Wizards of the Coast is sending a damaging message

When the 5th Edition D&D .pdf was made freely available, like many others I was pleased to see the sidebar on how gender is handled in-game. I missed this, however, and to be honest wasn't even aware of these two individuals (RPGPundit and Zak S). I'm unhappy that our hobby still retains enclaves of people with social ideas like these two. Given that a lot of us in hobby games are both intelligent and experienced with social marginalization, you'd think we'd be a lot farther along on this kind of thing than the general community.

From what I've seen, we've got it better than most here in VT, but we can do better. I'd encourage all of you to take a look at this article, and speak up. Until Wizards makes a real statement addressing their failure here, they won't be getting any more of my money.

And if this doesn't seem like a problem to you, it's because you're one of the lucky ones. Think about whether or not these guys would represent a problem to anyone you care about. It's not enough to ignore people like RPGPundit and Zak S; they need to know that these ideas are unwelcome and damaging to the community that they profess to care for.

http://www.gamer-xp.com/how-dungeons-dragons-endorses-the-darkest-parts-of-the-hobby/ The original content is here.

We deal with negativity in the hobby community on a regular basis.  It's just part of socializing, and when your social activity of choice is competitive and contentious, conflict will arise.  Nerd rage over rules interpretation is a disagreement on equal footing. Doxing your detractors and having your followers send them late-night phone calls, outing trans folks, publicizing the school your detractors' children attend, these are not the behaviors of jerks. These are existential life-or-death threats. They do not deserve your defense.

Do I think Zak should not work in the hobby at all? No, I hope that's not what came across. It's not up to me or anyone else what he does for a living. However, what he, and by association Wizards, needs to face is the fact that there are consequences for certain actions. One of the consequences of engaging in noxious behavior is being cut out of the social contract; that's how it works pretty much anywhere. If you're a dick, people don't want to associate with you. If he and his ilk find it difficult to find work in a particular industry, then that is a direct result of the action he as a consenting adult chose to engage in. It's not my job to feel responsible to protect the job opportunities of a flagrant asshole. This is 100% about the prevailing social environment and what is wrong with it, in that in feels the need to be more protective of people being assholes than people who are being hurt.

A frequent misapprehension by people who decry "political correctness" is that those of us doing the calling-out are pushing for some kind of policy change through firing, litigation, blacklisting, or whatever. And some overzealous social justice crusaders actually are doing that, but that's far more the exception than the rule. I'm not trying to get these guys banned from anything (they seem to do a great job at achieving that themselves). What I'm trying to do is further the dialogue where we can make the hobby more positive, friendly, welcoming, and open for everyone who chooses to abide by that specific social contract. We don't waste time on those who don't, other than to portray them as examples of a cautionary tale.


By choosing to hire these guys as consultants, Wizards got Asshole on them. As I've stated before, what I'm looking for is for them to publicly admit that they fucked up. Bringing these guys into their house sends a message, intended or not, that there is a place in this community for people being hateful.

Getting caught up

My last post from some months ago focused on what I had hoped were some new insights into the Tyranid codex.  Naturally, my experience with the list over the last few months has proven me 100% correct.  Please forgive my gloating; I don't get to be this emphatically correct this often.

Strategic redundancy really is the name of the game here.  I played a small, local tournament in April and took first place with a list that focused on this to a tee.  3 one-beast Carnifex Broods supported by 3 one-beast Venomthrope broods; massive Synaptic coverage thanks to the Synaptic Swarm formation, and strategic response in the form of a Devil Flyrant and a Hive Crone.  There was clearly some other stuff in there too, like a couple little broods of objective-grabbing Ants.  

Now I have no idea how this will hold up under the new 40k rules, as I have yet to actually sit down and play a game, but that's going to be corrected on Tuesday.  I'm bringing Daemons, because I want to explode the Malefic Daemonology list and see where the pieces land.

What I've been playing a LOT of lately is Hearthstone.  I've always loved Blizzard's intellectual property.  Blizzard have done a fantastic job of translating their world into a really crunchy bite-sized game.  I'd like to think of myself as a fairly competitive player; one of our local game stores is hosting an invitational championship and I managed to qualify in the second round.  Now really, all this makes me is a big fish in a small pond; in ranked play I really can't seem to break into rank 6.  Given that the Naxxramas expansion has dropped some fresh cards into the pool, the metagame-beast is twisting in evolutionary agony.  

My stated goal with Hearthstone is to climb the ladder clear to Legend rank, which is daunting...  My plan right now is to ladder as effectively as I can for the rest of this season (2-3 days) and then come at it hard with a simple, aggressive Shock Paladin deck.  I've gotten good with that, and it manages to be an effective Zoo-like deck without being completely vulnerable to the anti-Zoo meta.  That's the theory, anyway!

I've got the Tyranid codex figured out!

...or I'm a delusional apologist, who has mastered the art of self-deception....

Whether it was deliberate or not, the design results of this book is to make the Tyranids not particularly stellar at anything, but for them to be very abundant. This thesis hides in plain sight, given how rapid internet analysis seems to myopically focus on individual unit types but failing to see the bigger picture beyond a few unit synergies. The points cost of (almost) everything is discounted, sometimes deeply, and the specialist units are just not as good at what they do as their counterparts are in other armies. It has a lot of players pretty disgusted and frustrated, but it has me intrigued.

I think what Tyranids are going to do especially well is strategic redundancy and contingency plans. Building a lynchpin army around a series of very specialized gimmick units will not work, and that is precisely the way most 40k players think about this game. What will work is a large army full of many models, made up of generalist troop types that can fill each others' roles as casualties mount. Tyranids are not robust, with a deficit of 2+ or Invulnerable units, and an absolute lack of Eternal Warrior. Things are going to die, and that idea is repellent to many players in this age of superhero squads.

Thinking of them as the classic NPC army is not far off the mark. These guys are designed to die, and die a lot, and die some more. Carnifexes are back, 20 points cheaper, but D-cannons and Nemesis weapons abound. They are monsters for the Space Marines to kill, and they are meant to make the other armies look good by comparison.

None of this is to imply that they are incapable of winning games. There is probably as much competitive potential buried in this list as any other, but it is definitely buried in here. Winning with Tyranids is going to mean more than spamming sweetheart units and ignoring others. They have no Heldrake, Riptide, Wraithknight, or Night Scythe. But the implied advantage when you lack the Deathstar is there's no one place for the Rebels to fire their missiles. I'm looking forward to seeing what that means in 40k.

Ultimately, this fits into the current 40k universe by marking the Tyranids out to be a unique and alien species whose combat doctrine flies in the face of the accepted methods of other species.

So that's what it is, and Tyranid players can, as always, adapt or die. :)

Factions of Source, part III: The Fold

The Fold:

            The subject of whispered myth and rumor, the Fold is a loose confederation of zealots, sages, diviners, cultists, and madmen, loosely allied in pursuit of forbidden lore.  Paranoid and insular at the best of times, the Fold is a dangerous and unpredictable force.

            Followers of the Fold are often preoccupied with prophecies and great doom.  Many of them are talented diviners, but mortal minds were not meant to understand the frayed and contradictory threads of fate.  Frequently, members of the Fold are mentally unstable, but they view this as little more than a minor inconvenience.  They know that their sanity is a small price to pay to receive even a small measure of knowledge of the dark truths that they relentlessly pursue.

            Dark and dangerous beings of alien intent frequently find the Fold to be loyal followers.  The Scrounge know that they are not alone in the walls between reality, and they tell tales of cosmic predators that leave fear and madness in their wake, and devour the bodies and souls of men.  The Fold is one of the few universal organizations that welcomes Scrounge without prejudice, knowing that the manners and appearance of the mad rodent-men is irrelevant compared to the secrets they know.  Some members of the Fold have learned dark methods to call upon these transdimensional beings and court their favor.  It seems that only a fractured mind can contain the bizarre, alien majesty of the Ones From Beyond, and some accounts hold that entire worlds have been bargained away by Fold cults.

            The Fold is extremely opaque in its organizational hierarchy.  Cells of cultists and scholars work together in darkness toward questionable ends, and rarely have any reliable knowledge of the rest of the organization.  Only the Fold’s Inquisitors seem to have any real knowledge of the size, scope, and true goals of the organization. 

            Naturally, the Fold strongly venerates Taelyst as their Source of choice.  Ansetal is difficult for them to effectively draw upon, as the requirements of law and consistency are inimical to the Fold’s twisted minds.  The chaos and power of Voroc and the howling waste of Nysroth are frequently used by more aggressive Fold: many times, prophecies of doom seem to need some help in coming to pass.  Additionally, Umuon’s depths often conceal dark secrets that have been lost for centuries.  The Fold finds the prospect of such forbidden knowledge to be irresistible.

Factions of Source, Part II: The Order of Mercy and Severity

The Order of Mercy and Severity: 

            Recognized (if not necessarily respected) in many realms throughout the universe, the Order is shrouded in pomp, ritual, and mystery.  Their approach to magic tends to be baroque and formulaic, utilizing many highly elaborate systems to understand and manipulate the Sources. 

            The Order believes that the universe is a place of many layers and spheres of influence, conforming to hierarchical laws.  They believe themselves, and all sentient beings, to be naturally imperfect and unrefined.  Fundamental to that belief, however, is the notion that the spark of the divine rests within all living things, and that spark can catalyze into the brilliant white fire of perfect understanding.  The Order teaches that separation between the self and the universe is an illusion.  Only by becoming perfectly balanced and purified can one truly begin to become a vessel flawless enough to receive the Quintessence.

            Magi of the Order of Mercy and Severity are fascinated with forces in opposition and reconciliation.  They typically favor garments of black and white, representing their willingness to deal with contrasting forces of light and dark, sacred and profane, material and ephemeral.  They tend to view concepts such morality and religion as pedestrian and antiquated, believing that they represent a limited view of the universe.  Many of the Adepts of the Order believe that gods are simply a higher order of sentience than mortals, and possessed of a state that is not out of their own potential reach. 

            The Order teaches its magi to draw upon all of the Sources, but they strongly favor Ansetal.  They believe that Ansetal is closest to the true Quintessence, and thus the purest expression of raw universal power.  Ansetal’s light, if the Order is to be believed, dictates the laws of the universe, and even the other Sources are beholden to it.  By strongly aligning themselves with the Light, the Order has a powerfully protective metaphysical structure to explore and manipulate the other Sources.  The first teachings of an Apprentice of the Order focus heavily on forming a powerful bond with the Light, but Masters of Mercy and Severity wield the other Sources without hesitation.  Even the tainted might of Nysroth can be bent by the fortress-like mind of an Adept of the Order.

Factions of Source, Part I: The Legacy of Feldenglas

Choice of affiliation with a particular faction will play a significant role in Source.  While each Magus at the core of their force will draw upon whichever Sources he or she chooses, alignment with one of the major factions will carry certain benefits.

First, and perhaps most dramatically, it will provide an additional pool of followers from which to choose, and these followers will often form the backbone of the Magus' force.  There will be unaligned followers that will be available to a Magus of any faction, but those drawn from a faction will have abilities that are not available anywhere else.  Additionally, each faction has its own background, philosophy, and approach to the Sources that helps bring a new level of narrative into the game.

Here, then, is a brief background outline of one of the factions, the Legacy of Feldenglas:

The Legacy of Feldenglas

           

            Militaristic and highly disciplined, the Legacy is unique in its approach to magic and the Sources.  While every other influential organization playing a powerful role throughout the universe is dominated by the interests of powerful Magi, the Legacy of Feldenglas actively seeks to limit the use of magic.

            The modern Legacy are descendants of survivors and refugees.  Their realm was known as Cae Lyndyr, and it was utterly destroyed in a war between feuding beings of tremendous power.  It was at the city of Feldenglas where their war came to its violent conclusion; a self-styled god was destroyed when the entire realm of Cae Lyndyr was collapsed in on him.  A small group of Magi, alert to the possibility of this calamity, evacuated as many people as they could from Feldenglas and the surrounding countryside.  Their home was lost, but they swore an oath to prevent such recklessness in the future.

            Despite its essential nature as a military organization, the Legacy of Feldenglas is surprisingly democratic.  In times of peace, every citizen of a Legacy-held city has a vote, and elected officials serve at the pleasure of the populace.  The majority of the elected offices are held by ranking soldiers of high prestige, but this is largely because the populace reveres its warriors and protectors. 

            Feldenglasers are racially and culturally diverse.  They are predominantly humans, alfar, and neisse, the descendents of the world of Cae Lyndyr.  They are open-minded and proud, and have become comfortable with freely speaking their minds.  However, they tend to take a very guarded view around Magi who are not members of the Legacy, as it was the unguarded use of magic that led to the destruction of their homeland.  To that end, the Legacy of Feldenglas pursues an agenda of containment and control of enemy magic.  They seek to prevent any further catastrophes, though many who have felt their wrath have described the Feldenglasers as being motivated primarily by vengeance for their fallen realm.

            Magi of Feldenglas, believing strongly as they do in the principles of law and justice, naturally gravitate toward Ansetal.  The Legacy also boasts some very powerful wielders of Hurad, as the Alfar of Cae Lyndyr were proponents of a druidic practice.  Though neisse typically do not gravitate toward use of the Sources, the Legacy of Feldenglas has produced some who dispense brutal justice through the brute power of Voroc. 

The Universe of Source

Time to dust this thing off and throw out some words!

I've been working on a concept for a miniature skirmish game...  The rules are coming along apace, and I have a really interesting idea for a potential distribution vector, but for right now I figured I'd get some content out there about the setting itself.  The game is still very much a work in progress, but the working title I have for it right now is Source.

The known universe is a vast place comprising many worlds and realms.  It does not adhere to the cosmology with which we are familiar; planets, star systems, galaxies and the like may exist but are the exception rather than the rule.  Instead, each world exists like an independent bubble of reality, with its own climate, denizens, and sometimes even natural laws.  Some realms are massive, others are tiny.  Some realms are verdant paradises sheltering Utopian civilizations, and others are desolate wastelands incapable of supporting life.  Those who have learned to travel from realm to realm have discovered that there are many consistencies that indicate a shared origin: humans are ubiquitous throughout the realms, and they share worlds with elves, trolls, dwarves, and dragons.  Common languages and cultural practices abound, despite how different and unique (and sometimes downright alien) each realm can be.  Cosmic entities such as daemons and the disturbing, half-mad Scrounge maintain the boltholes between the worlds.  Confederations of Magi have banded together in support of common goals, whether those be the reunification of the disparate worlds, or the sacrifice of entire realms to inscrutable cosmic horrors, or simple self-mastery.

Sages believe that it was not always this way.  They speculate that it was the complete and utter consumption of one of the Sources that caused the universe to be forever shattered.  In ancient times, cabals of wizards of incomprehensible might drew deeply on the Quintessence, manipulating it in ways that would now be impossible.  Quintessence is the raw substance of reality; something greater than matter, energy, or anything in between.  It is pure power, unspent potential.  The universe is Quintessence, and Quintessence is the universe, coalesced into form.  Refining and extracting the matter of the universe into raw Quintessence is an exhausting and prohibitive process that no Magus has ever really mastered, but many continue to try.  More effective, then, is to draw Quintessence from the Sources.

The Sources are the primordial origins of all creation: Platonic idealizations representing the transition of Quintessence becoming the Universe.  The Sources are not a place or thing, but rather an omnipresent ideal shaping the realms of the universe.  Magi must first learn to draw upon the Sources before they can expect to manipulate magic.

There are six Sources recognized by the Magi:

Ansetal:  The Light, the Source of illumination, innovation, warmth and heat.  A source for civilization, law, rulership, courage, craftsmanship, and the callings of a higher soul, but also oppression, stasis, absolutism, fascism, and war.  It is known as the Voice of Inspiration across many worlds.

Taelyst:  The Dusts; the Source of Time and Place, Serendipity, Destiny, and Doom.  Venerated by the wise and the mad alike as a bringer of divine vision, but also fraught with peril and terror.  Those who look too deeply into other places and times often lose all sense of themselves.

Hurad:  The Spiral, the Source of the eternal dance of life and death.  All living things are ruled by Hurad, and it governs birth, growth, and death.  It can provide healing and growth, but it can also inflict blighted rot and decay.

Umuon:  The Well, the Source of spirits.  Umuon rules the world of the living hand in hand with Hurad, but where Hurad rules bone, branch, flesh and leaf, Umuon rules the unseen mystery of the soul.  It can manipulate spirits, unseat the soul, or allow the living to briefly transcend their mortal limits.

Voroc:  The Crashing, the Source of Elemental Forces.  Here dwell earth, air, fire, water, the collision of matter and energy.  Eternally violent and calamitous, Voroc is violence and change.  It is recognized as being a powerful and drastic Source, with consequences for its wielders.

Nysroth:  The Emptiness.  Nysroth is no longer a Source, properly, but it is believed to have once been.  Now it is an echoing, ashen waste in the void, burnt-out and utterly used up.  Tales say that Nysroth’s power was so tempting to the ancient Magi that its powers were consumed utterly.  Whatever archetypal force was provided to the universe by Nysroth, it is now so completely absent as to be removed even from memory.  Once one of the primordial building-blocks of the universe, Nysroth is now colloquially known as the Source of Hunger.  It functions as something of a null or negative source, always devouring, destroying, and corrupting.

Covering Gen Con for MTV Geek

I'll be headed to Gen Con for the weekend this Thursday.  I'm blogging for MTV Geek, specifically covering RPG news.  If any of the rest of you are headed there, let me know via twitter @realitysalad and we can connect.  Hope to see you there!

The Shiny Side of Rules Lawyers

I am blessed with a very diverse group in my weekly D&D campaign.  A couple of players are old high school buddies that hadn't played since 2nd Edition, as well as some more current players who are very story and character-focused.  Everyone brings a different type of energy and enthusiasm to the (virtual) table, and this has alloyed into a wonderful social experience.  The game itself is great fun, of course, but no game is better than the players playing it.

One player in particular got me thinking the other day.  We've all encountered the ubiquitous Rules Lawyer before, and we've all experienced the buzzkill that this person can engender.  Happily, my Rules Lawyer is no kind of buzzkill at all.

We were engaged in a somewhat risky encounter; down a player, my party of four 2nd-level characters (a Seeker, Warpriest, Battlemind, and Ardent) were battling a pair of Darktentacles (3rd level Aberrant creatures, Elite to boot).  They were in an environment with some very dangerous terrain that heavily favored the Darktentacles' ability to pull from a distance, dragging unfortunates into Acidic Mire or the Far Realm rift that spawned them.  It was definitely a risky combat encounter.

While my entire party achieved greatness that night, it was a special joy to watch our Ardent in action.  This guy was our main tank in my World of Warcraft guild for about six years, and while I was the guild leader in name and spirit, I was nothing more than a mascot once we got into a fight.  This man's tactical genius led us through many triumphs, and it remains undimmed.

Now, it's a simple thing for someone with a reasonably advanced IQ to develop acumen with any ruleset.  There are a lot of clever people in this hobby, and a lot of them have figured out ways to worm inside these rules and tickle them until they produce results.  What makes my Rules Lawyer rare and special is how he uses his talent for good.

I've encountered showboating Rules Lawyers, where everything they do has a bottom line of Look How Clever I Am, or even worse You Can't Do That Because This.  It takes a special kind of player who is willing to use his ability to help the other players.  And not just by healing, or flanking, or using supporting abilities, but actually providing useful information, encouraging tactical analysis, and generally making the party better-coordinated.  As a class choice for this guy, Ardent seems especially apropos; everyone near him really does seem to get bonuses to their skill checks.  Too frequently does the term "Leader" get shorthanded to mean nothing more than "Healer".  The subtle majesty of 4th edition is revealed again, as the synergy between Power and Player synthesizes organically into something greater than the sum of its parts.

Watching them take apart that encounter was a thrill.  It was definitely a challenge for them all, but it seemed to be rewarding in its intangibles.  As a veteran DM, I've been able to leave my ego out of the encounters I create for a long time now; I know that I'm usually building something with the express purpose of watching my players knock it down.  It's especially rewarding when I can have the sheer joy of watching a party do so under the guidance of an adept Leader.

Feminist ethics and hobby gaming

Disclaimer:  This is not an article about political correctness.  I'm not telling anyone what to think or how to act, and if you have a problem with the notion of feminism in general, either you don't understand feminism, or you are a generally reprehensible human being.  Feminism is about social justice and equality for everyone.

It seems like the cultural dialogue has been shifting lately towards a greater awareness of the issues of systemic, casual misogyny that pervades many levels of our lives.  That statement might simply be a reflection of my own process of feminism-informed self-discovery, but I think a case can be made that it's bigger than that.  The issues surrounding reproductive rights and healthcare reform is one of the strongest catalysts for this change in dialogue, but there are other factors at work here as well.

Briefly, my own history with feminism started in college, but it wasn't until grad school that I actually studied it academically.  As an up-and-coming psychotherapist, one of my areas of inquiry was in feminist psychology and psychotherapy.  This discipline has less to do with women's minds specifically, and more to do with understanding of gender dynamics and their implications in relationships and societal structures.  I worked with a population of young adolescent males who were often survivors of abuse by male caregivers, and the tangled mat of misogynistic values that had taken root in their psyches was often deep and thick.  Recently, I've been taking a more sociological approach, rather than a psychological one, trying to understand the implications of gender dynamic in different cultural systems.

To a lot of gamer guys, myself included, women in gaming are seen as some kind of holy grail, and the universally spoken opinion would seem to be that we want more women as active participants in our hobbies.  There's a stronger female showing in role-playing games than in tabletop wargames, and addressing why that is probably warrants a few posts of its own.  But because I am male, and the population of this hobby is so overwhelmingly male, the main crux of this article is going to largely deal with what I perceive to be the attitudes of male hobby participants.

We want more women in gaming, but how welcoming are we, really?  How willing are we to examine our own attitudes and seriously reflect on the subtext we're conveying through action and word?  How willing are we to change our own minds about the thought patterns that give rise to these deeds and words?  Why do we want more women around in our hobby?

The sad fact that I've observed, both as a participant and a game store employee, is that a lot of guys' appreciation for a woman in the shop starts and ends right around chest-level.  If a pretty lady is in the store, guys get excited because boobs.  That's okay, that's reasonable, that's expected.  If she has a well-painted tyranid army, it's that much more exciting because now she has something in common with us, a shared interest that makes her conversationally accessible.  But it's startling how frequently the assessment stops right there, and the cognitive picture created of this woman is boobs and tyranids.  This is a form of objectification, and it is a type of casual misogyny.  It is not bothering to be open to the human potential of this person specifically because of their gender characteristics.  It is relegating them to a role in your life on a strictly hormonal level, rather than allowing your social dynamic to be informed by this person's thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or other social characteristics.

This is how women leave the hobby.  When they are at a tournament or pick-up game night, or otherwise just in the shop, they observe these attitudes in action.  They see guys talking to other guys about the hobby, and they find that their ability to participate in that conversation is limited by the men that listen with half an ear.  Or the men that listen insincerely, enjoying the attention of a woman without bothering to enjoy the content of the interaction.

As a psychologist, I learned that the amount of information we have to process in order to have even the most basic social interaction is absolutely staggering.  Gender figures into that quantity in profound ways; it is not simply one simple piece of data.  It is years and years of social information, absorbed and reprocessed by a constantly-active subconscious.  There is no way for your preconceived notions of gender (or race, culture, appearance, ability, etc) to NOT inform your social interactions, it's simply how our brains are wired.

The first and most simple step is to spend some time really thinking about how your own mind approaches gender issues.  Self-awareness and being willing to critically think about where you could stand to grow a bit is a useful personal exercise regardless.  If you're uncomfortable with a topic or idea, challenge yourself to determine why.

We share this hobby because it's something we love and enjoy.  The ultimate goal is pure, honest, innocent fun.  I believe that the noblest calling in the hobby is helping someone else deepen their enjoyment of this thing that they love to do, and helping to create a warm, welcoming environment for everyone is where that all starts.

Online World of Darkness game

I'm working on a Roll20 campaign for White Wolf's Orpheus, and was considering inviting some absolute strangers to play.  It's not going to go live for a while, it's more of a prospective work-in-progress at the moment.

If you're familiar with Wraith, Orpheus will have a lot of familiar elements.  I plan on running the story as presented by the 6 basic books, and would strongly encourage players to NOT read ahead  in the material or do any google/wiki research.  If you already know how the story goes, there's still plenty to enjoy, as long as you can sit on your spoilers.

From the White Wolf Wiki:

The last original gaming line to be set in the Classic World of Darkness, Orpheus tackles the world of the dead following the events of the Sixth Great Maelstrom. A corporation called the Orpheus Group has learned and perfected the art of projection, allowing people who have undergone near-death experiences to leave their bodies and enter the spirit realm. The company uses these employees, along with allied ghosts, as agents, and contracts them out to clients for investigations into hauntings, fumigating raging spirits, and other spooky tasks.

While Orpheus does tie in loosely with White Wolf’s previous effort at the afterlife, Wraith: The Oblivion, it is not treated as a true sequel or continuation, although players of Wraith will certainly find parts of Orpheus familiar, especially towards the end. Orpheus is also unique in that other supernatural characters, such as vampires and werewolves, have no real place in the game. The Core book states that if, in your game you want them to exist, you can, but the Orpheus characters would be heavily outmatched as they are essentially plain, run-of-the-mill humans. The book also notes that the Werewolves and Vampires have done a good enough job of hiding from the Mortal world, and Orpheus, at the moment, does not know about them either.

Anybody interested?

Games and music

I have a hard time getting into the spirit of a game without music playing.

 Maybe it's just my adult ADHD rearing its head, because I pretty much always need to have some constant level of background noise or else the voices in my own head start making up the difference. But the background noise for my games is usually a matter of conscious choice, instead of whatever happens to be on NPR.

When we play 40k over at my buddy Scott's place, it's almost universally some kind of metal. It works for us, because he's got a very extensive collection of various bands like Nile, Amon Amarth, and the like. Metal is the loud, aggressive side of geek fandom, and for all the tough-guy Viking warrior imagery that these guys like to project, you know that they play D&D on the tour bus.

For roleplaying games, it's a bit more of a conscious choice than an iTunes playlist on shuffle. Since I'm usually the one running the game, I get to pick, and I find that I put almost as much thought into the music as I do actually writing scenes. It's difficult for me sometimes, because I wonder how much of what I feel through the music is being accurately conveyed to the players, and how much is just me getting lost in my own internal landscape.

I have a piece from earlier in the blog, referencing the music I used in Orpheus. I put more thought into that game's soundtrack than any other I've ever done, developing different playlists for each night, and compiling a list of specific music for specific scenes. We started each night with what was essentially the theme music for the opening credits, which coincided with whichever book in the series we were currently working our way through.

 The game I'm running right now is a 4E home campaign through the Roll20 app. Music presents its own challenges here, because the onboard jukebox feature is frankly difficult to use. Its search feature is somewhat inscrutable, often finding some pretty incongruous results (I don't know how many awful homemade dubstep remixes I've listened to in the past month). It lacks any kind of playlist, pretty much enabling you to loop tracks and that's it. For now, I've made it work, and I'm thinking that I may have to just feed my players links on YouTube in order to play the tracks I want them to hear. Shared playlists on Spotify also have some promise, although I have yet to really develop that idea.

What role does music play in your games?

Make me one of these!!

In Space Wolves Grey, please!

40k: Death to Game Balance!!

Nothing is more exciting to me in the new 40k than the allies matrix.  

I have been collecting miniatures for a long time, and I have a fairly extensive collection.  A big part of the joy of this hobby, for me, is using the game and models to explore the abundance of lore.
 Coming up with background stories for my armies and their various characters has always been fun, and now the possibility to do some really creative and unusual interpretations of the lore has been made part of the basic rules.  Grey Knights and Necrons?  Why not, Trazyn the Infinite has an associate in the Inquisition!  Space Wolves and Dark Eldar?  Imagine the victory celebration!

More to the point, I like the implications that the Allies Matrix has on the intended culture of GW's 40k.  Since the time that I started, at the beginning of 3rd edition, GW has gradually removed more and more from the game, in the name of the elusive, sacred cow of Game Balance.  We gained and lost things like Demon Hunter/Witch Hunter units, Deathwatch Kill Teams, Variant army lists like Craftworld Eldar and Cult-specific Chaos armies, kroot mercenaries, and more over the years.  These characterful inclusions were dropped from 5th edition in favor of creating a tournament-balanced system.  Given the questionable success of that goal, I'm not convinced it was worth the cost.

Can we expect to see that sort of narrative weirdness working its way back in?  Time will tell, but I hope so.  Competitve 40k and game balance have never mattered much to me personally, and if that's the price of admission back to the land of creative army lists and narrative gameplay, sign me up.

40k 6th: Why my Necrons will kill you.

Writing about this massive rules change is something I've been ducking for a couple of days now, but despite the monolithic nature of the task, I'm going in.

I've only had time for one game yet.  Last Saturday I played a 1000 point game, my Necrons versus Scott's Death Guard.  He was riding high on a crushing victory over Gerald's Orks the night before, which he "hadn't fully processed" because frankly, Gerald played his Orks really, really well in 5th edition.

We randomly generated Dawn of War/Big Guns Never Tire, and generated the maximum number of primary objectives.  I have a reputation (however unearned) for the dice loving me, though Scott won the first turn, I stole the initiative right out the gate.  Without turning this into a full battle report, I won, 8 to 6, but casualties were insanely heavy on all sides.  By the end of the game, I had only two squads of Necron Warriors reduced to five guys each, fortuitously both parked on an objective, and he had a half-dead Havoc team, a squad of Plague Marines, and a Vindicator that had been Entropic Strike'd down to Armor 7.

It's hard for me to fully absorb exactly what the change from 5 to 6 means, because it means a lot.  There are a few sweeping changes that I really like, like the inclusion of snap shots, overwatch, thrown grenades, and mysterious objectives.  But I'm starting to grasp what the rules change means for Necrons, and it means really good things.

First of all, the change to glancing hits made Gauss weapons about a million times better.  Simply stripping away a hull point per glancing hit means that massed firepower from warriors is a real threat instead of a shot in the dark.  Coupled with the changes to Rapid Fire, Necron Warriors are back in a big, big way.

Second, Preferred Enemy got a whole lot better.  Destroyers were always one of my favorite units, but there was little incentive to field them in 5e.  Now, they're rerolling their ranged attacks, and failed wound rolls of 1.  Given the strength of their weapons, odds are that fully half their wound rolls are getting rerolled as well.

And the neat little bit that almost ducked me with Preferred Enemy is the fact that only one model in the squad needs to have it, and they ALL benefit.  I ran a Destroyer Lord in a squad of Triarch Praetorians...  fast-moving murder machines. 

Speaking of Destroyer Lords, Warscythes.  Already good, but thanks to the Power Weapon nerf, by comparison so much better.  Armorbane and AP1 pretty much guarantees a dead vehicle, and if Scott's Chaos Lord hadn't issued a challenge when I DisorderedCharged his Vindicator and Plague Marine squad, that Vindicator would not have survived the game.

I want to play around a bit more with some of this stuff, but for now I'm really happy with what I've found.

"Whispered words, pickled and preserved!"

One more bit of flavor text from my old Changeling game, and then I'll revert to something more topical, I promise.

The path you take is a narrow, cavernous affair, crowded with trees and brush that seem to grip at your clothing and hair. When the wind blows, you’d swear you can hear muttering and whispering in the blackness. Off in the distance, a twig snaps loudly. As you shuffle uncertainly down the path, the eerie sounds seem to increase in volume and frequency. Strange music, equally earthy and ethereal, drifts between the dark treetrunks, and soon you can see silver-blue light. As you get closer, the light makes your path clearer, until you find yourself stepping into the surreal madness of the Nightmarket.

This is no gathering of changelings, and the colloquial term “goblin market” is no exaggeration. Most of the creatures here were never human, and the wares they hawk and vend defy mortal understanding. The forest canopy crowds down on you, and is lit by the same diffuse blue glow that illumines the Nightmarket. Vines and wispy scraggles of moss hang down among the booths, carts, and heads of the creatures here. The whole place is less a forest clearing and more a cavernous grotto of branch, root, and trunk.

The variety of goods is staggering. Jars and bottles of eyes that twitch to watch passersby. Strange gourds and fruits from the Hedge. Ancient books of faerie lore. The foreskins of heretical men. Feathers and skins from exotic beasts. Hedgespun garments. Contracts. Dried herbs. Fresh herbs. Broken toys. Stolen songs. Lost dogs. Forgotten dreams. Potions, distilled from the saliva of apes and the menstrual blood of horses. The hands of hanged men. Jars of fat, rendered from the bellies of the unrepentant. Bird bones and boneless birds. Preserved fish, dead in their jars. Graveyard earth.

“Toes… toes for sale… two times two, three times three, toes for sale….”
“Gemstones, fine jewelry! Opals, tourmaline, diamonds, petrified heart! Strung with pearls, set in rings!”
“Contracts… oaths of power and mystery…”
“Lies… lies for sale… two times two, four times four…”
“Suicide letters, freely exchanged for reagents of twisted earth…”
“Hopes and Fears, we buy and sell.”

Goblin-creatures of varied and outrageous appearance populate the market. Here a tiny crone pushes a cart of doll’s eyes. There a vine-entwined nymph, bare-breasted and with leaves in her hair, laughs at the flirtation of a grotesque dwarf. He pulls open the front of his pants, giving her a glimpse inside, and the two laugh uproariously. At the base of a dying oak, a team of huge-eyed gnomes, made of earth and dressed in leaves, unloads a cart of tools. Across from them, an ancient man of polished wood squats naked on a mossy carpet. Everywhere you look it is busy, as goods change hands at a madman’s pace.

“Whispered words, pickled and preserved!”
“Charms, tokens, and treasures, all stolen…”
“Burned candles, broken promises!”
“Shrouds, all for a pittance… corpse-clothes, burial shrouds…”
“Greed, Bitterness, Loss, and Sorrow, Pain and Suffering by the ounce.”
“Oracles! Divination! I see all!”

Changeling-inspired fictionette

Just a little piece I felt like writing when I first started reading Changeling: The Lost.  I feel like this gives a sense of some of what this game can be.

I only have room enough in here to open one eye. There's not much to see, because there's really no light anyway. It's dusty and cramped, full of hard splintery wood and crumbly plaster. You wouldn't like it, but it's about the only place I can sleep anymore. I found a mouse skeleton over there yesterday.

My name is Hester and I sleep inside walls. I like the older walls in the B-Wing best, the stuff that was put up forty years ago. They still have the old cellulose insulation in some places, and they're sturdier than the synthetic ones in the Goldsmith Wing. I started sleeping inside the walls here about a month ago; before that I curled up wherever I didn't think any of the staff would find me. Sometimes in supply closets, sometimes in the archive, and sometimes right there in the stacks. The staff never saw me.

Still, I crawled inside the wall after the fifth morning that I woke up crying again. I couldn't stop. I don't know why I was crying, I can't remember any dreams. But I felt so awful and sad, so I just went over to a crack by the baseboard and just sort of wiggled my way in.

It's not so bad. I feel safe in here, and I haven't woken up crying in a while. I've started bringing in some of the old books too. I have a pile of some of my favorites (The Well-Tempered Clavichord, books two, three, five, and seven of The Waverly Novels, and a 1914 Sears-Roebuck catalog) keeping my mouse company now. I can't really read my books in here because it's dark, but it's easier to keep them safe.

I think Bastion would be disappointed if he saw me like this, but he wouldn't really get it either. Ever since he returned from Foolspoint, it's like he's a different person. Not that I think he was Taken and replaced (again), but... I don't know, when he listens to me, he doesn't really hear me anymore. I haven't seen that much of him in the past couple of weeks. Terrible Claire told me that Bastion has been very busy with his duties to the Scarecrow Ministry. I guess they're in negotiation with some goblin out in the Hedge who claims he's got a bottle of Bastion's memories for sale.

A better friend would be happy, I guess, but if those really are Bastion's memories and he really manages to get them back, all it's going to do is put more distance between me and him. I miss him.

I think I'm going to go out tonight. Terrible Claire said that there's going to be some kind of gathering down at the Bend tonight, for the equinox. I don't really like the Bend most of the time, but Bastion will probably be there and I should talk to him before he forgets me entirely. There's going to be a really lovely moon out tonight, and Terrible Claire thinks that Sister might show up to tell us a story. If she does, I'm going to write it down, because it'd be a shame to lose Sister's stories. I wonder if she'd meet me to start recording them?

Nobody's seen Tim for a while. Mr. Abraham says he heard Tim found his family. I hope that's true.

I should go get cleaned up if I'm going out tonight.

Changeling: The Lost, one you may have missed

It's not new, having launched in 2007, and like many of the lesser-known World of Darkness titles, flew under a lot of peoples' radar.  I'm bringing it up again because I feel like it's a game that deserves a lot more attention than it got.  This is a truly deep, compelling game, with some stirring themes and imagery.

I feel like White Wolf got it right. This game has a purer feel to it than its precedent title. The faerie tale elements are all there. The supernatural element is what it should be: raw, elemental, potent, and terrible. Dreaming changelings had to carefully husband the faerie parts of their lives; Lost changelings run the risk of being overwhelmed by it.  This is a game about people who are victims of something greater and more terrible than themselves, but ultimately turn those victimizing forces into essential aspects of a new identity.  It has a timeless quality found in the writing of Charles de Lint and Neil Gaiman and the Brothers Grimm.

Published by White Wolf as another installment in their reincarnated World of Darkness line, The Lost is drastically different from its ancestor, The Dreaming. In the Dreaming, changelings were mortal people who housed faerie souls and lived in two worlds: the physical world we all know, and an immaterial overlay of living dreams. The supernatural half of this dual reality existed only for its participants, and was vulnerable to the forces of disbelief and denial. Children's imaginary friends or monsters under the bed were real to the changelings, as were more classic faerie beings. This world of enchantment was fragile and prone to vanishing for individuals who wander too far into day-to-day drudgery, but those that strayed too far into it were often driven mad.

However, The Lost takes a more archetypal approach, drawing more on traditional faerie tales. Changelings are mortals who, at some point, were abducted by the True Fae, and carted off to Faerie. There, they slaved and served at the whims of their ethereal, godlike masters in a realm more beautiful and terrible than anything they'd imagined could exist. Memories of former lives dwindled and faded, and the magic of Faerie inundated these people until they were no longer truly human. Eventually, they escaped from Faerie, through the barrier between the worlds called the Hedge, back into their own world.

Except it wasn't their world anymore. Many return to find that time has passed dramatically. Oftentimes, the changelings return to friends and family to find that they were never missed; they had been replaced by a fae-made imposter called a Fetch. Frequently Changelings have flawed memory of life before their abduction, and recall their time in Faerie only through dreams or vague (but overwhelming) sensations.

Unable to return home, or not even knowing where home is, the changelings find each other. Mortal eyes see changelings as normal people, but they can see each other's fae aspect. They band together for camaraderie, friendship, mutual understanding, and protection. The enchanted world they share is not the fragile fantasy of The Dreaming, it is an awful, brutal reality that seeks to hunt them down and drag them back, through the Hedge, to their immortal Keepers.

This new iteration of Changeling has one of the most open-ended character generation systems I've ever seen. In the past, there were a handful of kiths that a player could choose (Nocker, Boggan, Eshu, Sidhe, Satyr, Troll, Pooka, Sluagh... did I forget any?). Now, there are six Seemings: Darklings (the insidious things from the deep dark places in Faerie), Ogres, the Wizened (sage in appearance and ability), Beasts (changelings with one or more animal aspects), Elementals (those that were shaped by their keepers into material objects or overexposed to raw natural forces), and the Fairest (humans abducted to be singers, dancers, courtesans, and lovers to the True Fae).

Each Seeming has six or seven Kiths associated with it, which takes the overall role and appearance determined by Seeming and refines it by detailing specific powers, and expanding on particular aspects of the Seeming's role. For example, Darklings might be Antiquarians (hoarders of books and forgotten knowledge), Gravewights (those who deal with the dead), Leechfingers (who steal life from mortals), Mirrorskins (changers of shape and appearance), and Tunnelgrubs (goblinesque creepers capable of squirming through extremely narrow spaces).

Each changeling also has a Mantle. Rather than being simply Seelie or Unseelie, each changeling is (usually) allied with the forces of a particular season. The Winter Court embodies Sorrow, the Spring Desire, the Summer Wrath, and the Autumn Fear.

Finally, changelings frequently can have Entitlements. These represent membership with particular houses, factions, or secret societies that grant supernatural boons, and instill an agenda. The Duchy of the Icebound Heart, for instance, grants its members supernatural influence over those whose hearts they have personally broken.



The theme of The Lost is beautiful madness, and like many of White Wolf's other titles, it asks a great deal of its troupe.  The potential for gripping, tragic storytelling is there, if the players and storyteller are ready and able.  The strong fibers of loss, isolation, confusion, and insanity are interwoven with myth, beauty, poetry, and raw elemental power to create something that can inspire players.  It certainly inspired me.

The joys of custom worldcrafting

Creating a game world from scratch is one of the most fraught undertakings that any GM can consider, and this post is mostly a chance for me to self-indulgently reminisce about one that I started over a decade ago.

When 3rd Edition D&D launched, I wanted to create something new, and so the Feldenglas chronicle was born.  It traveled with me through my remaining college semesters, evolved during my years working at the Games Workshop headquarters in Maryland, and reached culmination in its own annihilation and apotheosis in the summer of 2005.  Here's a piece I wrote back in 2008, when 4th Edition prompted me to look at this world with fresh eyes:


Our home is a thriving place. The barony of Feldenglas is situated on a bright and shining bay. We have a wise baron, rich countryside, and growing trade influence with the other baronies. Castle Feldenglas sits perched at the heart of our town, atop a pinnacle of rock scorched in ages past by some great conflagration. The Church of Ea is ever-vigilant for the safety of men’s souls, advising spiritual purity and promising heavenly reward.

How would the Cardinal react, I wonder, if he knew that this world had already died once? How would he reconcile his doctrine of the ascendance of the mortal soul with the truth of the world’s reincarnation?

Would his faith be shaken, I wonder, if he knew that Merciful Ea was at the heart of the world’s destruction? Few have heard the truth, but I know that Ea, Lord in Heaven, betrayed his celestial brethren and claimed the world for his own. When he was stricken low, the world was unmade. The words were spoken, and where once there was one, there is again many. Now, eons after the fall of Lord Ea, these mighty lands of Cae Lyndyr are still being reborn.

Beyond the villages and fields, the primordial world is still grinding itself together and apart. The race of men carries on unconcerned, and while alliances rise and nations fall, the naïve forests and tall young mountains seethe with the reincarnated memories of their timeless heritage. Beyond the sight of men, the wild is both young and vibrant, and unknowably ancient.

Though merciful Ea may protect us from the predations of infernal sorcerers, it is simple country wisdom that keeps us safe from the fae folk. Bowls of milk beside the back door, or fresh loaves of bread at roadside shrines, or even a copper coin tossed into a sacred well. Only the most arrogant or foolish would call these superstitions. I have seen fields become fallow, cows dry up, and children stricken with the ague in villages where the proper offerings are not made. I have known men to return from their travels with tales of beautiful elf-maidens, and women to birth children with distant sight and strange gifts. With my own eyes, I have beheld a wagon driven by one of the Neisse, laden with crafted goods so clever that no mortal hand could ever duplicate them.

In many hidden places, the memories of the ancient world linger on. Sailors bring tales of ruined empires, outlandish people, and places where sorcerers declare their hellish allegiances without fear of reprisal. Some claim to have seen giants in the hills, or conversed with the dead on moonless nights. The narrow reality of the city streets and temple walls cannot explain the mysteries and wonders discovered by those with the courage to look beyond the palisades. The songs of the Gods have given these lands new life, but it is the toil of mortals that will shape it for ages to come.

The Feldenglas Chronicle is a game that has gone through numerous incarnations. It was originally conceived in the Fall of 2000, when Wizards of the Coast launched D&D 3rd edition. Initially a gritty, medieval, low-magic setting, the world was plunged into an apocalyptic war between the Heavenly Hosts of Ea and the Infernal Minions of the Nine Lords of Hell. The first chapter in the story ended with one of the player characters becoming the primary antagonist, opportunistically grasping at the remains of the barony of Feldenglas and setting it up as an infernal bastion. The remaining members of the party managed to secure safe harbor for the refugees of the so-called Saint’s War, ending the story on a wonderfully ambiguous note.

The second chapter began in the winter of 2003, featuring a majority of new players and characters. As the story unfolded, the characters learned that Ea was a traitor to the other Gods, and had stolen the world from them and remade it in his own image. As Ea prepared for the final battle that would prove to himself his own superiority, the heroes found a way to force him to become bound to his mortal form. They were then able to kill him. In the singularity of Ea’s destruction, the world was again unmade. The other Gods were awakened, and Ea’s arrogance and betrayal were forgiven. The story ended with the Gods preparing to sing their songs again.

Now, Cae Lyndyr is reborn, and with it the Barony of Feldenglas. It will continue to have a more historical flavor than most D&D settings, roughly corresponding to 12th-century Europe, but it will be heavily tinged with the Mythopoetic. There are superlative places that are clearly more than their mundane counterparts, like faerie-paradise forests, or mountains twelve miles high, topped with eternal winter. Mythic, supernal elements are present, but they will often be at odds with human civilization, by accident or design. The player characters are almost always be human, but Wizards are no longer unheard of, Clerics may serve deities other than Ea, and fathers may pass heirloom Neisse-forged swords to their sons. The emphasis is on exploration and wonder, conflict between the rational and the supernal, and the burdens and responsibility of those who are willing to truly begin to see the world outside their own front door.

The Implications of Virtual Gamespace

Something is lost when gamers simply consume their game, rather than collaborate in its creation.

Recently, I was introduced to a virtual tabletop website called Roll20.  It offers a suite of mapping tools to create a real-time virtual gamespace with features like live webcam, a well-stocked library of images, objects, maps, and music, and the ability to create and save dice macros.  At the time of writing, it's still in beta, but my group and I have been pretty damn impressed with the service as a whole.


Gaming in virtual space isn't anything new; it's been around since the first MUD launched in the late 70s and is presently a cultural juggernaut.  For all those years, tabletop games, especially D&D, have a direct influence on the ways in which online games have been created and consumed.  MMOs like World of Warcraft have built the fundamental mechanic of their combat encounters (coordination between Tank, Healer, Damage, and Crowd Control to defeat the enemies) around the four iconic classes of the original D&D game (Fighter, Cleric, Thief, and Magic-User).  Subsequently, when Wizards of the Coast rewrote the books for 4th edition, they codified what Blizzard and others had been doing in online games, identifying the four roles of Defender, Leader, Striker, and Controller.  Cynical reviewers scoffed and threw up their hands, saying that Wizards wanted to make D&D into World of Warcraft.

Though some of the gameplay features of D&D and WoW bear some similarity, the two are worlds apart.  I've played a lot of both, and the real distinction is the presence or absence of user-created content.  From the very beginning, D&D was always about creativity: you create the characters, you create the world, you and your friends tell whatever story that you want to tell.  MMOs like WoW are limited by the fact that they cannot be user-created, only consumed.  I have seen some decent role-playing take place in WoW, but the constraints of the virtual world were always something that we had to ignore, overcome, or work around.  Ultimately, if your interest is in creating content and exploring character roleplay, sooner or later that model is going to leave you cold.

I'm not trying to force a dialogue about tabletop-vs-MMO; that's a tired and pointless conversation that I'll leave to the fourteen-year-old sages that inhabit the rest of the internet.  My point here is that the gaming industry as a whole has gotten amazingly good at creating incredibly stirring, exciting, overwhelming products that can be very entertaining, but leave a certain fundamental aspect of the gamer's spirit unfulfilled.  We're constantly busier and busier, and the convenience of online gaming can be made to fit our schedules more easily than traveling to a friends' house for an evening.

Playing D&D via Roll20 was a revelation.  Before we ever had our first session, I had a blast just creating the dens of happy little goblins that my friends would soon be murdering.  As a GM, creating was always fun for me; Roll20 just made it a lot easier to address my relative lack of artistic and technical ability.

My players, to varying degrees, participated in that creation in the way that players always do: creating a character, and shoring up the statistical skeleton with their fictional background.  To varying degrees, of course: not all of them are as interested in story, but that's fine.  Once again, what we're enjoying is collaborative creativity, and that seemed to come through Roll20 just fine.

Once we got to actually playing, the user interface tripped us all up a bit at first, but we got comfortable with our macros, and with the slight lag in the webcam windows, and before long we really seemed to forget that we weren't all around the table with each other. 

The virtual tabletop was a success because it enabled us play our game together.  It exceeded my expectations, because it enabled us to create and to socialize, with minimal impact on these sort of higher-order functions of the gaming group. 

We've been told this was coming for years now; it makes me smile that the ones who delivered on the promise were a bunch of guys who funded the project on Kickstarter so that they could offer it free to whomever wanted it.  Talk about user-generated content.