fight against John, and could play a role in the stirring the ideals of the Magna Carta*.
John himself makes for an interesting villain. His reign is characterized as one of the most disastrous in English history. He functions as an efficient ruler, good at administrative detail, and is sought out as a judge in the Royal Courts for his fair-mindedness. However, he is suspicious, unscrupulous, lecherous (he had many illegitimate offspring and was accused of being envious of many of his barons and kinfolk, seducing their more attractive daughters and sisters), and mistrusted. His crisis-prone career is sabotaged repeatedly by the halfheartedness with which his vassals support him, and the energy with which some of them oppose him. He lost approval of the English barons by taxing them in ways that were outside those traditionally allowed by feudal overlords. He allowed for the tax called scutage, where payment is made instead of providing knights (as required by feudal law); this became particularly unpopular.
There's also the question of whatever happened to Arthur of Brittany. A new Merry Man, anybody?
Add these large-scale political events to that all of the other fun stuff that could happen in Medieval England, and I think it has the makings of a great campaign.
Heck, I might do something comics-related with this idea...
*It bears pointing out that John was pretty good with legal wrangling, and there is speculation that John made it so the document undermined the barons' power by extending rights to commoners, in order to get back at them. This being a primarily cinematic campaign, however, I don't know to what degree this would be a triumph on John's part as it is a chance for egalitarian-minded PCs to play a part in the creation of modern democracy.
The movie looks at an older Robin (in real history, it would only be about five years after Richard's return to England), a trusted captain of King Richard, reluctantly fighting on behalf of his liege in France. Robin doesn't like it and, after Richard gets killed, returns to England with Little John. He finds out that Marian is a nun, and goes to see her. Somehow the Sheriff of Nottingham becomes his enemy again; I don't really remember how it all happens. I have only vague memories of the movie, and while I recall it being fairly dull, depressing, and at times, a little disturbing (why isn't Robin wearing any pants?), the concept behind the film - whatever happened to Robin Hood? - always interested me.
I started to think about how "Prince of Thieves" ended, with Robin and Marian's wedding. Robin's noble status is presumably restored by King Richard, so he's got to have a manor and all that attends a feudal lord. Presumably - given not only the social obligations, but also their passionate love for each other and the lack of contraceptives - they'd start making some babies.
So how about a medieval campaign in which all of the PCs are Robin and Marian's children? Their parentage signifies them as "special" (in that glowy Player Character way), and they'd likely have no end of interesting patrons who would have influenced the development of their abilities and political ideals along the way. How many of the Merry Men are still around? How many of them have gone straight and are honest peasants now, and how many are still outlaws? As a landed lord, was Robin forced to issue justice and hunt them down? Or does he turn a blind eye to them out of gratitude for their past deeds?
(Wikipedia tells me that in the earliest tales, Robin is a yeoman - a commoner. The trend of later tales turning him into a nobleman suggests to my modern American mind a strain of elitist thought - "only a nobleman could or would choose to lead commoners in a just cause" - but for the moment I'm ignoring all of that and focusing on the image of Robin Hood that's currently most recognized.)
At first I was looking at it as a sort of investigation of what happens when the rebel outcast becomes The Establishment. But as I started reading up on the events following Robin's royal pardon, another story began to present itself.
1189 - King Henry II dies; Richard I becomes King of England and goes on Crusade. He doesn't take Jerusalem, but negotiates a truce that allows access for pilgrims.
1190-1191 - John attempts to overthrow William Longchamp, the Bishop of Ely and Richard's justiciar. John promises the city of London (who likes John more) the right to govern itself as a commune in return for recognition as Richard's heir presumptive. Robin of Loxley, Earl of Huntingdon, begins his opposition of John.
1192 - Richard is taken prisoner by the Duke of Austria as he returns from Crusade. Robin urges his fellow nobles to collect his ransom, but is made into an outlaw by John's machinations. Robin becomes the leader of the Merry Men of Sherwood, stealing from the nobility to pay for Richard's ransom (going with the Good Guy model, this is what he does with his share of the loot, the rest going to aid the poor and oppressed).
1194 - Richard's ransom paid, the king returns to England in February. He restores Robin's status as Earl of Huntingdon, puts down John's rebellion and pardons him for trying to steal his authority. He is crowned again in March - in case there's any doubt about his claim to the throne - and names John his heir. Robin and Marian wed. Richard leaves England for France in May.
1199 - Richard dies in Chaluz, slain by an arrow fired by the boy Peter Basile. He pardons the boy, then dies. Mercadier, his faithful freebooter companion, has the boy flayed alive and hung. John Lackland becomes King of England, but faces revolt in the name of Arthur of Brittany, son of his dead brother Geoffrey. [5 years after Robin + Marian]
1200 - Mercadier dies, assassinated by another freebooter in John's service. Philip II recognizes John over Arthur of Brittany (who, by modern standards, has a better claim than John). [6 years after Robin + Marian]
1203 - Arthur attempts to kidnap his own grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, at Mirebeau, but is defeated and captured by John's forces. Arthur is imprisoned first at Falaise and then at Rouen. No one is certain what ultimately happens to him. In addition to capturing Arthur, John also captures his sister, his niece Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany. She will remain a prisoner until her death in 1241. Through deeds such as these, John acquires a reputation for ruthlessness. [9 years after Robin + Marian]
1205 - In hope of avoiding trouble in England and Wales while he's away fighting for his French lands, John forms an alliance by marrying off his illegitimate daughter, Joan, to the Welsh prince Llywelyn the Great. John begins a dispute with Pope Innocent III over who would become Archbishop of Canterbury. This conflict will last until 1213. [11 years after Robin + Marian]
1207-8 - Franciscan order is founded.
1208 - Albigensian Crusade against Cathar heretics in southern France begins, continuing until 1229. Philip Augustus is strengthened by ruining southern nobles. [14 years after Robin + Marian]
1209 - John is excommunicated, and England is placed under Papal interdict. No religious services, including baptisms and burials, are allowed. Some of his barons rebel against John. Cambridge University is founded. [15 years after Robin + Marian]
1211 - John puts down the Welsh Uprising. [17 years after Robin + Marian]
1213 - Innocent threatens England with a Crusade led by Philip Augustus of France. Philip wants to place his son Louis, the future Louis IX on the English throne. John, suspicious of the military support his barons would offer, submits to the Pope, making England a papal fief. Innocent III quickly calls off the Crusade that he never really had any intention of carrying out. [19 years after Robin + Marian]
1214 - John turns his attention back to his overseas interests. The European wars culminate in defeat at the Battle of Bouvines, which forces the king to accept an unfavorable peace with France. The defeat finally turns the largest part of his barons against him, joining those who rebelled at his excommunication. The nobles join together and demand concessions. [20 years after Robin + Marian]
1215 - John meets the rebel nobles' leaders at Runnymede, near London on 15 June to seal the Great Charter (Magna Carta). Because he signs under duress, however, John receives approval from his overlord the Pope to break his word as soon as hostilities cease, provoking the First Barons' War and an invited French invasion by Prince Louis of France (whom the majority of the English barons have invited to replace John on the throne). John travels around the country to oppose the rebel forces, including a personal two month siege of the rebel-held Rochester Castle. [21 years after Robin + Marian]
1216 - Retreating from the French invasion, John takes a safe route around the marshy area of the Wash to avoid the rebel-held area of East Anglia. His slow baggage train (including the Crown Jewels), however, take a direct route across it and is lost to the unexpected incoming tide. This loss deals John a terrible blow, which affects his health and state of mind. Succumbing to dysentery and moving from place to place, he stays one night at Sleaford Castle before dying on 18 (or 19) October, at Newark Castle (then in Lincolnshire, now on Nottingham's border with that county). Numerous, possibly fictitious, accounts soon circulate after his death that he had been killed by poisoned ale, poisoned plums, or a "surfeit of peaches." John's nine year-old son succeeds him and becomes King Henry III of England. [22 years after Robin + Marian]
1217 - Although Louis continues to claim the English throne, the barons switch their allegiance to the new king, forcing Louis to give up his claim and sign the Treaty of Lambeth. [23 years after Robin + Marian]
So, the way I read it, the PCs take after their parents and oppose King John as he makes England's situation worse by the year. They might rally and/or champion the barons who fight against John, and could play a role in the stirring the ideals of the Magna Carta*.
John himself makes for an interesting villain. His reign is characterized as one of the most disastrous in English history. He functions as an efficient ruler, good at administrative detail, and is sought out as a judge in the Royal Courts for his fair-mindedness. However, he is suspicious, unscrupulous, lecherous (he had many illegitimate offspring and was accused of being envious of many of his barons and kinfolk, seducing their more attractive daughters and sisters), and mistrusted. His crisis-prone career is sabotaged repeatedly by the halfheartedness with which his vassals support him, and the energy with which some of them oppose him. He lost approval of the English barons by taxing them in ways that were outside those traditionally allowed by feudal overlords. He allowed for the tax called scutage, where payment is made instead of providing knights (as required by feudal law); this became particularly unpopular.
There's also the question of whatever happened to Arthur of Brittany. A new Merry Man, anybody?
Add these large-scale political events to that all of the other fun stuff that could happen in Medieval England, and I think it has the makings of a great campaign.
Heck, I might do something comics-related with this idea...
*It bears pointing out that John was pretty good with legal wrangling, and there is speculation that John made it so the document undermined the barons' power by extending rights to commoners, in order to get back at them. This being a primarily cinematic campaign, however, I don't know to what degree this would be a triumph on John's part as it is a chance for egalitarian-minded PCs to play a part in the creation of modern democracy.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Halloween Horror
I think of Halloween as the holiday when I traditionally run a horror game.
This is wishful thinking, though. I don't know if I actually ever managed to do this as any kind of tradition in the past; I know I always wanted to, and I have run a horror game once or twice on Halloween for friends in the past, but it was a long time ago, and certainly never often enough to qualify as a "tradition".
When I was younger, I avoided the horror genre. I had a lot of nightmares growing up, and had no desire to be scared further by frightening images or unpleasant thoughts. I scorned horror movies and ignored horror novels. But this all changed the first time I played a horror RPG.
I can't recall, exactly, what the first horror RPG I played was, but the first one I can remember GMing was Call of Cthulhu. Beyond the Supernatural was another early one. Something about the use of atmospheric elements like the flickering light of candles, spooky music on a stereo, and the occasional assistance of nature herself, with howling wind or chilling fog setting in, made the horror game different. I found the ability to scare others while remaining in control of the situation - I knew the adventure plot, I knew what was coming and had some idea of how to deliver it in order to cause tension and apprehension in my player(s). And yet, I was not immune from that sense of fear, either, as I was to discover after walking back to my car alone in the pitch dark after a late horror game session... Through that experience, I came to understand that the horror genre is an art, requiring a certain skill to pull off well; I suddenly found that I could watch horror movies and scrutinize them. I could judge whether they were actually creating horror, or just relying upon gore or "startles" to creep out their audiences. I bought Ken Hite's must-have book Nightmares of Mine (and, later, his edition of GURPS Horror) and began to really take a close look at horror.
Now, here I am years later, with a desire to continue playing my copy of Silent Hill 3, but being a little apprehensive about turning the lights off and immersing myself in that world again.
I haven't been able to run or play a horror adventure in many years. In fact, I think it was just before the Slussers had children - or was it when Slusser got married? - that I ran a horror game. Since horror is so dependent upon building atmosphere, having any kind of distraction is a big problem, much moreso than with any other genre of RPG I can think of.
I miss it quite a bit. There's something that horror games give you that no other game can. And it's one of the very few RPG genres where it's okay if your character dies. In fact, it's almost expected.
Here's a quick look at the horror games I own (and would love to run tonight, if I could):
Call of Cthulhu - The granddaddy of cosmic horror, this game still appeals to me. I think it's more to do with its default historical setting of 1920s New England than its nihilistic cosmology, but I can't claim to be completely immune to its charms. I have long desired to run an entire campaign, beginning with the World War I scenario No Man's Land, and following those PCs (those that survive, anyway) through their subsequent brushes with the Cthulhu Mythos across the 1920s (I've got a few). I would love to do this someday. Maybe when I'm in the nursing home.
D20 Call of Cthulhu - I don't know how well this handles running CoC adventures; the D20 system can get cumbersome at times, and if you have to stop the game to look up rules, you may as well kiss that precious creepy atmosphere goodbye. Few systems seem to lend themselves to rules lawyers (and their pet arguments) as well as Dungeons & Dragons, and D20 carries on that tradition. Having said that, this book is amazingly well-written, offering not only a decent conversion of the game to D20, but also providing some priceless advice on running horror games - indeed, running games of any genre. This one is oriented on playing in the modern day, rather than CoC's other traditional settings of the Roaring 20s or the Victorian 1890s. Speaking of modern day Cthulhu...
Delta Green - Call of Cthulhu meets The X-Files. After the Innsmouth Raid of 1927, the American government begins to pick up on the fact that there's Something Going On... In DG, you play a government employee who becomes a member of an illegal government conspiracy group, the aforementioned Delta Green. Emphasis on the illegal: this involves not only horror, but also heavy doses of paranoia. This is notable for being one of the most well-written and researched campaign settings I've ever seen, and I'd love to run some of the scenarios presented in these books.
The (New) World of Darkness - White Wolf's game of generic horror. While you can use it as the basis for a world that includes Vampires, Werewolves, Mages, and all of the other White Wolf traditional game lines, nWoD is nice in that you don't have to. With this edition, you can run any kind of modern horror game. I think it's a perfect fit for Silent Hill, myself, and I have at least two adventures I'd like to run that take place in that quiet mountain town...
GURPS Horror - Duh. The third edition is written by Ken Hite, and is much different than the previous editions of the book. This one unfortunately cuts out the description of Victorian London, but in its place gives you one of the best in-depth examinations of horror tropes and themes to be found outside Nightmares of Mine. This book is gold for its explanations of where the tropes came from, and thus, how to best capitalize on them.
Chill - This was the classic go-to for horror with the Campaign folks, and after reading the gamebooks I can see what the draw is. The secret horror-fighting society SAVE is a simple and brilliant excuse to bring "average Joe" PCs together to face the supernatural on a semi-regular basis. I, however, prefer the notion of the Society as a beleaguered, scattered, cryptic and more-or-less impoverished organization than the centralized, well-funded group that the game book seems to describe. More Rosicrucians than CIA, thanks. If you're looking for this game, make sure to look up the Mayfair edition, as the original Pacesetter edition was more humor-oriented.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel RPGs - These are more recent purchases, and they utilize the excellent Cinematic Unisystem roleplaying game...uh...system. Written in a chatty, humorous, but not annoying (unless you don't like Joss Whedon-style dialog) style, these games not only capture the feel of the television shows perfectly, they also provide a rules framework for a wide variety of games. One could just as easily run a Hellboy campaign, a superhero game, or a straight-up modern action game with these rules. Check out what people are doing with it on Eden Studios' forums... I have eight seasons (no joke) of an Angel RPG campaign completely outlined. It's called Spooks (no, not this one); it begins in Buffy/Angelverse Los Angeles circa 1938 and follows the formation and early years of The Initiative, the shadowy organization that would show up as a semi-antagonist in "Buffy" Season Four. I'd love to run this, but I question whether I've got the chops to run such a long campaign set in the World War II era. I can handle fantasy games and Shadowrun for that long, perhaps, but would I be able to stay in the mood for film noir and pulp-horror adventure with a sense of humor but unexpected depth, darkness, and character development for such an extended period? Well, it's worth a try... C'mon, it's got Nazis! Who doesn't like beating up Nazis?
Hellboy - While GURPS Lite 3rd Edition is an okay fit for this one, I think that Angel's Cinematic Unisystem would do a better job. Nonetheless, this is the sourcebook on Hellboy, chock full of awesome Mignola illustrations. If you haven't read the comic... Well, here. Read it. The gist of this is that you work for a government agency that deals with the paranormal (and often part of someone's mythology, like Baba Yaga). Hellboy is one of their primary agents. He usually deals with said paranormal by beating it senseless while issuing longsuffering one-liners. Notable in that your agent could be a normal person, but it's also quite likely that your agent is something supernatural. Characters in Hellboy have included a fishman, a pyrokinetic, a homonculus, and an ectoplasmic spirit. One of Hellboy's primary villains is Rasputin. THE Rasputin. And, you know, Nazis. Dang, this would make for a fun campaign.
Dark*Matter - Going deeper into X-Files territory than the television show ever did, this is one of the best modern conspiracy-horror books I've ever seen. It presents data on a wide range of popular and obscure conspiracies, monsters, and paranormal topics that we hear about in the real world, and presents multiple options on how to run them in a campaign. It also presents a loose cosmological explanation for what's going on, and offers an organization for PCs to work for, the Hoffmann Institute. It's a little more potent an organization than I would normally like for such a game, but it can still work; in fact, watching "Fringe" gives me a pretty solid idea of how it could be an intriguing, mysterious, and paranoia-inducing employer for characters (imagine being an employee of Massive Dynamic...). All this in a nicely-illustrated hardbound book!
Ghostories - A generic engine for running horror adventures. I love simple rules systems. I love cheap, easily-affordable games. PIG's Ghostories gives me both of those things. When you're running a horror game, you really want to have a game system that doesn't interfere with the narrative or slow things down as people start looking up rules - that's an atmosphere-killer, and building atmosphere is absolutely crucial to running a horror game. It's also compatible with their other genre Diversion i games, meaning I can use it in conjunction with their western game Coyote Trail as my system conversion for Deadlands. Speaking of...
Deadlands: The Weird West - This Old West Horror game has a lot of potential, and I own most of the books published for this game, which is quite a few. Deadlands is all over the map - it incorporates not only horror, but also pulp action and steampunk; it describes itself as "Spaghetti Western with Meat". The result is a game that can be played in a variety of styles...but personally, I'd like to run it dark and atmospheric.
Over the Edge - Not exclusively a horror game, but certainly heavy on those elements. This is a rules-light, surrealism-heavy game reminiscent of "Twin Peaks", "Lost", Cat's Cradle, and Burroughs novels. It comes with a thoroughly detailed modern-day setting, the Mediterranean island of al-Amarja, and a catalog of all the weird stuff going on there. I have a campaign-starter in mind already - that of CIA agents investigating possible al-Qaeda cell activity - but this manages to be such a wide-open game that any type of character and any type of background could conceivably work. All you need is a reason to come to the obscure island. All the rest is done for you, really. This is an excellent example of the "sandbox" setting presented for a modern day game.
Ghostbusters - Old and out of print but still pretty brilliant, from a game rules standpoint (Fear not, though - click on that link and be reconnected with that spirit from the past). West End Games made this, arguably one of the best entry-level RPGs on the market. While the adventures I've seen for it are pretty goofy (a little more than I would like for what is admittedly a comedy game), this game is wonderful in that it parodies the structure and feel of Call of Cthulhu scenarios so well. Made by many of the same people who brought you Paranoia... As fun as the original system is, were I to run it today, I'd use the even easier-to-learn-and-run Risus system by S. John Ross...who admits that the Ghostbusters RPG was a major influence. Oh, and that's free, too.
Well, that's all I can think of at the moment, though I've got the nagging suspicion that I've forgotten something. Anyway, I look forward to the day when I can run a spooky game once more.
Happy Halloween!
EDIT: I did remember something. I don't actually own the Palladium game, and I wouldn't use the system, but I liked the idea, with some modification: Nightbane. The premise is that while you think you're a normal person, you are in actuality a monstrous, extra-dimensional being who just happens to be walking around in a human body most of the time. Or are you just its vessel? Are you going crazy, or is this what you really are?
I also just remembered Hunter: The Reckoning. You become endowed by the mysterious Messengers with mystic powers with which to fight the supernatural. I have rather a lot of adventure ideas for this one, too.
Okay, enough for now - I'm starving!
This is wishful thinking, though. I don't know if I actually ever managed to do this as any kind of tradition in the past; I know I always wanted to, and I have run a horror game once or twice on Halloween for friends in the past, but it was a long time ago, and certainly never often enough to qualify as a "tradition".
When I was younger, I avoided the horror genre. I had a lot of nightmares growing up, and had no desire to be scared further by frightening images or unpleasant thoughts. I scorned horror movies and ignored horror novels. But this all changed the first time I played a horror RPG.
I can't recall, exactly, what the first horror RPG I played was, but the first one I can remember GMing was Call of Cthulhu. Beyond the Supernatural was another early one. Something about the use of atmospheric elements like the flickering light of candles, spooky music on a stereo, and the occasional assistance of nature herself, with howling wind or chilling fog setting in, made the horror game different. I found the ability to scare others while remaining in control of the situation - I knew the adventure plot, I knew what was coming and had some idea of how to deliver it in order to cause tension and apprehension in my player(s). And yet, I was not immune from that sense of fear, either, as I was to discover after walking back to my car alone in the pitch dark after a late horror game session... Through that experience, I came to understand that the horror genre is an art, requiring a certain skill to pull off well; I suddenly found that I could watch horror movies and scrutinize them. I could judge whether they were actually creating horror, or just relying upon gore or "startles" to creep out their audiences. I bought Ken Hite's must-have book Nightmares of Mine (and, later, his edition of GURPS Horror) and began to really take a close look at horror.
Now, here I am years later, with a desire to continue playing my copy of Silent Hill 3, but being a little apprehensive about turning the lights off and immersing myself in that world again.
I haven't been able to run or play a horror adventure in many years. In fact, I think it was just before the Slussers had children - or was it when Slusser got married? - that I ran a horror game. Since horror is so dependent upon building atmosphere, having any kind of distraction is a big problem, much moreso than with any other genre of RPG I can think of.
I miss it quite a bit. There's something that horror games give you that no other game can. And it's one of the very few RPG genres where it's okay if your character dies. In fact, it's almost expected.
Here's a quick look at the horror games I own (and would love to run tonight, if I could):
Call of Cthulhu - The granddaddy of cosmic horror, this game still appeals to me. I think it's more to do with its default historical setting of 1920s New England than its nihilistic cosmology, but I can't claim to be completely immune to its charms. I have long desired to run an entire campaign, beginning with the World War I scenario No Man's Land, and following those PCs (those that survive, anyway) through their subsequent brushes with the Cthulhu Mythos across the 1920s (I've got a few). I would love to do this someday. Maybe when I'm in the nursing home.
D20 Call of Cthulhu - I don't know how well this handles running CoC adventures; the D20 system can get cumbersome at times, and if you have to stop the game to look up rules, you may as well kiss that precious creepy atmosphere goodbye. Few systems seem to lend themselves to rules lawyers (and their pet arguments) as well as Dungeons & Dragons, and D20 carries on that tradition. Having said that, this book is amazingly well-written, offering not only a decent conversion of the game to D20, but also providing some priceless advice on running horror games - indeed, running games of any genre. This one is oriented on playing in the modern day, rather than CoC's other traditional settings of the Roaring 20s or the Victorian 1890s. Speaking of modern day Cthulhu...
Delta Green - Call of Cthulhu meets The X-Files. After the Innsmouth Raid of 1927, the American government begins to pick up on the fact that there's Something Going On... In DG, you play a government employee who becomes a member of an illegal government conspiracy group, the aforementioned Delta Green. Emphasis on the illegal: this involves not only horror, but also heavy doses of paranoia. This is notable for being one of the most well-written and researched campaign settings I've ever seen, and I'd love to run some of the scenarios presented in these books.
The (New) World of Darkness - White Wolf's game of generic horror. While you can use it as the basis for a world that includes Vampires, Werewolves, Mages, and all of the other White Wolf traditional game lines, nWoD is nice in that you don't have to. With this edition, you can run any kind of modern horror game. I think it's a perfect fit for Silent Hill, myself, and I have at least two adventures I'd like to run that take place in that quiet mountain town...
GURPS Horror - Duh. The third edition is written by Ken Hite, and is much different than the previous editions of the book. This one unfortunately cuts out the description of Victorian London, but in its place gives you one of the best in-depth examinations of horror tropes and themes to be found outside Nightmares of Mine. This book is gold for its explanations of where the tropes came from, and thus, how to best capitalize on them.
Chill - This was the classic go-to for horror with the Campaign folks, and after reading the gamebooks I can see what the draw is. The secret horror-fighting society SAVE is a simple and brilliant excuse to bring "average Joe" PCs together to face the supernatural on a semi-regular basis. I, however, prefer the notion of the Society as a beleaguered, scattered, cryptic and more-or-less impoverished organization than the centralized, well-funded group that the game book seems to describe. More Rosicrucians than CIA, thanks. If you're looking for this game, make sure to look up the Mayfair edition, as the original Pacesetter edition was more humor-oriented.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel RPGs - These are more recent purchases, and they utilize the excellent Cinematic Unisystem roleplaying game...uh...system. Written in a chatty, humorous, but not annoying (unless you don't like Joss Whedon-style dialog) style, these games not only capture the feel of the television shows perfectly, they also provide a rules framework for a wide variety of games. One could just as easily run a Hellboy campaign, a superhero game, or a straight-up modern action game with these rules. Check out what people are doing with it on Eden Studios' forums... I have eight seasons (no joke) of an Angel RPG campaign completely outlined. It's called Spooks (no, not this one); it begins in Buffy/Angelverse Los Angeles circa 1938 and follows the formation and early years of The Initiative, the shadowy organization that would show up as a semi-antagonist in "Buffy" Season Four. I'd love to run this, but I question whether I've got the chops to run such a long campaign set in the World War II era. I can handle fantasy games and Shadowrun for that long, perhaps, but would I be able to stay in the mood for film noir and pulp-horror adventure with a sense of humor but unexpected depth, darkness, and character development for such an extended period? Well, it's worth a try... C'mon, it's got Nazis! Who doesn't like beating up Nazis?
Hellboy - While GURPS Lite 3rd Edition is an okay fit for this one, I think that Angel's Cinematic Unisystem would do a better job. Nonetheless, this is the sourcebook on Hellboy, chock full of awesome Mignola illustrations. If you haven't read the comic... Well, here. Read it. The gist of this is that you work for a government agency that deals with the paranormal (and often part of someone's mythology, like Baba Yaga). Hellboy is one of their primary agents. He usually deals with said paranormal by beating it senseless while issuing longsuffering one-liners. Notable in that your agent could be a normal person, but it's also quite likely that your agent is something supernatural. Characters in Hellboy have included a fishman, a pyrokinetic, a homonculus, and an ectoplasmic spirit. One of Hellboy's primary villains is Rasputin. THE Rasputin. And, you know, Nazis. Dang, this would make for a fun campaign.
Dark*Matter - Going deeper into X-Files territory than the television show ever did, this is one of the best modern conspiracy-horror books I've ever seen. It presents data on a wide range of popular and obscure conspiracies, monsters, and paranormal topics that we hear about in the real world, and presents multiple options on how to run them in a campaign. It also presents a loose cosmological explanation for what's going on, and offers an organization for PCs to work for, the Hoffmann Institute. It's a little more potent an organization than I would normally like for such a game, but it can still work; in fact, watching "Fringe" gives me a pretty solid idea of how it could be an intriguing, mysterious, and paranoia-inducing employer for characters (imagine being an employee of Massive Dynamic...). All this in a nicely-illustrated hardbound book!
Ghostories - A generic engine for running horror adventures. I love simple rules systems. I love cheap, easily-affordable games. PIG's Ghostories gives me both of those things. When you're running a horror game, you really want to have a game system that doesn't interfere with the narrative or slow things down as people start looking up rules - that's an atmosphere-killer, and building atmosphere is absolutely crucial to running a horror game. It's also compatible with their other genre Diversion i games, meaning I can use it in conjunction with their western game Coyote Trail as my system conversion for Deadlands. Speaking of...
Deadlands: The Weird West - This Old West Horror game has a lot of potential, and I own most of the books published for this game, which is quite a few. Deadlands is all over the map - it incorporates not only horror, but also pulp action and steampunk; it describes itself as "Spaghetti Western with Meat". The result is a game that can be played in a variety of styles...but personally, I'd like to run it dark and atmospheric.
Over the Edge - Not exclusively a horror game, but certainly heavy on those elements. This is a rules-light, surrealism-heavy game reminiscent of "Twin Peaks", "Lost", Cat's Cradle, and Burroughs novels. It comes with a thoroughly detailed modern-day setting, the Mediterranean island of al-Amarja, and a catalog of all the weird stuff going on there. I have a campaign-starter in mind already - that of CIA agents investigating possible al-Qaeda cell activity - but this manages to be such a wide-open game that any type of character and any type of background could conceivably work. All you need is a reason to come to the obscure island. All the rest is done for you, really. This is an excellent example of the "sandbox" setting presented for a modern day game.
Ghostbusters - Old and out of print but still pretty brilliant, from a game rules standpoint (Fear not, though - click on that link and be reconnected with that spirit from the past). West End Games made this, arguably one of the best entry-level RPGs on the market. While the adventures I've seen for it are pretty goofy (a little more than I would like for what is admittedly a comedy game), this game is wonderful in that it parodies the structure and feel of Call of Cthulhu scenarios so well. Made by many of the same people who brought you Paranoia... As fun as the original system is, were I to run it today, I'd use the even easier-to-learn-and-run Risus system by S. John Ross...who admits that the Ghostbusters RPG was a major influence. Oh, and that's free, too.
Well, that's all I can think of at the moment, though I've got the nagging suspicion that I've forgotten something. Anyway, I look forward to the day when I can run a spooky game once more.
Happy Halloween!
EDIT: I did remember something. I don't actually own the Palladium game, and I wouldn't use the system, but I liked the idea, with some modification: Nightbane. The premise is that while you think you're a normal person, you are in actuality a monstrous, extra-dimensional being who just happens to be walking around in a human body most of the time. Or are you just its vessel? Are you going crazy, or is this what you really are?
I also just remembered Hunter: The Reckoning. You become endowed by the mysterious Messengers with mystic powers with which to fight the supernatural. I have rather a lot of adventure ideas for this one, too.
Okay, enough for now - I'm starving!
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