chaos and noise

Most of these thoughts end up locked away in Evernote these days, but I thought I'd put this one out in semi-public. It helps to keep me accountable, and if it turns out to be a terrible idea I can point to major sleep deprivation clouding my judgement. Today isn't a great day for being able to string coherent words or thoughts together.

I want to run a short RPG set in the time before your typical Changeling story would take place. It's a story following some of the Lost through the hedge and into Arcadia, where they find themselves part of a world of unbridled madness; continually shaped and reshaped by the capricious entities that have carved out realms to suit their every desire. Maybe some of them will find their way back, though that's a story for another day. Most will fight against the changing world for a while, then gradually embrace the new powers it gives them. Some will embrace it too closely, losing the path that might one day lead them back home again. It's a story about imagination and transcending the mundane, and about the darker things that lie within all good fairy tales.

I think that the perfect rules-light system to handle this type of story is Don't Rest Your Head, with one small tweak. Discipline is still what lets the characters hold themselves together; Madness remains a source of dangerous, easy power if they want to risk delving into it. I'm renaming the iconic Exhaustion concept (a cumulative boost in power the longer you force yourself to remain awake, destined to ultimately crash you when you use it too much) for Belief. It works exactly the same way, but represents how much the characters begin to accept the weird world they find themselves in. To survive in this new realm you'll need to believe at least a few impossible things before breakfast. Believe too many though, and you might never make it back home - or if you do, you'll be so changed by your time away that you never fit back into the world you left.

DRYH is a simple but elegant narrative system that focuses on the stories of the characters, rather than crunchy rules about how to resolve all the minutiae. It takes all of five minutes to learn, helping to avoid the yet-another-game overload for a group that already plays a lot of different games. Most importantly, it does exactly what I want it to: taking characters away from humdrum reality and dropping them down a rabbit hole into a place where dreams can literally shape the world.

On a related note, Don't Rest Your Head is especially relevant after a small person has screamed in your face until 4AM. I am waiting for my insomniac superpowers to kick in at any moment.

As often happens when surrounded by work, I've been thinking about games.

jod999 organised a group to talk about games - kind of like a book club, but talking about computer games instead. I enjoyed the first meeting this week, using Osmos as a starting point - I bought a copy last week, and aeliel and I have been playing the hell out of it on the iPad. It works really well on a touch screen, even if I'm still to master any of the orbital levels. As with most computer games, aeliel is much better at it than I am.

I've also found myself trying to be as minimalist as possible for ages after playing it. Do I click on this thing in the web browser? No, just wait until the page you were looking for drifts into view. It's hard to shake out of that kind of slow, ambient mood.

Back in 2001, Ron Edwards wrote an essay on "GNS" for The Forge. It broke gaming down into three main categories - Gamism, Narrativism and Simulationism. I'm sure there are other ways of breaking down the genres, but it's the one that has stuck with me over the years..

"Gamey" games can be great, but I'm not very interested in them as roleplaying games. I love games that are challenging to learn, master and win - but that is why I play miniatures systems like Warmachine. Roleplaying game mechanics are peripheral to the story for me: I enjoy them when they are invisible, and when they don't get in the way of story-driven decisions.

As you can probably tell, narrative games are the reason I like roleplaying. If I'm playing an RPG, I'm there for the story. Not just the story being told by the person running the game - if I wanted a static story, I'd read a novel. I want to see how it evolves once there are living characters in that world. I've happily played in games with no rules or system at all, but I also like games that are designed to encourage the creation of a story.

Simulation-style games bore me to tears. I couldn't care less how accurate or realistic a system is, as long as it doesn't break my suspension of disbelief while I'm playing. It's partly a streamlining thing: I'm yet to see something elegant that captures all the detail a simulation wants to cover, as the default style appears to be pages of bloated, over-complex rules. I'll pass on these ones.

Years later, some people on RPG.net coined a tongue-in-cheek movement of their own: Cheetoism. "We game for the snacks. And also the dice. But mostly, just to hang out with friends and tell tall stories." I think that really sums up the thing I most enjoy about all the time spent with miss_rynn, bishi_wannabe, mousebane, aeliel, umbra_mentis and Lon over the years. There have been lots of games, using lots of different systems. But ultimately it's been an excellent excuse to spend time with friends, eat more than we really ought to, and tell stories.

qwade ran an old-school Worlds of Darkness game last weekend - in which a group of Mages, Werewolves and one very lost Kuei-Jin ran around trying (with, er, 'limited success') to prevent the western suburbs of Melbourne from being torn to shreds by escaped laboratory creations. It was a good chance to get out of the house and see people. I was also amused by the way an "old fashioned" pen and paper RPG works when almost everyone at the table has a tablet or smartphone... text search and PDF rules reduces all that time spent looking for rules, and you can also conjure up maps and aerial photos on a whim.

miss_rynn mentioned Changeling on Tuesday night, when we were talking about games that we've loved (or hated) in the past. I bought a copy of Changeling: The Lost today, and had a look through it on my lunchbreak. I haven't looked at any of the newer Worlds of Darkness games yet, as we've been playing other systems (Exalted, Weapons of the Gods, D&D) since it was released. I'm impressed with the breadth of the game, from my first glance at it.

The game is a lot sleeker than it used to be. I loved the old Changeling game, but it had some terrible flaws. Mechanically, a lot of it really didn't work alongside anything else in the setting. The character types felt fairly restrictive straight from the main book, and only became more interesting as new books were published. The new game takes a much older look at the Changeling story: characters that have been spirited away into other realms, and changed by their time away. When they finally return to earth they discover that they are nothing like the creatures they once were, and they also find that they aren't the only ones to have made that journey.

Most importantly, every Fae archetype that I can think of can be brought to life straight away. I haven't had a single idea so far that caused me to go "oh, but I can't actually play one of those in this game." I like games that help to build on the imagination of the players, instead of restricting it.

Some time in the last couple of days, I've forgotten how to sleep. I've tried just waiting for sleep to arrive (unsurprisingly, it didn't). I've tried getting out of bed and doing some exercise to get the blood flowing (still no luck - just ended up with weary and sore muscles). Now I've started writing (or typing) until I can't focus on what I'm doing any more. It's been marginally more successful, but I'm still sitting here at 2:30am...

Last night, aeliel and I went to see Inception at the Nova. I really enjoyed it - it's a beautifully constructed film, and manages to successfully juggle four or more simultaneous stories taking place at different speeds. A relatively small group of concepts used in their dreamscapes (subconscious projections, acceptance of the dream, the 'jump' and a dream's collapse) are used in a consistent way to build some great stories.

A few hours after seeing the film, I headed out to the couch and grabbed my laptop. By about 4am I had written my first properly fleshed out roleplaying system. It takes some of the dreamscape concepts from Inception, and adds some other elements that I wanted to play with: a player-driven mechanic for increasing the challenge in each scenario (think Grand Theft Auto's threat ratings), a cooperative-play mechanism where the group always has tangible goals to work towards, and a way to manipulate the "luck" element of the game via player skill.

It's going through the hypothetical Jye-and-Lon tests at the moment :)

Test 1: the Gamist. When treated purely as a mechanical system and pushed to its limits in order to "win" the game, does the game still require active participation in the story by all the players? Are the mechanics robust enough to support the kind of story and gaming environment I want to achieve, without needing the GM to arbitrarily rule whether things can work?

Test 2: the Narrativist. Can players choose to make purely story-driven decisions in a way that's supported by the game mechanics? Are the underlying mechanics robust enough to keep things moving towards a shared story goal, regardless of what direction the players choose to take the story in?

I'm enjoying the mental challenge of thinking through the game design at the moment, and would like to try running a few games to try it out. I've drafted up a writing plan, and will keep chipping away at it while the muse (or the insomnia) take me. If I'm still happy with it in a few months, I'd like to take it through design and layout, and develop it into something I can sell through a site like IPR.

I'm not feeling so good today. Probably a combination of feeling unable to make a dint in what I'm writing for work, and post-Arc stress from the Warmachine tournament I ran.

As a whole, Arcanacon went really well - possibly as it's the first convention in several years that aeliel and I actually got to play more than one or two games, and neither of us were ConOrgs. It makes a huge difference. Standout game for me was pastryproducts' time-travelling tabletop, Vicis Fenestra. In fact, we were enjoying the characters and setting so much that we almost didn't make it out of the Scientist's house, where the game began - I could happily have played that game with the same characters and players for more than one session.

I'm feeling thoroughly burned out from running or judging miniatures tournaments. I still really enjoy painting, and would like to actually play some more games this year (probably at Battle Bunker). I'm even happy to do most of the organisation needed to get Skirmish Sundays into a regular event, as I really want to play some more games with low model counts: Infinity, Alkemy, Malifaux.

However, I'm sick of dealing with tournament players. Having people haggle over scores and rules is just not something I enjoy doing. The majority of tournament-goers are great, but it's always the minority that I remember after an event.

Arc40k has now hit 200 players - beating our previous record for the largest in the country by more than 50 players. I'll do what I can to help out in the lead up to next year's event, but I would rather not be a judge again. I don't feel like I've been part of something awesome. I just feel like I've lost a chunk of my long weekend.

Warmachine is still my preferred game, but I will look into getting another person (or a games club) to take over the tournament at Arcanacon. I've run most of the events in Melbourne since the game launched in 2003, and (together with aeliel) have run the biggest events in the country. There are plenty of people playing the game now, and I would like a break.

I always seem to lose a week after travelling anywhere. GenCon Oz finished a week ago, and the last week has been full of catching up on work. I've mostly managed to dodge the post-convention cold, but aeliel wasn't so lucky.

I really enjoyed the trip to Brisbane. We booked a two-bedroom apartment between four people, so we had our own kitchen and a living room for after-con games. I've now become addicted to Arkham Horror after several late-night games... however I managed to resist the urge to buy my own copy at the convention, as my luggage was bulky enough without adding boardgames for the return trip.

Most of my time in the convention centre was spent running demo games at the Privateer Press booth. The con had attracted media coverage on TV, radio and in local papers, and we had a huge number of non-gamers come through to take a look. I ran roughly half my demo games for people who had played other miniatures games (Warhammer etc), and the other half for people with no miniature gaming experience at all. The stall sold ~60 copies of the Warmachine rules, all of them to new players who bought a pile of models. Not bad for a first-run convention, where the retailers were hoping to just break even.

For the last three weeks I've been frantically painting up models for the Warmachine 'Hardcore' tournament - the first official one to run outside the USA. The tournament games were very challenging - strict 7min turns, with five 56min games run back to back. I placed in the top half of the field (three wins, two losses), but I was mainly competing for the Master Craftsman (best painted) medal. After five games my brain was leaking from my ears, but I was very happy when Kel announced that I'd won the prize :)

Overall, a good trip. The convention still has plenty of areas to improve for next year, particularly relating to registration and event tickets, but the organisers seem to be doing a good job of addressing comments and feedback from the people who went. I'll certainly be going back.

I'm drinking a lot of tea lately. Not out of any craving for caffeine, but to keep my hands warm enough to paint. My knuckles (actually, most of my joints) ache in cold weather, and it's particularly frustrating when I can't articulate my fingers enough to move a paintbrush. Wrapping my hands around a mug of tea seems to help, and it also means that I'm slowly making a dint in the tea stockpile. For today, I've opened up a box of Gunpowder green tea that futurelegend bought years ago... I suspect that when the apocalypse comes, I'll still have plenty of tea to wait out the long winter.

Today's work is a bit odd. I'm frantically trying to finish painting a large commission for a tournament this weekend. As usual, my hands are covered in streaks of ink, paint and glue. On breaks, I'm re-painting classic Japanese watercolours in Photoshop - trying to remove characters from the foreground, to use the backdrop separately. It seems strange that I'm using the most modern techniques on the oldest bits of artwork.

bishi_wannabe ran the first session of his Legend of the Five Rings game last night - using the basic Rokugan setting, but ditching the rules in favour of a mixture of Blue Rose (feats and classes) and some homebrew ideas from his Last Exile convention game. It looks like it'll be fun - six samurai balancing honour and glory, while forced to obey orders from an Empress they don't trust. The mechanics seem to work well so far - success brings Glory, failure brings Honour, and cowardice brings neither. The interaction between the two systems means there's a strong incentive to learn lessons (from failed endeavours) before trying to overcome really important obstacles.

Arcanacon is over for another year, which means that I can start thinking about all the things I've put on hold for the last couple of months... first, though, it's worth taking a look back at what's happened so far.

Wednesday: Recieved an email from my co-organiser, telling me he couldn't make it down from Sydney for the weekend. With no second judge, that meant I'd be covering the Warmachine/Hordes Nationals event solo, and would also have to run the Monday event - which ruled out going to Golgotha on Sunday night. I'll get you next time, nightclub...

Thursday: aeliel made a display board for the Purple Mantis stock that would be on sale at the convention, while I frantically finished off a painting commission job. I printed off scorecards and player packs, and tried to make sure I was up to date on the latest rules changes. With an active community of players (over twenty thousand on the forums) and a full time rules team, the game rules are as watertight and unambiguous as any system I've ever played... as a rules judge, though, it's a hell of a lot of reading material to brush up on.

Friday: Finally finished painting the last few models. Went to Collingwood College to start setting up the Nationals venue. I was a bit worried when we were told that we'd only have a single room, but fortunately that room was easily big enough for the players and game tables - we even had a dozen couches for people to relax in after their games.

Saturday: Woke up far too early, and headed to the convention to start the tournament. We had 38 players in the end, almost half of them from interstate. aeliel handled the scorecards and round draws, while I ran around adjudicating the three 500-point rounds for the Nationals. The games went surprisingly smoothly, with no major disputes or arguments despite the size of the prize pool on offer. Once the official rounds wrapped up, we paused for a beer or two and prepared for the inaugural State of Origin game - contested by Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and a motley team of Tasmanians, West Australians, NSW and more Melbourne players.

South Australia convincingly won the title, winning five of their six games. I finally got a chance to play, losing to Brett's horde of trolls (one of the best painted armies at the event), and then we headed off to geserit's farewell party. Bon voyage Sarah!

Sunday: Things started to look bad after the first of the planned three 750-point games, when a draw on one of the top tables left us with an unchallenged winner - Damien, the only player on a perfect score of 20 points. After having several pairs of eyes going over the tournament rules, I decided that we couldn't call the event early - despite having an undefeated champion by default, there were still two rounds to go and a room full of players who wanted to keep playing them. (EDIT: the decision to keep going despite having an undefeated player was later supported by the Privateer staff. Hopefully the next generation of tournament rules will be clearer about this sort of thing!)

Damien ended up losing in the fifth round, setting up Heath as the top player. Despite that, there were six possible champions going into the final round. When the final game concluded, Heath emerged as the clear winner, with Damien and Joel taking second and third place. I got to hand out lots of prizes (from six sponsors in four different states), and then that was it for the first Australian national championship.

Monday: Metal Mayhem was a very different event from the weekend's games - the games were far more laid back, and I was far less organised. We fitted five rounds into the tournament, with Dave's Cryx/Mercenary army taking the top spot. After one of the longest award ceremonies I've ever sat through, we staggered off to the afterparty and I finally got a chance to catch up with all the roleplayers I'd missed during the weekend.

Most of the weekend is a bit of a blur, but it's a generally positive blur. I'll probably be helping for a couple of days at GenCon Oz as a painting or rules judge, but I have no plans to run an actual tournament myself until at least next January. There are now a couple of new Pressgangers in Australia, and they all seem eager to get stuck into organising things. I've been involved since 2003, and I think it's time to take a bit of a break.

The War All The Time guys sold Purple Mantis putty, sculpting tools and brushes over in the Warhammer 40k area. Sculpting tools sold very well; putty sold reasonably well. The sable brushes didn't sell well at all, which is a bit worrying - they account for about a third of the cost of my inventory, and may take all year to shift. Still, for the first "live fire" test, things went pretty well.

I just bought a copy of Monsters and Other Childish Things, from Arc Dream publishing.

Have you ever secretly wanted to be best friends with a magical unicorn? His name would be Dewdrop, and he would talk to you with his thoughts, and he would carry you on his back away from all the bullies and parents and kids who don't get you, and you’d have such wonderful adventures!

This game is pretty much like that. Except if you drew Dewdrop on your Trapper Keeper, they would send you to the principal’s office, then to the school counselor, and then probably to a place with a name like Morning Meadows Home for Disturbed and Psychotic Youth.

Dewdrop has too many dimensions and can gouge bleeding wounds in reality with his infinitely fractal horn. His dainty hooves burn the floor, and his breath makes Mrs. Wombatson’s prize petunias wilt and shrivel. But he really is your best friend.

To quote the blurb, "It's a game about kids and the people who matter to them most - their friends, family, and loved ones. And their horrifying pet monsters."

Monsters that the grownups can't see, of course. Monsters that want to help their owners, as much as inhumanly possible. It's nice to get out of PE class, get out of a detention, or have the school bully stop taunting you. Monsters want to do nice things for their owners. Like teleporting them to Pluto when PE class is about to start, or setting fire to the school, or turning the bully inside out. They just can't understand why their owners get so upset about it.

I've been checking the game's website for a while, and PDF copies went on sale today. Now I just need time to run it, and some players. If I wasn't already running games flat out during Arcanacon, I'd bring along some textas and paper plates and run a game on the fly...