Now, I’ve made no secret of my dislike for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition, based on my experiences with the game and its then-gamemaster. Still, I wonder if it is an appropriate game system for the dungeon delve. Now, you may think that I have a bias (and I do), but still I think the answers may surprise you.

To my mind, a dungeon delve game is about atmosphere–about the damp of the dungeon corridors, the darkness which presses down upon the characters, and the overwhelming sensation that they just AREN’T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE. The rules have to either support the atmosphere or at the very minimum get the hell out of the way and allow the gamemaster to create the atmosphere. I called 4E soulless–and it is–but it can do an acceptable job of doing the dungeon delve session because of that soullessness.

All that you need to do as a gamemaster is cut through the bulls#!+ that accompanies 4E like a massive collection of abandoned steamer trunks and strip the system and the scenario down to the basics.

A dungeon delve is a progression, which becomes harder and harder the deeper into the dungeon you go. There is an appropriate amount of encounters, and traps, and inherent dangers (tunnel collapse, water hazards, pockets of toxic gas, cave winds, etc.) which becomes more and more dangerous throughout the course of the progression. The dungeon is an endurance race of sorts–the GM wants to make sure that the players survive through the dungeon so that his work on creating the dungeon doesn’t go to waste and that they have fun through the encounter, and the players want to feel like they just marched through hell to save the day and get the treasure.

In this respect, the encounter generation rules contained in 4E (and even D&D 3.5) can be very helpful in establishing the progression–making sure that the characters are challenged enough without being overwhelmed in early encounters, while simultaneously building the encounter difficulty as the delve progresses. Unfortunately, because the encounter guidelines are so well-known and so rigidly interpreted by many gaming groups, it is really easy for the players to cry foul if the encounter ends up being harder than it needs to. Still, it does represent a good starting point for designing an encounter.

Using that as a basis, you can layer on certain roleplaying elements to the encounters you generated and really amp up the experience.

1. Entering the dungeon means there is no going back. There’s no retreat to the safety of the neighbourhood inn, and there’s no cleric at the temple that you can go to before making another expedition. Nothing kills the atmosphere on a dungeon delve quicker than knowing that you can keep on making assaults on the dungeon until you get through.

2. The dungeon has to be explored and explored quickly. Television and movies use a narrative device called a “time lock” where the protagonists have to complete their tasks before time runs out. If you make the mission important enough for characters to go into the dungeon, and you add in the time pressure of having to retreive the fabled Lost Armour of Samarkand before the Illyrian army marches at first light, then that increases the atmosphere of the delve very nicely beyond the “kick in the door, kill the monster, steal the treasure” nonsense that typifies way too many Fantasy RPGs.

3. To follow on from Point #2–the Dungeon has to be explored. Even the stoutest dungeon delver is going to think twice about crawling deep into an underground hole to find treasure if he’s warm and comfortable at the local inn, along with a well-funded retirement account. Treasure shouldn’t be simply stuff–give the party a reason beyond the merely mercenary for the delve. Make it so that they have to recover a potent artifact to keep the world from ending, or so they have to get through the dungeon to make it to the other side of a mountain pass undetected, or so they have to rescue a precious hostage taken by a band of monsters before the hostage is killed. If the treasure is going to be a traditional treasure (with lots of gold and jewels, etc.), at least have the players come up with a reasonable role-playing rationale for going after the treasure–like getting to it before the big bad guy and his minions do.

4. Treat the treasure of intermediate encounters as just crap to weigh players down rather than really cool stuff that can help them face the big bad guy at the end of the dungeon. Let’s be honest here, a lot of GMs like to give their players a lot of gold and jewels and magic items as a reward for surviving the intermediate encounters. But the problem with this is that the players can choose to back out from the dungeon at any time when they feel that their character has “earned enough.” Instead, if they want to fill their pockets with loot, then have the loot weigh them down (damn those encumbrance rules). Or, don’t give them any loot at all. For example, the bad guys have crap weapons, and maybe carry only a few coppers so that players won’t be tempted to grab everything that isn’t nailed down.

5. Instead, save the bigger treasures for the key story encounters. If the players run into a key lieutenant of the big bad guy, then give them something that makes their quest easier–or which at least brings them up to the level where they can face down the next encounter rather than be overwhelmed by it. Give them a map as a treasure, or a low-level magic item which makes their wounds heal faster. Treat treasure as part of the story, rather than as part of the Pavlovian reward dynamic that has character salivating once they run into monsters.

6. Don’t allow the characters to level up until they have defeated the dungeon. I know that the practice is for instant levelling once a character has attained a certain number of XP, but let’s be honest here–there is no reasonable explanation that would allow a character to obtain the benefits of a higher level while he’s stuck in the middle of a hole in the ground. Make sure that the players understand that this is the case before you start the game so they won’t be blindsided by it later on.

Now, I’m still  not a fan of 4E, but given the above I think I could work with it.

I’d probably go a lot farther and really limit the usefulness of “powers” (aka Bunny Rules) and magics just to make the player spend a lot more effort thinking their way through encounters rather than doing the hack-and-slash approach, but the suggestions above are enough to make a 4E Dungeon Delve memorable.

As far as alternate rules systems go, I do have my favourites but neither of them are as suited to the purpose of dungeon-delving as 4E is. The Riddle of Steel is an excellent simulation of renaissance-era combat and its spiritual attributes system is excellent at enhancing roleplaying, but it is a little bit too detailed in the wrong areas for a dungeon delve–especially one with a timelock. Warhammer FRP is also very good at what it does, but I’m afraid that the random character generation can make characters less-than-optimal for a dungeon delve.

Both of these systems also incorporate a little too much lethality to allow player characters to survive a dungeon delve–the monsters should be able to be easily dispatched, but characters should be able to take a few knocks and make it to the end of the dungeon.

Apparently, this is a Manga series that was out in 1998 and was updated from Vietnam to a more contemporary setting.

Okay, aside from the characters being furry animals in real-world situations, what’s the draw? What are the characters and storylines all about? Or is this going to be another “Snakes on a Plane“–all flash and no cash?

If you have good characters in which the audience wants to emotionally invest, and you have compelling storylines, then by all means have the characters be gun-toting bunny rabbits. But if the raison d’etre for your project is to have gun-toting bunny rabbits, then you should be prepared for failure. Or at least consignment to the same cartoon hell that is reserved for Ren and Stimpy cartoons. Sure, they were popular once too, but they’re not around anymore, are they?

Anime series are notorious for great concept and great opening titles, but when it comes to actually delivering on the storylines and animation for the rest of the episodes, they sometimes leave a lot to be desired.

Okay, I haven’t seen the actual show or read the Apocalypse Meow Manga. My point isn’t that the manga sucks, or that the upcoming anime sucks. My point is that I hope that the concept behind the story of Apocalypse Meow/Catshitone is far more than just “Hey, let’s show soldiers as cute fuzzy animals and hope that the juxtaposition between the tw0 is enough to carry the entire show.”

Because it never is.

Combat is a bit disconcerting for FRP fans, especially those weaned on 4E where you have healing surges, healing potions, and you keep on hacking at an enemy until either you or he fall down (yes, I’m still p****d at 4E, why do you ask?), but in WHFRP, the criticals help make the system work well. Combat is not something to be undertaken lightly and while you can probably withstand a few turns of hacking, there will come the time when your opponent lands a solid blow that crits you right back to the character creation section.

Normally, I’m not a fan of criticals. Perhaps this comes from playing a lot of Rolemaster and realizing that the criticals often made the wounds seem humourous or non-threatening, somehow. I think that the Rolemaster designers allowed a lot of irreverence to creep in to the system over time, but for many Rolemaster fans, that’s not a bug in the system–that’s a feature. But with WHFRP, the criticals do what they’re supposed to do and make combat much more deadly than the simple hacking that many other systems use as their model.

While the combat system doesn’t provide everything I want in a Fantasy system (detailed wound locations, properly modelled weapon damage, tactical maneuver, different combat maneuvers), it is tough to beat as a “beer-and-pretzels” RPG.

We play again this week. I’ll let you know if my opinion changes.

Heh.

Playing the game consisted of rolling up characters and getting into a bit of light roleplaying as we focused on just gettign a feel for the system. The completely random character creation we used allowed all of us characters that we could slip into and no-one felt slighted that they didn’t get the job they wanted. Not being too sure of our characters abilities, we didn’t get into combat on gaming night–in fact our GM said that we were doing a great job at avoiding all of the bait that he had set out. Still, we kept things light and humourous, but the GM was able to keep building the sense of menace that started to gather around our little town.

Some quick comments on the system:

Random character creation is really nice. Being able to roll up a character within a few minutes–even without having read the rules–was a very nice feature. One of the worst elements of roleplaying is the communal character creation session where you spend four hours in the company of your peers rolling up your characters for the game you’ll be playing NEXT session. Double root canals are entertaining by comparison. The problem is that everyone wants to figure out what the comparative benefits are of one character class compared to another, and how can they exploit the rules to maximize their kick-assery, and please Mr. GM, can you come and hold my hand and walk me through this…? No. It’s a game. You’re making a character, not marrying one. The objective of RPGs is to PLAY…not spend hours building characters. We leave the construction sessions for Battletech players (and maybe the GW fanboyz).

Now, random character creation isn’t for everybody, but at least you know that with WHFRP, none of the characters really suck. In fact, the character professions have a great deal of charm to them. I mean, what other game allows you the opportunity to be the town’s ratcatcher? Or to start by playing a Servant, or a Vagabond? There are benefits to all of these characters–and it makes for a nice change from 4E where all the NPCs are essentially grouped into a single faceless mob that are beneath the notice of player characters playing Fighters or Wizards. By allowing (and in random creation, forcing) characters to take professions beyond the typical Fighter, Cleric, Mage, Thief, Ranger, Paladin, you end up with a greater appreciation for the people around you. They are as capable as you are and they are more than just dragon fodder. Any one of them could be a hero as well. In 4E, none of them could.

And there’s also the system. It’s just fun. It’s a system that’s light enough that it gets out of the way and allows you to play. Compared to 4E, where the system is always in your face and saying what you can and can’t do, the WHFRP lets you get on with the business of playing your character.

Now, we haven’t gotten into combat yet, so there are more aspects to the system to explore. But so far, I’m liking it.

I’ll admit it, I’ve become a fan of the Legend of the Seeker. This new show from Sam Raimi and Bob Tapert has proven to be one of the best shows on Television. This is what fantasy television should be.

Based on the Sword of Truth novels of Terry Goodkind, the shot-in-New-Zealand tv series is big budget and combines straightforward themes of valour, nobility, and good v. evil in straightforward action-packed stories. The show is neither grim nor gritty and has a lightheartedness to it that is entertaining without traipsing into the camp of Hercules and Xena. At the same time, it is also able to present serious stories and subject matter without becoming as depressing as, say, Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica.

The characters are portrayed well and all have their strengths and weaknesses. It would have been very easy to cast Richard as an incompetent lout whose best asset is his sword arm, but they have in fact chosen to show Richard having strengths and intellect far beyond being the one chosen to wield the Sword of Truth. Kahlen Amnell is shown as a more than competent warrior as well as a powerful woman of Magic, but she makes errors in judgment which avoids the “superwoman” syndrome so common among genre heroines. And Zedd is a wizard–impatient, domineering, and utterly convinced that the world responds to his whims and timetable–and not the other way around. All in all, they are good, heroic characters.

Given that the series wasn’t even halfway through its first season before being renewed for a second season, this show is becoming very popular indeed, and we may see some renewed interest in the fantasy genre which had been pretty badly suffering following the Tolkien burnout of the Lord of the Rings films and the release of D&D 4th Edition.

Since this is a blog about gaming and gaming culture, the question is which game systems would work best for recreating the world of the Midlands?

Given my disdain for 4E, it’s already obvious that this one’s been eliminated from the running. The rigidity of the system and lack of character customization precludes the system from being able to generate characters for Richard Cypher, Kahlan Amnell, or the Wizard Zedd–let alone Darken Rahl and his minions. The fast pace of combat also is not suited to 4E which tends to plod along at it’s own methodic (and often glacial) pace.

I would be tempted to try this with the defunct “Riddle of Steel” system. The Sword of Truth is magical and can have spiritual attributes for “Rage” and “Forgiveness/Love” which would give Richard massive amounts of added dice when using the sword. Plus, the character of Richard as Seeker would be relatively easy to build.

Kahlen as a Confessor would have to make use of the Magic system, and would have some serious hand-to-hand abilities. Under the magic system, the caster would be rolling against a high target number to dominate another permanently, and this also is a high target number for resisting knockout. Kahlen is a powerful sorceress under these rules, but would not necessarily have access to any and all spells–only those with which she would be able to apply her “Confessor” spiritual attributes. Given that she is weakened by the act of Confession, it would fit with TRoS’s magic system which requires a knockout roll made upon casting. I think that you’d have to ignore the aging rolls.

And Zedd is tailor-made for these magic rules, even if you were to include TRoS’s aging rolls although it seems Zedd’s strong enough of a wizard to be able to resist them when casting minor spells such as Wizard’s Fire.

The more I think about it, the more I’m tempted to run a LotS campaign using TRoS–or some variant thereof. If anyone has any suggestions for other systems which would work well for LotS, let me know.

Having read through the rules, and played a few sessions, I’ve found the rules to be pretty soulless. It’s like all the bits are there, but it just doesn’t gel into a coherent whole and is a pretty substantial mess.

When 4E was released last year, there was a lot of discussion about the new flavour of the system and how it had become more like a MMORPG (or “morgue” as we like to refer to it)–more specifically like World of Warcraft which was eating D&D’s lunch in terms of popularity, time commitment, and dollars. So, 4E was rewriiten to make it more like an online RPG without the “online” component.

And so, you end up with characters that fall into very specific categories. For example: the Clerics and Warlords are what can be called “support” characters, whose presence on the field automatically grants certain bonuses to the other player characters. Fighters are the “meatshields” and wizards are the casting characters who can do massive damage given a chance. So everybody has a role to play–or more accurately, a slot to fill. And if you don’t have someone filling that slot…well, let’s just say that the encounters become messy.

But beyond that, there’s no essence of the characters. All you are is a meatshield, or a can opener, or a support character. There’s nothing in there to inspire your characters towards adventure beyond the: “kick down the door, kill the monster, steal the treasure, wash, rinse, repeat” style of play. Oh sure, there’s campaign settings but these are as soulless as the main rules. Worlds of high magic and racial harmony–except against those tricksy orcses and koboldses…then they’re monsters to be skinned and gutted. In order to be able to give the characters a sense of belonging to the world, you need to go beyond the incredibly limiting character roles and start making them three dimensional. Other games can do this with a minimum of effort (Spirit of the Century and Fate come to mind), so why does D&D decide to purge the character essence from the rules? Why are there no rules in there that support roleplaying?

The reason is that D&D has chosen to go after the Morgue Gamerz who don’t want any roleplaying in their hack and slash. So, what you end up with is a tabletop version of “grinding”–the practice of killing lots of monsters to gain gold and XP so you can get better weapons so you can kill more monsters. Pretty pointless overall.

The point of RPGs isn’t that you’re able to kill the monsters or collect a treasure that’s worth a million gold pieces. The point is the fun that you have with the other people around the gaming table. It’s about nearly selling the GM’s wife into slavery in the first half-hour of the campaign (ok, it was actually her character that was nearly sold into slavery). It’s about making pirate scum believe that you’ve been possessed by evil spirits. It’s about risking your character’s life to save that of a friend. It’s about saving your character’s sister from slavers. Ultimately it’s about people.

4E isn’t about people. It’s about slots. And about monsters. And about fake money. And this meaningless thing called XP. With that kind of focus, even a good GM is going to have a hard time creating a good experience for his players.

GDH hopes the move will return Gonzo to profitability in those five years after slowing DVD sales took the company into red-ink territory.

While there may be those who would blame this on the worldwide recession that hit last year, the problems are actually a bit more deep-seated than that. For a  long time now, the fansubbing community has been busy grabbing each and every episode that they can, subtitling it in English, and distributing the content online for free. Though the fansubbers tend to paint themselves as people doing it out of passion, the reality is that they’re little more than vandals who are taking someone else’s creative property and giving it away to anyone who wants it.

Gresham’s law says that Bad Currency drives out Good Currency, and here fansubbed anime is driving out licensed anime. In an open letter to the anime industry in 2007, ANN’s Justin Sevakis wrote the following:

I understand the panic going on. I’ve seen the numbers myself. They’re terrifying. It’s not uncommon now for a DVD to not even make back the cost of the dubbing, let alone the license fee. When only a few years ago it was commonplace for shows to get licensed for $70,000 or more per episode, today a show can be licensed for less than half of that. And they’re still not profitable.

Clearly, the business model is failing. People realize this, but nobody’s actually doing anything about it. Rather than take decisive action, the industry keeps trying the same things it’s been doing for years, and when that inevitably doesn’t work, the fans who download are blamed. Which makes sense. After all, they’re getting the product but not paying for it. Most people would call that stealing.

It’s not just called stealing. It is stealing. But Justin doesn’t point the finger where it belongs. Imagine this chutzpah in the next paragraphs:

I do not blame the fans who download with impunity and don’t buy a thing. Their attitudes, while damaging, are simply a reflection of the value of anime, which these days, is about $0.00.

That’s right. Anime that has been fansubbed is effectively worthless. It’s being given away for free. In terms of supply and demand, there is an infinite supply, and therefore the product is worthless regardless of how many people want it – it’s like trying to sell buckets of sea water to people on a beach. The only people who would pay for it are either older fans who are attached to the old ways of consuming media, or worse, are doing so out of charity.

That is the state of this industry. And the companies who depend on anime for their livelihood let this happen.

Of course, it was the industry that was at fault. And the Industry, because it was not enforcing its rights is the problem. And yet, these are the same people who cry foul when RIAA or the MPAA start suing people for downloading music and movies. Can’t have it both ways there Jason.

There used to be a sense of honor among fansubbers. When an anime became licensed in a region, the fansubbers pulled the copies or torrents and allowed the licensees to distribute anime for a profit. However, the downloaders, who actually end up reducing the value of a property to zero nowadays tend to be less concerned about allowing licensees to make a living from the property.

And now here we are. Anime is dying. Gonzo, one of the more famous anime production houses out there is cutting its staff by nearly three quarters and yet the downloaders of anime continue to blissfully point the finger at the industry.

• “You’re not producing anime fast enough.”
• “You’re not getting it dubbed in English fast enough.”
• “Anime costs too much.Why should I pay $5/an episode?”
• “Anime should be free.”
• “Change your business model. Make your money from advertising, or sponsorships.”
• “Get some bailout money from the American government. It’s all their fault anyways.”

Okay, I added in the last one since it seems topical (and may not be too far from other solutions being bandied about).

Ultimately, it all comes down to anime downloaders wanting their anime and not being willing to do anything to help. Instead, they cast themselves as if not victims, then certainly blameless when their hands are the ones stained with the red ink of the anime companies’ balance sheets.

The reality is that fansubbers and downloaders have stolen countless hours of anime from the rights-holders and have done an immense amount of damage to the industry as a whole. What was forseen ten years ago, and warned of two years ago is coming to pass. Anime companies are failing, cutting back on productions, and laying off animators. While the anime production studios start crashing down around them, the fansubbers and downloaders will simply look away and say “Don’t blame me…you guys should have stopped me before it got this far.”

Jerks.

Battlefront is one of the few miniatures gaming companies that has managed to achieve significant market penetration in the hobby with historical miniatures. The high production values on the rulebooks and the insanely extensive range of 15mm WWII miniatures make their WWII wargames a sheer eye-candied joy to behold.

While some grognards don’t like the rules for their lack of “historic accuracy”–whatever that means–the rules play fun, fast, and bloody with company-level actions able to be resolved in a couple of hours. And yes,  I’m working on a Western Desert set of armies for FoW at the moment–DAK, Italians, and Desert Rats. Does this make me a FoW fanboy? Oh well.

With the purchase of WI Magazine, this gives the New Zealand-based miniatures manufacturer the ability to market their products monthly to the general hobby and gaming public and assume the battle standard for being THE historical miniatures company of the hobby. It might allow the miniatures gaming market to expand a bit more beyond the WFB/40K quagmire that fills the gaming halls.

Warhammer Historicals? Never heard of them.

From Battlefront’s news release:

We have plans to re-launch the magazine soon with an increased page count, a wider range of articles covering every game, scale and era of the historical hobby combined with broader distribution globally so that getting hold of the foremost historical gaming magazine will be easier than ever” says John-Paul Brisigotti, Managing Director of Battlefront Miniatures.

Cool.

Yeah it looks like it was recorded on a cellphone at San Diego Comic Con, but what’s in the promo is very cool indeed. This is a cartoon aimed at more mature audiences. The audiences are probably comprised of the same people who ready Larry Hama’s Marvel Comics GI Joe religiously and watched the Sunbow cartoon in the 1980s.

It’s no secret that the GI Joe brand has been through some rough times as Hasbro tried to find a way of capitalizing on the popularity of the little guys and threw a lot of strange stuff up under the GI Joe logo. But the animated properties that were put together between the Sunbow era and GI Joe resolute were all pretty horrific. Even the Gonzo Anime (GI Joe Sigma Six) left a lot to be desired.

Now, with the movie GI Joe: Rise of Cobra coming out this summer, Hasbro has licensed the animated web-series GI Joe Resolute, but also a new comic book written by Larry Hama that reboots the GI Joe comic in a more mature way. Issue 0 and Issue 1 play to verisimilitude more than spectacle. Overall, it looks like it could be a lot of fun for us Joe-heads.

Yo Joe!