Hey Man, well this is Babylon

Without further ado, let me introduce to you the skeletal beginnings of House Cor of the North. Their motto is “Silent as Certainty,” because when it comes to matters of the Household, well, it just goes without saying. Based in their castle deep in the northern hills, with a stunning view of the valley from which springs the Last River, House Cor is an ancient house with a founding as old as the Wall itself. According to house legend, Bran himself gifted the house and lands to the first Lady of the house, a warrior-woman named Corlynne who was his lover (if the fairy tales of the north can be believed). The house’s years since have been many and plentiful, and marked by the following four notable events:

• Treachery! After the founding of the house, the Cors and the Starks each ruled half of the North. Treachery by the Starks, however, one day propelled that family to greatness, reducing the Cors to bannermen.
• Invasion! During the Targaryen conquering, all the best soldiers went south. While gone, the wildlings of the hills actually took arms and defended the locals from raiders and reavers alike. The locals grew to somewhat trust the wildlings, but when the soldiers returned, conflict again arose. Relationships have been tense but oddly respectful ever since.
• Favor! A family ancestor was in the Kingsguard during the time of the Blackfyre rebellion, and personally saved the life of the rightful king. The Cors received much influence
• Glory! During Robert’s Rebellion, the Cors won glory and distinction on the battlefield. The House has always favored strong, powerful women, in the tradition of Lady Corlynne herself. fifteen years ago, when the Starks rode south to aid Robert in his rebellion against the Mad King, the Cors rode with, bringing their elite archers with them. On the battlefield, the Lady of the House earned herself the nickname of The Wasp for her brilliant deployment of archers against the Targaryens.

Today, the Cors are a highly influential house that has fallen on dire economic times. The lord of the house is old and suffering from near-constant bouts of acute dementia. His wife, the legendary Wasp, now tries to convince him to abdicate power to her oldest son, who she believes she can manipulate. The son clashes with the mother, however, as he is no warrior – far from it, his few attempts at battle and war-play have been disastrous and cost the house minor fortunes in recovery. The house’s bankroll is near run dry, due to poor management by an aged Lord whose marbles have been all but smashed, and a warrior-0woman with no skill at finances.

However, the cold winds of change are blowing hard from beyond the Wall. In a peculiar turn of fortune, the Cors have discovered, of all things, actual gold mines deep in their hills. New talent is being brought in to help with managing the mines, both from the Maesters of Oldtown and the from Free Cities beyond the Narrow Sea alike. Trade is the subject of many bar-room chats in the areas, and the region has new eyes upon it again. Rumor has it, King Robert himself is even riding up from King’s Landing to seek counsel with the nearby Starks of Winterfell, which could in turn be a great opportunity to gain favor while he is in the region. Winter is coming, but this time it could bring with it the gleaming shine of fortune.

The following characters have been established, many of which may be player characters, and all of which will have definite agency within the story we will tell:

• The Old Lord has only a rare handful of moments of lucidity. The rest of the time he is a doddering old bat. He has yet to abdicate his power, though…
• The Lady Wasp has aged quite gracefully, and is in the hearts of all her people. She’s an old schemer with a knack for warfare, but little knowledge of economics. She wants her oldest son to assume management of the house, so she can control him. However, if he proves too willful, there’s always Mama’s Boy…
• The Battle-failed Heir is the oldest son. He is pathetic at warfare, but fairly shrewd at politics and coin. This new gold mine discovery could be exactly the opportunity he needs to lead this House into a financial revival. If only his father would abdicate. If only his mother would stop pestering him.
• The Young Warrior follows firmly in Mother’s wake, a solid warrior in his own right. Always Mother’s favorite, his shocking red hair has led to some very quiet rumors that he isn’t actually fathered by the House’s Lord. No attempts have been made to prove this, however, and why would they anyway? The Warrior is beloved by all: a good son, a fine house captain, and a right good looker to boot.
• The Distant Son is middle-born, and long ago was raised as a foster in King’s Landing. He’s now in his late 20s, attempting to maintain a political presence in the south, but in truth he is but a pawn to another lord’s whims.
• The Faithful Sister is the only girl born to the current household, and does not take after her mother at all. She is unwarlike, and has even converted to the faith of the Seven, shunning the ways of the Old Gods of the North. She is training as an acolyte to the Septon of the castle.
• The Heir’s Right hand is a bastard of a distant cousin to the family, the exact same age as the Cor heir. He was taken in and raised as a companion to the future lord, and now serves as the Heir’s investigator and troubleshooter, of sorts.
• The Steadfast Wife of the Youngest son. She is a demure woman of the Umber family, loyal and firm, but gentle and non-scheming. She has mothered two toddlers for her husband.
• The Marbrand Ward is an estranged son of the Marbrand famil (Lannister bannermen), sent north to foster because “he ain’t right.”
• The Wildling Shaman is gathering power, preparing the way for an eventual excursion from Wildling forces beyond the Wall. He is following in the ancestral footsteps of the region’s wildlings of old, trying to gain the favor of the locals with as little bloodshed as possible.
• The Foreign Mine-Master has been brought in from overseas to help manage the mines, because the Cors would be damned before they seek the help of the Lannisters.
• The Maesters, of which there are now two: the Old Master of the family, who knows little of finance, clashing with the Young Master sent from the south to help with the mines.
• The Septon, who is increasingly defensive about his faith in these lands of the Old Gods.

That should be it for now. More posts will come as new ideas are introduced.

Last year at PAX, I got a chance to try a hands-on demo of the OnLive cloud-based game system. I was heartily impressed, and have bought heavily into it. The short version: OnLive is a cloud-based PC gaming platform that has a huge number of games you can purchase and play, with all the processing being handled via the cloud. You can play either via an app installed on your computer (mouse/keyboard or controller), or via a separate “microconsole” that connects to your TV via HDMI. It even has an app for Mac and iPad, and I understand they are working on getting it on Linux and Android as well.

A couple of months back, I jumped on a special wherein you pre-ordered the game Homefront, and they sent you both another game and one of their special MicroConsoles for free. I cared (and continue to care) nothing at all for Homefront, but the bonus game was the amazing Metro 2033, and the console itself was woth $99. Getting all this for $49 was quite a steal. I continue to play the console regularly, enjoying games like Arkham Asylum, Borderlands, Just Cause, and more, without a single hitch in gameplay.

Well, they have just today announced the exact same deal, only this time it is for the upcoming game Red Faction: Armageddon. If you preorder it for $49, you get the game when it comes out, immediate full access to Red Faction: Guerrilla, and a free microconsole and controller. I have been planning on getting a second controller anyway for the exact same price alone, so this deal I immediately jumped on.

I definitely encourage you to check this one out. It’s an extremely portable full current-day gaming platform, and the array of games is quite impressive. I’ve yet to be disappointed. Plus, since the controller works with your PC, even if the game and system go bust you still have a nice controller left over. On top of that, it really is the only way I have found so far to “rent” new, full PC games and try them before you buy them.

Here’s the Link to the promo (and no, it is not a user referral, if that matters)

I remember years ago, at a previous service-related job in a previous city of residence, being handed a copy of the book Raving Fans and told to read it. The boss-man actually made said reading mandatory, and assigned a book report-like follow-up for all of us to turn in. The book wasn’t bad, in all honesty, and at the time my job performance benefited from having read it.

Years later, there’s very little that I recall from its pages, but one bit of it still sticks with me today: customers are more likely to spread the word about an absolutely terrible experience than an absolutely amazing one. Sadly, this is the case today. I’ve recently posted my very first review on Amazon, and it’s pretty negative. It’s about a subject that I love: Dead Space. Particularly, it’s about the atrocious work of animation that is Dead Space: Aftermath.

I’ll spare the details here, and instead just link you to the actual review.

The first is Realm of the Mad God. It’s a browser-based, online co-op fantasy mmo shooter. Yeah, that. And it’s great!

The other is Rogue Survivor, a rogue-like zombie survival game. It, too, is pretty damn great.

We’re now two sessions into the Project Dismember, and the game is kicking ass. While I have yet to bring into play any moments of intense emotional what-the-fuckery, the game is building some heavy steam and moving along at a fantastic pace. There’s a good balance between comedy and “oh shit,” and the times I’ve opened things up to free-form role-playing have filled me with glee.

I’ve started up a campaign wiki and game log over at Obsidian Portal. There I’m keeping records of various house rules and setting details, as well as a running tracker of who has died so far, when, and how.

Last night had one of my favorite quotes of the campaign so far: “Randy, roll the dice to see if you beat your wife.” Yeah, this game is moving along very nicely.

In order to get ready for the Project Dismember game,
I’ve hammered out four new sets of house rules for use in running zombie survival campaigns with Unknown Armies. I was initially using the RPG.net forums to work on them, but I’ll move them here for collection and further updating.

Included are the following five sets of House Rules:

• Relationships add skill-modifying percentages to your character to use when relying on, helping, or working against other characters in your team.
• Infection is a mechanic for tracking the spread of the zombie infection after you are exposed to it. It is implemented like a new Madness Meter, with some unique modifications.
• Hordes are my attempt to transform the core Unknown Armies Riot mechanics into an effective representation of the infamous Zombie Horde.
• Fortification rules allow the survivors to work together to locate, acquire, and enhance hideouts and safehouses.
• Scarcities are a way to implement the danger of dwindling necessities, inspired by the core Madness Meter mechanics.

Read on for the details! Read more

“Merry Christmas to All, now you’re All gonna Die!”

This coming Thursday night will be the first session of a five-part December-only mini-campaign, which I have entitled “Project Dismember.” Currently the roster is full for the first session, but I want to post the details here to share the setup. I’m really looking forward to this one, and have been deeply immersing myself in zombie fiction since deciding to throw this thing together.

What: Project Dismember is a five-week tournament-style open-story role-playing experience. You and your friends must survive not only the overwhelming desolation of the zombie apocalypse, but your own dark sides as well. When the dead walk the earth and feed upon the flesh of the living, when a single bite is all it takes to turn your best friend into your worst enemy, who can you trust? What will you do to stay alive?

When: The first session will be hosted the night of Thursday, December 2nd, starting at 7 PM, at my place. We’ll play four-hour sessions each time, ending around 11 PM. Five full sessions will happen, with the last night taking place on December 30th.

Who: You! I have open room for up to 10 players each night, on a strict RSVP roster. See the Rules further below for details.

Other: There will be prizes given based on a combination of character experience and longevity. The short of it is that the longest-lived characters who went through the most shit will net their players rewards. These will be books, gift cards, games, and other items of nerdly or even monetary value.

I’m asking a $1 buy-in for each night of the game you play. Since I’ll be spending real actual money to acquire several possible prizes, I think this is pretty fair – and to be quite frank, I would gladly pay a GM a dollar a night ro run a bitchin’ game, if it kept the group together and assured a good time for all.

I’m currently also planning on audio-recording these sessions, and releasing them as MP3s on my blog.

THE RULES:

• For this tournament, we will be using the core dice mechanic from the game Unknown Armies, with all of the magick stuff stripped out and thrown away. It is a relatively simple and elegant core mechanic, and allows for some realistic and very, very deadly combat.
• There will be special mechanics for earning character experience primarily through three avenues: Survival, Teamwork, and “Meta-Betrayal.” This third involves you taking an active interest in the flaws of other characters, and inserting in-game situations in which those flaws will come to light and be challenged. Should the specifically affected character(s) accept those challenges and overcome, then both of you receive the experience.
• I have maximum room for ten players each night. Starting with the first session, any pre-existing players will be given first-pick placement for the following sessions. There’s one catch: when your character dies or gets turned, you are out of the game as a player. You can still hang around and provide an audience, and even give suggestions to the GM (me) on ways to screw with the others, but you are out of the prize lineup. Additionally, if ever you have to miss a session for any reason, your character is killed or turned, no exceptions. If there are open player slots, new players can drop in and take a place in the game, as new survivors encountered in the story. New players most certainly can have a go at the prizes, too.
• I will function as a hands-off GM. My role will be that of antagonist and world-setter, and nothing more. There will be no plot or meta-story other than the ones you create with your own characters. My job will be to make their lives miserable, and make them suffer horrible, disgustin, ignoble fates. Players will have enhanced story control through the activation of other characters’ nagative traits, using them to create bad situations for experience.

So it’s all up to you. You can work together to survive. You can resolve your differences, ignore your fellows’ flaws, get past their twisted pasts in order to survive as a team. Or you can throw your fellows to the wolves and take the prize for yourself.

This week I met with three new players to start up a new Burning Wheel campaign. This one is based in a micro-setting I’ve had kicking around in my head for some time now, originally established for a game that never actually started. I’ll try and give it to you in a sentence: “In a near-industrial fantasy world where most everyone lives in massive isolated city-states, wars are fought not by armies, but by godlike warriors who duel with the powers of the heavens.” Each city-state has its chosen Proxy, and when conflicts arise, the Proxies duel it out to determine a victor.

This core paradigm extends all the way down into the deepest dregs of society, where even the most petty legal disputes are resolved by official bouts between representative warrior-proxies. While the Magnificantes themselves may be chosen chosen by the gods (at least, that’s what most of the peasantry and the new budding labor class believes), the proxies further down the scale are just top class warriors with official recognition, lawyers who represent by power of combat skill alone.

Torch is one such city-state, and within the dirtiest of its wrought-iron-encrusted streets is where our story begins. They’re all part of the underworld surrounding the lowest rungs of the Proxy fights, either directly involved with the shady dealings that pervade these bouts, or directly affected (victimized?) by them.

It’s kind of like The Wire meets The Lies of Locke Lamora meets Robot Jox. Read more

I have a confession to make: I am frequently “that guy” at the gaming table. No, not that guy, ew, gross *shudder* thank heavens no. I actually bathe. No, I mean that guy who gets a little too into his moments, a little carried away. I frequently lose touch with the rest of the group’s needs when I’m in that awesome moment of role-playing. I don’t try to steal the spotlight, mind you, but once I have it I tend to forget I am in the forefront and just run with the moment as long as I can. It’s not a conscious move I’m making, and once I realize that I may in fact be hogging I do my best to step back, and then feel really guilty about the whole thing for a bit.

Lately I tend to leave every game session with this unspoken fear that I went too far this time, that those seemingly awesome ideas of things to do and my efforts to bring them into play crossed a line. I wonder how much of this is overly self-conscious paranoia, and how much is really me getting a bit lost and over-zealous? Fearing that the latter may be the case, I ask you: how do you reign yourselves in, folks, when the spotlight gets a little too awesome to let go? How do you avoid being this guy?

Apocalypse World – the new game from Vincent Baker – has been making the rounds through all the gaming blogs I regularly follow. It’s a grim’n'gritty, totally player/character-driven game of post-apocalyptic inter-personal relations. I’ve heard it described on more than one occasion as “Firefly, but after the bombs.” It’s wicked fun, and I’m currently involved in two steady games of it.

On more than one of these aforementioned gaming blogs, the writers have made comments to the effect of “this ain’t the tabletop version of Fallout, kids” or “if you’re looking for the apocalypse Fallout, try Gamma World instead.” My first instinct was to nod my head and think “yeah, this game is way more mature than Fallout, that’s totally right.” But upon recent deeper play-throughs of Fallout 3, I realize that that couldn’t be further from the truth. Apocalypse World is perfect for bringing the world of Fallout to life.

Let’s face it: the Fallout universe is right fucked from the get-go. It’s the blasted remains of a world scorched by a global nuclear war started in the 2100s – a war fueled by civilizations that never shed their 1950s ideals. As you wander the wasteland in any direction you wish to explore, you see the remnants of those elitist, isolationist ideals everywhere. You never once forget that the way things are now was caused by the smothering hubris of the last generation of powers-that-be, and in their stead you find only ruin and chaos.

The Fallout franchise is frequently remembered for its tongue-in-cheek humor, but what tabletop game session isn’t, as well? I’ve played all the games in the franchise to date, and while I agree that that humor is there and in droves, the most recent game in the series at times takes a stark turn towards the depressing and macabre. As a prime example of how Fallout 3 can definitely work with Apocalypse World, let’s look at the town of Grayditch. Yes, there be spoilers behind the cut. Read more