None of them are particularly spectacular, but I felt I should let people know a bit about what I’ve been working on. I’m also working on a website for a Cyprus property investment company, which should be done in the next couple of weeks.
Tom Spina Designs (via therpf.com) show us what you can get if you have expensive and sci-fi tastes.
http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=39500
Originally written for lategaming.com.
Here’s the scenario: you’re writing a green field web application. This application will be used to power more than one e-commerce site, which means that it must be easily tailored. You can use any toolset you like, and the requirements are fairly standard (e.g. exporting data to CSV, modern UI, payment gateway, etc.). What do you choose?
So, it seems you’ve got three options (anyone think of a 4th?). Of course within each of these options there are any number of competing solutions, especially in “build your own”, where you could potentially use any language, web server, etc.
I think with any software developer, the preference is to build one’s own. That way you get ultimate flexibility and intimate understanding of the code, which makes it easier to expand and customise. The downside is that you have more work up-front in order to get running.
Off-the-shelf (i.e. commercial) software tends to have a lot of features that your accountant and fulfillment department would like, and often gives you the ability to customise using one of a few popular languages or their own pseudo-language. The real advantage is that you can have a store quickly, or so you might think. Often, shoe-horning your data into their proprietary and closed-source format makes this option longer and more expensive than building it yourself.
All of which leaves open-source engines. You can be up and running quickly (like with commercial apps) but you have access to the source code if you decide you need to change things the way you want them. Potential downsides are lack of support and lack of particular features you might need (e.g. a particular payment gateway).
So, which would you choose?
If I forget myself and accidentally order one I certainly never order a second (I usually drink hot chocolate in Starbucks).
In the UK, all the wi-fi at Starbucks is through T-mobile who charge £30 ($60!) a month to use their hotspots. With a 1Gb download limit.
One of the biggest issues I had back when I was working in a coffee shop all day was that I’d get too comfortable in the chair and not move around as much as I should (eventually I got tendonitis). At least this way I always get up and leave after an hour.
We’ve not posted much in the last couple of weeks. This has been for a few reasons:
#3 is probably most interesting. We were working on a few ( 7 or 8 ) games at a very high level, and we have about 30 ideas that are a few lines long which could become interesting games in their own right. Up until now, we’ve had no real concerted strategy for producing a game.
Now we do. We’ve selected a game, we’ve thrashed out the content and now we’re doing the hard work of creating it. More information will be made available as we get closer to having something finished.
Originally written for lategaming.com.
Not only are there multiple sites showing that Crucible Design have produced Qabal, this site provides a description and *gasp* someone has even rated the game.
Saves us the effort of actually writing it then.
Originally written for lategaming.com.
Here are some annoying habits that players can exhibit in your game. There are some suggestions as to how to deal with these problems, either by encouragement (as another player) or enforcement (as a GM).
Problem: the character has the exact same personality as the player, which means that every character that players plays has the same personality. The result is usually very forgettable characters a bland roleplaying experience for everyone else. Unfortunately, this type of player is often a roll-player also (see below). Even the two-word-personality is better than this.
Solution: The GM think about the character as a character, instead of a series of statistics. Write down the major motivations of that character and play them. Even two-dimensional role-playing is better than none.
Problem: you try to play a serious game and someone comes up with a stupid name for their character. This leaves everyone either snickering or sighing every time the character introduces themselves.
Solution: keep your name appropriate to the game setting. GMs should veto stupid names anyway, so this could well be the result of poor refereeing or player-bullying.
Problem: the flow of the game is constantly broken as the player points out the rules and loopholes that have been used or missed in every situation. This is common in players who are more used to GMing, and in those who prefer less narrative style games.
Solution: this is a tough one. Remind the player that the GM is the final arbiter in all things (stick). Reward the player for good role-play, ideally through creating good story,regardless of the rules (carrot). One way is to give a conditional award – e.g. Everyone gets 3 character points for last week’s session. One (or more) of Bob’s are conditional on him not pointing rules infractions in this week’s session.
Problem: the player knows the system/background really well, and knows what every creature or denizen is capable of doing. Often this results in the character taking unrealistic chances based on knowledge he/she wouldn’t have. Sometimes it’s saying something like “there can’t really be a huge dragon in that cave as we’re all puny characters and the GM wouldn’t do that to us”.
Solution: give standard foes a non-standard name and/or appearance. Give them abilities that they could have but aren’t in the published material. Kill stupid characters who go into the dragon’s cave – it’s harsh, but fair (make sure and give plenty of warning that this is a dangerous thing to do!). Don’t tell the players what they are up against – describe to the characters what they experience.
Problem: One player insists on taking up a large percentage of the GM’s time. Sometimes this is because of rules-lawyering (above), other times it’s just because they (the GM and the player) don’t realise what they are doing.
Solution: Whether you’re a GM or a player, the simplest solution is to engage the other players in roleplaying. As a player, you should also try to engage the GM-hog, which will free up the GM and get the game moving again. If you can’t engage him/her, at least the RP with your other team-mates will provide for an interesting session. As a GM, you need to get better at managing your time equally (as much as possible) between players – creating circumstances for inter-player RP is one of the most effective time management techniques.
Problem: a player insists on making a roll for everything (“It’s a … pleasure to meet you!”), which not only slows down the game, but many times doesn’t make any sense. This can often be frustratingly combined with rules-lawyering and playing oneself and at it’s worst can lead to min/maxing in order to ensure the best rolls.
Solution: as a GM, I’ve taken away a player’s dice and even his character sheet to prevent roll-playing. As a player, I’ve tried to lead by example – I keep my character sheet upside down as a rule, and roll only when the GM tells me to.
Got any more annoyances? I know there are lots I didn’t cover (like Munchkin, Hack and Slash, etc.) mostly because I felt like they were well-established (they have Wikipedia entries!).
Edit: apologies for the typo – I got roll and role mixed up at a key point. D’oh!
Originally written for lategaming.com.
5. Roll-playing Game
While not as bad as some systems (*cough* World of Darkness) in terms of the amount of dice you roll at one time, there are a lot of rolls for resolving single tasks. There are so many extra rules for things (most of which require rolls) that the emphasis is on the rules and dice rather than the roleplaying. You also need multiples of every type of dice – while most roleplayers have these it’s still a bit of a pain. One roll per action – surely that’s enough for any system? Oh, and don’t forget your synergy bonus!
4. Alignment
While I realise that alignment is just supposed to be a guideline, the rulebooks seem to contradict that. You can’t play a Paladin unless you’re Lawful Good at all times. How do you make a Paladin interesting then, while still remaining a Paladin? They’re all going to be shining paragons of justice and virtue. Playing clerics requires adherence to certain alignments, and the same for some other classes. While it might not be constricting for some, to me it’s like someone pigeonholing me simply because of my ethnic background or my accent.
3. Levels
Now that I’m a 3rd Level Rogue, I’m more likely to survive being stabbed that I was last week, when I was a 2nd Level Rogue. Having arbitrary levels which state what abilities you have or can have is so … 1980s. Please, I thought we left that all behind when we left high school. OK, you can use the optional rules (more rules!) around training, to make this a bit more realistic, but still. It bugs me that I can’t be (for example) a Wizard who only knows a Magic Missile spell but can cast 5 of them instead of the 3 dictated by his level. It feels like exactly what it is – a completely arbitrary way of rating characters so you can pit them against random monster enounters (hmmm .. I should have put random encounters on the list too).
2. Two Book Minimum
You want to play Dungeons and Dragons? Then you have to buy at least two books – the Players Handbook and the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Oh, you wanted a background? One more book (e.g. Player’s Guide to Faerun). Oh, you needed monsters for the background. That’s another (e.g. Monster Manual). Brand new at MSRP that’s $122.80. Even getting them second hand it’s over $50. One list of “essential” D&D books on Amazon has 40 entries totalling $834.75 (that includes Amazon’s discounts).
“But Wizards spawned the whole d20 movement, when they ‘open sourced’ the system!” Oh, really? Great – lots more games based around the same shit system.
1. Rabid Players
So, after spending vast quantities of money on all these expensive and extensive rule books, it seems that the average D&D player doesn’t want to be told that the game is pile of poo. Instead, they defend any slight vociferously, even when blatantly in the wrong (or when they miss the point entirely). And this symptom seems to spread into the other popular D20 games (ever notice how often Mutants and Masterminds players say “System X is no good, you can do all that and more in M&M”?).
Originally written for lategaming.com.
I commented to Matt the other day that the last time I actually *played* in a game was when he ran the original WatchTower game in 1998.
This got me to thinking that although I’ve read a lot of games, and I’ve played in a lot of campaigns, I haven’t really played lots of games. Here’s the total list, from memory:
While I’ve played a much larger range of games, those are the only ones which fulfil the these criteria:
(This, incidentally, has led me to a discovery about what I like about gaming … more in a future post).
If I look at it from the perspective of games that I’ve GM’d where my players would then fulfil these two criteria, the list would be even shorter:
I think this is because I’ve had a tendency to run long campaigns that I’ve really enjoyed (as has the group), and so there’s been little impetus to switch game. Pendragon is especially good for this as the game is designed for long running campaigns.
I’d be interested to read about other people’s experiences, as players and as GMs. Write a comment, or post in your blog with a ping/trackback.
Originally written for lategaming.com.
I looked up the definition of the word junkie. It says “Drug addict, esp. heroin”, and the term gets used to describe addicts to anything – adrenaline, sports, whatever. I think junkies (of the heroin type) are looking for the perfect high, which is what I mean when I describe myself as a system junkie.
The system of any RPG is at one and the same time the best and worst part of it – the most interesting and the least interesting. OK, I’m going to stop with the Dickens. What I mean is I don’t buy a game because of the system, I buy it because of every other factor: background, artwork, genre, even print quality, all go into my decision to buy a game. System never enters into it.
However, there are lots of games out there that miss out on greatness because their system lets them down. This doesn’t stop me from playing the game, but it usually means picking out the good bits and running it in a different system, or leaving out / creating house rules for large bits of the system.
SLA Industries tops my list for this – I love crunching numbers as much as any geek (actually, probably a bit more than most, as Matt will attest), but SLA character generation took the biscuit. Other systems had more numbers, but SLA had a poor layout for the information you needed, and even when you’d done it a dozen times it didn’t get any quicker. (Also, the first edition had pretty poor binding, so the char-gen section was the first to split – now it’s all in a binder).
I’m in search of great systems. Not all systems work for every game (which is why not everyone likes GURPS). Pendragon is a great example – you couldn’t (or shouldn’t try to) re-use the Pendragon system in any other setting (with the possible exception of George R. R. Martin’s Westeros books). Likewise, Marvel Super Heroes FASERIP system works really well for the Marvel background, but poorly elsewhere, even within the genre. And yet I like both of these systems, for very different reasons (Pendragon for the passions, skill perfection, criticals and skill checks, seasons, glory, children; Marvel because I do everything with one roll on one table).
Matt and I have been bandying about ideas for a system (as he’s mentioned). In this case, the system is for a super-hero game. I know it won’t be perfect. I just want it to give a good approximation of super-hero reality, without having to be a 300 page tome. We’re only going to write it if it fills all our criteria.
Got a favourite system? What’s good and bad about it? If you were writing it now, what would you do differently? These are the same questions I’m asking myself.
Originally written for lategaming.com.