Farsight Blogger

GAMMA CON pictures

2012-01-30T19:54:00.002Z

Here's a few pictures from our successful GAMMA CON last Saturday. Go to the Gamma Con website to see more.

My mission to make the internet explode

2012-01-29T11:20:00.002Z

I've been perusing the amusing TV Tropes website and I came across this, a long list of the causes of Internet Backdraft for Tabletop Games. For those who don't know, Internet Backdraft is best explained by TV Tropes intro to the topic:

'Poor, innocent, hapless newbie wanders into a forum and wonders aloud if that guy in that show should be with that girl in that show. The forum erupts into flames, igniting all the boards that deal with the show, which ignites whole sections of the Internet into a blazing Inferno.'

So, with this in mind and an evil grin, I've read down the long list of the causes of Internet Backdraft in the tabletop gaming world and I've picked out some of my favourites:

- 'Whether or not Katanas Are Just Better, on the Wizards of the Coast Dungeons & Dragons forum. Even suggesting that a katana should have different D&D stats from a longsword or bastard sword will get you flamed. Katana threads were actually officially banned for a while.'

- 'Try this fun little experiment. Head over to Warhammer forum and start a discussion about which is Warhammer Fantasy Rules Set is better: 7th or 8th edition. Enjoy.'

- 'Try mentioning anything remotely positive about any White Wolf game on a Pen&Paper roleplaying board that favors WotC. If you REALLY want to get a bonfire started, use one or more of the following words: "Deep," "Conflicted," or "Morality System."'

- 'Go to rpg.net and mention ANY Palladium RPG, see how it works out for you.'

GAMMA CON - I'm happy to report...

2012-01-29T10:22:00.002Z

...that GAMMA CON was a great success!

A very, very successful day with a great turnout and some great gaming. The hall was packed and there was a great atmosphere. I'd like to thank everyone who attended, everyone who helped and, most of all, I'd like to thank my wife Lisa for carrying me through all this. More details and plenty of pictures to come, but right now bed is calling for an after-event coma. Thanks again, everyone, for a brilliant day.

GAMMA CON

2012-01-27T13:33:00.002Z

Well, tomorrow is the big day. I've got traders, demos, games and interested parties. Paper, pencils, stuff to sell, lots of dice. All I need now is plenty of gamers to come along and just hang out and have some fun. Game or no game, it's all about meeting fellow gamers and expanding the community. Creating friendships, giving the hobby a boost.

It's these little get-togethers that keep the gaming community going, keep the hobby alive. I hope to see plenty of people, veterans and newbies alike.

The best contender for a Dragon Warriors movie yet

2012-01-22T21:08:00.003Z

Forget the crappy rock music used in the trailer, and ignore the woefully terrible 'Heavy Metal Goes Medieval' tagline that I've seen on some promotion stuff. This is a historically inaccurate but incredibly high-octane flick that ticks all the 'I want to see a movie where dudes beat the shit out of each other with big swords' boxes. Behold IRONCLAD!

It's proper gory and very violent, and it has an air of darkness and brutality about it that really sets a grim tone. Stick some bearded guys throwing spells about in there and you've got a Dragon Warriors movie.

It's very wrong about the seige of Rochester and, if done properly, a movie about that important moment in English history would be all kinds of dramatic. But, in true boy's adventure fashion, the film makers decided to drop all that and go for 'this is what a greatsword can do!' and 'double-headed greataxes are awesome!!!' instead. It's got some great performances and it's worth watching for an amazing speech by King John (played to the hilt by Paul Giamatti). This is a great film and pleases me on so many levels.

Currently, as far as TV shows and movies to inspire a Dragon Warriors game goes, I'm listing the following in order of suitability:

1 - Robin of Sherwood
2 - Ironclad
3 - Black Death
4 - Cadfael
5 - The Name Of The Rose
6 - Arn: The Knight Templar

I'll add to the list as time goes on.

Another Dragon Warriors Movie

2012-01-22T16:26:00.002Z

I like to find movies that give me inspiration for my games, visually and possibly thematically. This is another movie that sets the tone for me - Arn: The Knight Templar. It's a very good movie, although not as action-packed as the trailer suggests, and has some great characters in it I could use as Dragon Warriors NPCs.

It does drag a little in some places but overall it was an excellent film and I was really impressed with the main character Arn and think he'd make a great NPC.

Check it out. It's a good film. Next on my list is 'Ironclad'. That's in my DVD player right now and is ready to go.

'Story trumps rules'

2012-01-21T11:47:00.000Z

I was watching my DVD of 'The Gamers: Dorkness Rising' (top movie, if you've not seen it) this week and this line sticks in my head - 'Story trumps rules'.

I agree with this to a certain extent, as in allowing the rules to get in the way of fun or immersion can yank a person out of the emotional involvement a game, but to ignore the rules too much takes away any sense of achievement and can make some people feel that they're just wandering through someone else's story. I thought about it more as I read some D&D forums as they talked about 5th edition, and a lot of the posters are very focused on how the rules work and how they interact with each other. In some cases I get the impression that the rules are considered as not just guidelines but strict, definitive instructions on what the players (and GM) can and can't do.

As a GM I've fudged a few rolls here and there for dramatic licence but I do try and at least stick to the rules in as much as the players don't feel like they're being led around by the nose, or that they feel that their rolls don't mean much in the grand scheme of things. If a GM has a definite idea if where he wants a story to go then the rules can get in the way so no doubt will be more inclined to fudge or ignore. I guess it depends on the kind of game that's being played, or the rules system being used.

Does story trump rules, or is it the other way around? Is there happy balance?

Check this baby out

2012-01-21T11:12:00.005Z

Spirit Games in Burton is top notch - the sheer amount of games new, old and obscure keeps me browsing for ages. In the middle of a whole load of AD&D and D&D 3.x stuff I found this tucked away:

It's the rules book from the boxed D&D game that TSR released in 1991. Just the rulebook, mind you, not the entire box. Which is a shame, because that would have been amazing. It's basically the rules from the Basic set all in one book so I now have a copy of the original rules that I miss so dearly, all for the bargain price of two English pounds. All that remains now is for me to win the Ebay auction for an original and complete redbox Basic D&D set and I'll be in hog heaven. That is, if hogs liked old roleplaying games.

So why did I fall out of love with old D&D?

2012-01-18T22:16:00.003Z

It’s a good question. I picked up the AD&D 2nd Edition rulebooks this week and I’ve spent the last couple of nights reading through them, trying to remember why it was I turned my back on the system way back in 1989/1990. After reading the Player’s Handbook and the Dungeon Master’s Guide I kind of remember.

First of all I loved looking at the books again. It’s been a hell of a long time and it was nice to go through the musty old pages. I know it was a long time ago but some of the art hasn’t aged well. I was screwing up my face a lot and thinking ‘why did they use that image?’, but then I got to the obvious image of the priestess from Red Sonja on page 80 of the PHB and figured, ‘well, they obviously didn’t give a toss.’ Some of the images are positively atrocious, but some of it was good. A lot of it was trying to do something sadly lacking from much of the art used these days – they were trying to impart a sense of reality.

I’ve addressed this in a previous blog entry, but the art used in modern D&D is far too stylised and cartoonish for me to take it seriously, and that kind of yanks me out of the reality of the game. The art may not be great in these original books but it tried to create atmosphere and didn’t try to impress with razzle-dazzle insanely impossible armour and weapons.

The way it’s written is quite cool, as well. It explains the rules clearly and is well presented, and it gives all kinds of flavour on how to run the game. It includes a lot of rules that are optional, depending on how detailed you want your game to be. You could run it as complicated as you wanted, or as basic as… well… Basic D&D. That’s a nice touch. It’s really well written and at times I could see myself playing it. I certainly remember sitting at a dining table back in 1989 and poring over the book, trying to decide what I wanted to play and how I wanted to play it. Those memories remind me of the music of Van Halen, for some reason, and Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Weird.

So why did I fall out of love with it? Well, looking at the books I’m sure it was a combination of things but the two main ones are:

1. Weighed down by rules. Yeah, a lot of them were optional but as you go through the book I just felt that I needed all these little extras to make the character better and fell into the trap of using them all. Basic D&D was nice and simple. It just seemed that they had the chance to really smooth out AD&D with the second edition but fell back on the old concepts, relying on those dodgy saving throws and pointless ability-based rules and adjustments – same basic system, just explained better. Not a bad system, by any means, and the fact it lasted so long speaks volumes.

2. The game I was in. I’m not going to name any names, but I was in a couple of different groups and I played semi-regularly so I was gaming with many different people. Anyway, one of the campaign worlds I was in wasn’t great. Ravenloft crossed with Dragonlance. It was a rules-twisting nightmare of a game with powerplayers, system abusers and egoists all vying for domination, and a DM who thought he was the dog’s danglies. I learned a lot from him, like, how not to do it. That didn’t help.

So, is that it? Could I have been turned off from D&D by the rules and the dodgy game I was playing in? Most likely, but I’m sure it must have been something else.

And it was.

AD&D wasn’t giving me what I needed anymore. I was turning to games that were a bit more skill-orientated with characters a little more defined by their capabilities. I started to play Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and the Middle-Earth Roleplaying game where I could see on the sheet how good someone was with a sword or a bow and not wonder how good someone was based on that awful THAC0. AD&D just felt like it was lacking something and was starting to feel somewhat bloated with all the campaign settings, additions and the constant extra bits supplied by Dragon magazine (which, to be fair, I still bought long after I stopped playing the game). I felt like I was constantly playing catch up with it. And that constantly expanding Monster Manual Compendium thingy. Sheesh. I did love the Forgotten Realms setting and would have enjoyed getting into Birthright, mind you.

I don’t think I truly fell out of love with AD&D or D&D in general. I think we grew apart, that there were other, shinier games that attracted my attention, games I was much more compatible with and treated me well. As much fun as I had with D&D I had my best games and most memorable games with WFRP and MERP, powerful dramatic sessions with huge story arcs and detailed characters. Things I never got from D&D.

I had fun with D&D, I know that – after all, I played it for five years – but it never gave me the options I really wanted. It felt like they were bolting on rules and extras to a system that desperately needed a makeover, a makeover it didn’t see until 3rd Edition. That was a game a bit more up my street, and I didn’t even get hold of that until a year ago.

I do miss the game, but I think I miss it in a nostalgic way. As much as I’ve enjoyed reading these AD&D 2nd Edition books and seen areas where I might have enjoyed running it, I don’t think I ever can. It’s a first love kind of thing, an affair that I remember with fondness but can’t go back to. There are rules systems now that I can get much more enjoyment from.

I’m glad I bought them.

I'm not sure this blog post made much sense, to be honest. I blame the vodka.

DRAGON WARRIORS – Gameplay report delayed!

2012-01-18T17:54:00.004Z

Hi there, sadly, this week's Dragon Warriors game report will be delayed as the Thursday night game has been cancelled. I'll get back on it next week.

So, be here for the next thrilling installment of 'Dragon Warriors' - next week's episode... 'Death on the Frozen Mountain!'

Why did I stop loving old D&D in the first place?

2012-01-15T20:32:00.008Z

Truthfully, I can't rightfully remember the whole reason, so I fancied having another look at AD&D 2nd Edition to see why it was I fell out of love with D&D for twenty years. You see, I played Basic D&D and then I had a stab at Advanced D&D, and almost immediately stopped playing. AD&D 2nd Edition was so weighed down that the gameplay suffered horrendously, at least in my group. As I couldn't find another group to play Basic D&D I let the game go, and for twenty years didn't give it a glance.

In 2009 my friend Jason started a Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition game and, while it was fun, it felt kind of hollow and was totally geared towards combat. Besides, I'd just come out the other side of World of Warcraft and didn't fancy playing a tabeltop version of it. Then we progressed to Pathfinder and things got much better, and I picked up the 3.0 rules last year and realised that I'd missed out on quite a lot. Recently I've been having a look over the Birthright setting and really enjoying it - it's the kind of setting I think would work well with Dragon Warriors - and it made me wonder what it was about AD&D 2nd Edition that turned me off it.

So, the point of this post - I just got the two AD&D 2nd Edition rulebooks and the Fighter's book off Ebay for a fiver, including postage. Just wanted to gloat about that, to be honest, but also when I get it I'll have a good read and try to put in words why it was I stopped playing the old game for the better part of twenty years.

And what I wouldn't do right now to get the Rules Cyclopedia at a decent price. Anyone want to swap it for Eclipse Phase?

DRAGON WARRIORS – Gameplay report 2

2012-01-15T13:34:00.000Z

Another session and another good game of Dragon Warriors.

After the night’s festivities the players (minus one, who couldn’t make it that night but we kept his character on hand as a pseudo-hireling) went into the tavern. They purchased rooms for the night and, while one of them inspected the ornately carved fireplace that seemed to move when seen from the corner of the eye, another questioned the father of the girl who had been carried off. He was very drunk after all the drinks of congratulations he had received, but they learned that he was proud and that his daughter was now with God, and that she had been carried away by a beautiful singing angel. Obviously, the townsfolk were seeing the opposite of what the players saw.

The social interaction was handled with two simple rolls. One roll against LOOKS to have the question be taken seriously or to even be acknowledged by the drunk father, and a (hugely modified due to the alcohol) roll against the father’s INTELLIGENCE to see if he was suspicious at all. Everything went swimmingly until the father rolled very low three times in a row and became suspicious of all the questions. The players realised they may have been pushing too far and back off just in time as the father’s friends arrive to take him home.

The next morning the players meet with the blacksmith and he fills them in with what he sees as the truth – while he was repairing the hinges on the door to the Lord’s library he saw a blue-bound book and, being able to read, decided to have a look at the curiosity. He realised that the book was a tome about demons and he saw a similarity between the story and the town. A demon named Alagog took a soul in sacrifice that he could feed upon for 180 days, and in return the people were given bountiful crops, food and wealth. So, intrigued, he did not consume the drugged food or water during one festival and saw the creature for what it was, not an angel but a horror. The blacksmith’s seven-year old daughter has been chosen as the next Festival Queen so he is desperate for help. So desperate he has asked the PCs. As far as he knows there is an abandoned castle atop Crag Peak in the Pagan Mountains and this is the probable place where the demon is taking the sacrifices.

No rolls here – the entire conversation was a roleplaying exercise and, as long as the players weren’t a bother in-game, the adventure could be outlined.

To determine if the Lord of Dungully was involved the players decide to go and introduce themselves and ask to use the library to see if there is any mention of an ancestor they are tracking down in a personal pilgrimage. After failing a LOOKS roll or two, the Lord and his aide become somewhat suspicious of the group, but still allow them access to the library. They discovered the existence of Crag Peak and how to get to it and, as they did this, one of the assassins decided to pilfer the blue book about demons. The pages are blank and, wanting to know more, they head down to the local church.

Stepping over the threshold of the church, the book bursts into flames. Panicked, and damaged by the burning book, the assassin tries to dowse the flames by throwing the tainted book of demons into the font, which is filled with Holy Water.

Yeah.

One huge explosion later, with the stone font shattering into a million pieces and the windows of the church blowing out, the players decide to beat a hasty retreat. They purchase what they need and get out of town.

Up to yet there have been no combats, even though some badly failed rolls in the tavern the night before almost resulted in some brawling. This concerned me a little – would the players become a little bored? The answer was no. As long as they had things to interact with and the story carried on at a decent clip then they seemed satisfied. I did have an encounter sorted for the forest should they decide to travel, but they left the town late and we were out of time before I could introduce it. I did hint at it – the PCs camped for the night in a ditch and a wolf stuck his head out of the bushes as they watched. Thing is, this wolf had the head the size of a horse. I think I’ll save that for next time.

I enjoyed the game – it felt like an introduction to the larger adventure so now I can concentrate on the quest they are on and the trials ahead. They’ve geared up, they have a target and they’re on their way, so all that remains for me to do is give them some decent obstacles.

Rules-wise this game was a little difficult as I had to make modifiers to the rolls of the players depending on how well they roleplayed so there was a lot of adjudication. Once again there was a lot of chatter and messing around at the table but you have to cut through that and concentrate on the moment. They also split the party, which I don’t really mind as long as I only spend a few minutes on each small group, but the volume always rises as the unattended group talk between themselves and over the group I’m working on. That can be annoying and makes people frustrated, not just me but the players trying to be heard, and it gets doubly annoying when a player ‘not there’ butts in with recommendations, advice or just a silly comment. I go with the flow where that’s concerned (I have little choice, frankly) but as long it doesn’t get out of hand then that’s cool. A short, curt ‘No, you’re not there!’ usually does the trick. All in all a fun night with some great moments (exploding fonts are always good fun).

Now they’re in the forest on the way to a village called Pleg as they travel to the Pagan Mountains. Hilarity will no doubt ensue.

Weeping over my glass of wine

2012-01-14T21:23:00.002Z

Why, oh why did I sell all my Basic D&D boxsets?

I miss you.

Here's what I'd do with 5th Edition D&D...

2012-01-13T14:37:00.003Z

That's the way I'd go - use this with 3.5's three saves, a stripped down combat system with attack roll + modifiers Vs AC, and about a dozen skills with skill roll + modifiers Vs DC. No talents or feats - save those for a supplement - and then concentrate on the gameplay and steer away from complicated combat.

Make it a box set with a book for players and one for DMs, extra book for an adventure and maybe the beginnings of a new gameworld and then go from there. Everything explained clearly and step by step like the original Red Box Basic, and with enough material to get a few games. Let the players get up to about level 10 and everything else is modular. So, drop the three book format, stick it in a pleasant shrink-wrapped box that would look nice on a toy store shelf and make it accessible to fresh gaming blood.

Most of all, pull back the design. Drop the stylised anime batshit insane impractical armour and weapons and try and make it a bit more grounded in reality. Release books for gameworlds, the usual Forgotten Realms and that kind of thing. Go from there.

So, after those chamges, the character sheet would look something like this:

Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition

2012-01-11T22:08:00.004Z

I was kind of trying to stay out of this, but let's face it, it's a big deal. The announcement of 5th Edition has stirred up a lot of chatter on the internet.

Only four/five years since 4th came out and they're already talking of a new one? Sorry, but it's always been my opinion that Wizards of the Coast dropped the ball on D&D and became so focused on the competition they thought they were up against from the MMORPG world they ended up emulating it with subscriptions and the like, and throwing it together quickly and sloppily to get it on the shelves, and then marketing it to the wrong crowd. Why try to impress existing gamers? Roleplayers are already roleplaying - we needed fresh blood in the hobby!

I always said, it needs to be on the toystore shelves, in The Entertainer or in W.H.Smiths, or on the shelves in Tesco. It needs to go back to it's roots as a game for kids and the family - Wizards of the Coast just wanted to impress and cater to the existing gamer groups and probably didn't think for one second that they could bring in new blood; at least, that's how I saw it because they did nothing to make it accessible to the beginning gamer, and the Essentials line was just a waste of time.

They need to leave out the old school players who are writing this stuff and who think they know best and bring in sub-30 year old writers who remember how to have fun, with the old-schoolers looking over their shoulders, and have a look at the rules-lite systems and strip the whole thing down to a version of the servicable 3.x Edition and rebuild it. But, make it a hell of a lot simpler and much more accessible to new gamers. The starter box they did in 2010 was a great idea, almost inspired, but it needed to be a simple, basic game for new gamers. And the three core rulebooks? Why? ONE BOOK! With everything in there for new gamers to run game after game after game! All the supplements could be modular.

I don't know, we'll see, I guess. I admit, I had fun with 4e when I played it a couple of years ago. Let's hope they've learned a thing or two over the last few years.

The Aim of Game Play

2012-01-09T19:22:00.002Z

In my early days of playing roleplaying games I was still in the mindset of playing the game to ‘win’. This ‘winning’ took the form of two things, defeating foes and gathering treasure. In general, the entire incentive of playing the game was to garner as much gold and treasure as possible and therefore ‘win’ the game.

But as time goes on you have to ask what is the point of playing to this end. While the initial aim of the game is to win or earn gold there should be more to it than just that. Any in-game rewards do give you a sense of achievement but it’s ultimately hollow as there is nothing you can do with said gold. Playing a boardgame or wargame and winning is remarkably different as you are competing against opponents which, even though you are not physically taking anything from the experience, there is a sense of accomplishment in defeating others.

In a roleplaying game there are no true opponents other than the NPCs or events a GM throws at you, but a GM is representing both the friends and enemies of the players and so cannot be considered a true opponent. The other players in the group are usually working as a team so they are not opponents, either. So where does the satisfaction come from? Is it in the attainment of in-game wealth?

At first, I think the promise of in-game gold and riches and how much you get is a measure of achievement and this is true of both new and experienced gamers. I can easily say that this was what drove me as a new player but the habit has not been lost; when I joined a Pathfinder game last year my main intention was to make as much in-game money as possible and, indeed, there was some dishonesty in the group to get that wealth. This may have been the initial incentive but now we (or, at least, I) have other, more story-driven reasons to quest.

But the truth as I see it these days is this – the incentive to play a roleplaying game is the game itself. When I run games now the original conceit for the reason to be adventuring - that there is gold and glory to be had - has been sidelined unless the game specifically calls for that approach. To me, the reward in playing roleplaying games is the experience, and winning is an enjoyable evening of collaborative storytelling that makes an impression, or a game in which all attendees come away with a sense of satisfaction of a job well done.

It’s the game itself that should drive the experience, not the outcome. Having events making an emotional impression on a person lasts a lot longer than the imaginary gold that has been earned. When my roleplaying friends and I talk about games of old, we never talk about how much money we made.

The Flavour of a Fantasy Roleplaying Game

2012-01-08T11:54:00.007Z

I've played all kinds of fantasy roleplaying games with all kinds of systems in a variety of settings. I've mostly enjoyed them all but I'm a hard man to please as I have a definitive idea in my head regarding how a fantasy world is suppossed to look. Being from England and having been surrounded by medieval imagery all my life I'm of the pseudo-historical slant, the kind of guy who loves to have magic elves sauntering about the place but wants them to dress realistically.

One of the reasons why I love 'Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay' (1st Edition) and the Magnus Opus Press (soon to be Serpent King Games) 'Dragon Warriors' games so much is the atmosphere they exude. Warhammer was gritty, dark, and felt like a heady mix of high fantasy and dirty, European reality, and Dragon Warriors was a fantasy version of the history I grew up with. On the other side of the coin (and just as enjoyable - don't think I'm belittling anything) is the high fantasy stylised worlds of Dungeons & Dragons and it's ilk, with bikini mail and unfeasible weapons and armour.

I'm sure it'd be easy to play a D&D game as gritty and realistic, even play Dragon Warriors as high fantasy, but the artwork and presentation of the books themselves help to tell me what kind of game I'll be playing. In some ways, you could say the artwork colours my view and even expectations of the game I'm going to play.

Take, for example, the artwork of a selection of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition books:

The artwork is stylised, with larger-than-life images, dynamic poses and in-your-face attitude. The setting is presented as high fantasy, indicating that realism doesn't really matter when you're playing in a game of huge heroes, high magic, insane monsters and talking trees. The covers are positively screaming for you to go apeshit and have fun with it. And indeed I have had fun with it - although I've now moved on to an excellent Pathfinder campaign, which does share some of the look and feel with the above, I still feel there's a huge 'in your FACE!' feel to the imagery and design. There's a great sense of disconnection from reality, that you are this larger-than-life hero. I think that's part of the appeal.

Now let's have a look at some covers for the Dragon Warriors game:

The image on the bottom right is the cover for the unprinted 'Player's Book'

I'd say that these covers were bleak, and much more grounded in reality than the D&D covers (of course, I use the word 'reality' loosely - we are talking about fantasy roleplaying games, here) which presents a totally different gaming atmosphere. I look at these and I think of a living, breathing medieval Europe with the trappings of a fantasy world, a world I can in some way relate to as I recognise the look and feel of the artwork. To be honest, that's my kind of game. I want that sense of pseudo-history.

I wonder if this is something to do with the fact that I'm British? I live in the historical Cathedral City of Lichfield and since childhood I've been bombarded with images, stories and lessons about the medieval period. I know what things are supposed to look like, how things worked, how people dressed. To a certain extent I understand the attitudes. This has no doubt influenced the kind of games I like to run and play in, but doesn't diminish my enjoyment of high-fantasy games. Given the choice, though, I'll take gritty pseudo-history games over bombastic high-fantasy games anytime.

Spotlight - Jon Hodgson, artist

2012-01-07T23:30:00.000Z

I can't believe that I once turned down an offer from Jon Hodgson, via rpg.net, to post him my newly-acquired copy of the Dragon Warriors core rulebook for him to sign. Incredibly I politely declined. Why? I had already lost two copies of some sought-after books and one I had sent out in the Royal Mail and I was loathe to lose my copy of the book, as it had taken me a while to get hold of it. You may all line yourselves up and kick me up the arse.

This guy is one of my favourite artists. The atmosphere he invokes in his images is remarkable and his work for Dragon Warriors, and now Cubicle 7's new Middle-Earth RPG 'The One Ring' is stunning.

From his website at www.jonhodgson.com -

'At the time of writing Jon Hodgson is in his late 30s and lives in Scotland, UK though he happens to have been born south of the border in England.

His career has spanned art direction, set building, props making, graphic design, story boarding, historical illustration, card game art, board game art, computer games cut scene art, educational illustration and roleplaying game art.

So far in his short career (Ten or so years full time at the last count) Jon has made over 200 pieces of card art for collectable card games, solo illustrated 15 books with 30 plus illustrations each for Warhammer Historical, has provided cover art for some 30 gaming books as well as numerous pieces of packaging art, made illustrations for the biggest roleplaying game in the world - Dungeons and Dragons, as well as for some of the smallest. At one point he was a story boarder for the children's animated show Bob the Builder.

For the last 18 months Jon has been hard at work creating art for the forthcoming “The One Ring” rpg from Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd - a new Lord of the Rings roleplaying game, featuring the art of John Howe, Tomasz Jedrusek and Jon Hodgson.

Jon is also currently art director for Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd.

In 2009 David and Charles/Impact Books published Fantasy Art for Beginners written by Jon, which is available in all good bookshops.

Jon trained as a "fine artist", specialising in abstract painting. Apparently.

Jon uses an Apple iMac, Artrage, Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter X, a Wacom Intuos 3, and a lot of coffee. As well as pencils and paper, and very occasionally actual real paint.

Selected Clients: The BBC, Accenture, David & Charles, Wizards of The Coast, Games Workshop's various subsidiaries - Black Library, Sabertooth Games, Black Industries, Warhammer Historical, Upper Deck, Paizo, Cubicle 7, Ulisses Spiele, Uhrwerk Verlag, Euromoney Magazine, Digital Artist Magazine, Drumond Park, Red Redemption, Project Quest John Adams Trading, Magnum Opus Press, Mongoose Publishing, Green Ronin, Alderac Entertainment Group, Hot Animation'

Hopefully, Jon will continue to illustrate Dragon Warriors now that he is part of Serpent King Games who are re-releasing the game with new material.

In fact, the guy has a talent I'm horrendously jealous of, so just forget you read this blog entry, yeah? And don't even think of going over to his Deviant Art page.

DRAGON WARRIORS – Gameplay report

2012-01-06T21:18:00.007Z

As I’m running a short Dragon Warriors campaign while my mate Jason takes a break from his ongoing Pathfinder game I thought I’d keep something of a record of what’s going on in the game and how it’s progressing. In this short possibly short-lived series of blogs I'll do a (much shorter than this one) update after the game every Thursday. I’ll cover the story, how the game is going and how the rules dealt with certain situations.

I’ve started the game with all six players creating Knights, Barbarians or Assassins. I’ve excluded magic users for now and will allow access to the magical careers once the game is in progress. The group consists of two of each career. I’m not that fussed about game balance as long as the players are happy with their choices. Character creation was easy and quick – three players had already created their PCs and the other three took about half an hour to create theirs, and even give them basic character backgrounds. The Dragon Warriors character creation system is quick, easy and starts the player of with the very basics, including equipment and money. Unless the group agrees there’s no drawn out shopping for starting equipment. Some groups may find that a little annoying and restrictive but for a quick, simple game like Dragon Warriors it’s perfect. I did toy with the idea of allowing the players to exchange the starting items with a cash equivalent and then let them shop, but decided in the end to give them the basics and then let them shop in-game.

As the game was about to begin I used the optional rules for ‘Fate Points’, which will allow the PCs to change a single roll or cheat death, and the use of the below zero health points critical chart. I’m also trialling a variant of the damage system; in the core rulebook, damage is set at a static score depending on weapon used and there is an optional system that allows for a random damage roll to be made. I’m giving the players the choice; they can either take the set damage score or they can roll per hit. This means if they do choose to roll then they might do more damage, but then they also might do a lot less!

I’m setting my campaign in the Lands of Legend, just a little south of the Pagan Mountains in Ellesland, and I’ve decided to drop the entire ‘party origin’ story. There was no ‘you meet in a tavern’ or ‘you’re all brought before the Lord’ etc. They were simple travellers who had all met up on the road and decided to stick together for mutual protection. The rumours are that there are plenty of barrows, run-down castles, Selentine Empire ruins and caves to be explored and plundered. Sadly, they’ve been beaten to it and they’ve all been emptied. Cold, wet and miserable, they trudge north looking for a town called Dungully. The landscape is blasted and bleak, but as they approach the mountains the land becomes rich and bountiful, like they’ve suddenly stepped into spring.

Along the road they see a cart with a broken wheel, half in the trees, and an injured horse – obviously something is afoot. It’s at this point, after introducing the world, the landscape and the rainy weather, that I ask the players what they want to do.

This first encounter starts some confusion. As I’ve set the scene some of the group have been talking amongst themselves, sometimes loudly. This can be annoying but I’ve learned that waiting for players to be quiet or asking them to listen doesn’t really solve anything. I continue talking to the players that are listening with the intention of letting them benefit from what they learn. Once the players not listening realise they’re missing out they’re a bit more attentive.

A trail leads to a bandit camp, who have obviously just raided the cart and taken two men on it captive, and a fight ensues. I’m not using minis so I quickly sketch out a combat map – in a small clearing with a fire at the centre – so the players have to use their imaginations. The bandits are somewhat weak, being a first encounter for a system shakedown, and easily dispatched. There’s little to no confusion regarding the combat rules, even for those new to the system, and the encounter runs smooth and fast. By the end of it a couple of the PCs are injured but eleven bandits lie dead and the rest flee into the woods. The cash-starved PCs promptly loot the bodies and then free the captives.

As quick and as easy as the fight was, I had three main problems with the combat:

One, the players who were used to minis and a battle mat were a bit lost at the beginning as the entire encounter was played out quickly and easily with nothing but small sketches. They got into the swing of it but their initial instinct was to plan their tactics and move their pieces.

Two, Lots of people shouting over each other to get attention. This is a problem in any game but with the additional job of handling the players new to this game system it got a little loud and frustrating. The trick is not to take that frustration out on anybody, in or out of the game, and handle each situation calmly and quickly. Most of the time the players will accept a quick judgement call from the GM, especially if you keep the action flowing and move away from the problem as fast as you can.

Three, there was immediate party conflict. One of the players spent time picking up dropped coins, as he was low on funds, and when the combat started another player knocked all the money out of his hands and into the river. This resulted in the offended player sauntering to the fight and getting involved in the dying moments, then realising that he had not earned any experience as the others had done the work. It was obviously frustrating for him so I moved the action on quickly and made a mental note to give the player something to do to earn extra points later on.

The freed captives are traveling to Dungully to take part in a huge festival and are so grateful for their lives, and agree to travel with the PCs. Upon arriving at the town after dark they find the place packed, the streets full with drinking and eating, dancing, games and general merrymaking.

This town, and the introduction of the obligatory inn, gives the players a focus, a central area they can use as a marker and a possible place for rest and recuperation. The town is bright and packed with happy, friendly NPCs and the players get into the swing of things by taking part in archery contests, a melee, and a race to climb to the top of a flower-covered wooden pedestal in the town square. Dealing with these different minigames was difficult but fun. All I needed to do was concentrate on one thing at a time and make sure that those not directly involved were also excited about the outcome of the dice rolls, in which I asked for basic attribute rolls, and in extreme circumstances it was a simple case of who rolled closest to ‘1’. I even allowed florins to change hands as bets were made on the outcome, and a couple of the players came away with healthy wins. It all made for a few exciting moments.

All of this was a misdirection of sorts; as they played the minigames, laughed and joked, a young lady, the Queen of the Festival was paraded through the cheering crowds throwing flowers. The players made remarks and joined in. As a result of me trying to give him something to do, the player who had had his money knocked out of his hands became involved with a minigame but was having a bad night with some bad dice rolls. When he yet again lost a competition he elected to punch the NPC who had just beaten him, obviously frustrated by the evening’s play he was having. When he even failed to thump the NPC who staggered back shocked and was about to call the guards, he finally passed a roll and convinced the man he was only joking and then staggered into the crowd. There’s not a lot you can do with frustrated players, especially if they’ve lost out to the other gamers at the table as he had done with experience points, and the best way to deal with them is to let them vent. If he had gotten into a fistfight I may have inserted the idea that the men he was fighting thoroughly deserved a good beating.

During all this one of the Assassin players decided to pick a pocket while the attention of the crowd was on one of the barbarians (with a score of 17 in Looks!) as he regaled them with tales of his deeds. Sadly he failed his roll and the portly merchant caught him and cried out for guards. Flustered, and a bit frustrated that he had been caught, the player opted to stab the innocent NPC he had tried to rob. The other players bawled him out, shocked at the decision, and so the player elected to punch him instead. I’m not entirely sure why he decided to suddenly turn nasty, it was as if he suddenly realised that he was in the middle of a huge pressing crowd and dozens of eyes were watching him – he acted impulsively, maybe even panicked a little, and there were going to be consequences to his actions.

This was the perfect opportunity to introduce an NPC blacksmith who I had intended to bring in later. Seeing that there was going to be trouble and not wanting the game to go too far off track, I threw in the blacksmith – who was desperate for the help of strangers but wouldn’t speak to them in the crowd – and he staggered in and proclaimed the failed pickpocket a drunken bet that the PC had lost, paid the merchant some money and staggered away pretending to be drunk with the PC. ‘If you want to live until morning, do what I do. Do not drink or eat their food. Meet me at my smithy in the morning.’ Adventure hook in place, the blacksmith staggers away. Even though the player’s decision to pickpocket and then assault the NPC was highly questionable it was a good way to bring the NPC in and set the scene that not all was at it seemed. It also enforces the idea that there was something to trust about him, or at least listen to what he has to say. He had not only imparted this information but had also risked exposure to what he knew by helping the PC, stopping a nasty fate befalling the pilferer. That was plenty of situations solved right there – important NPC introduction, the idea that the festival was dangerous, the PC saved from a nasty (and potentially game-stalling) fate, and an adventure hook was delivered. That was something of a lucky break for me.

As the minigames progress a great shout has gone up and people are rhythmically beating drums, blowing whistles and cheering the Festival Queen who has climbed to the top of the pedestal and is raining flowers and money down onto the crowd. The PCs even join in; shouting, banging, calling out lewd remarks that other townsfolk join in with, shouting jokes. The noise reaches a crescendo. It’s now midnight.

Then a huge, bellowing scream is heard from the darkness. A winged shape blots out the stars and talons grab the ecstatic Festival Queen by the shoulders and carry the white-clad maiden into the darkness. There’s a huge rush of air and the crowd fall silent. A moment later a huge cheer goes up and the party continues.

That’s where I ended the session.

I’m not sure if the players saw this coming, getting involved with festivities as they were, and there were a few moments of surprise and then a short discussion about what had happened. Being a large gaming group it’s pointless trying to get a single group reaction to a sudden event and a good thing, too - there were different opinions as to how people felt about it all. A couple were shocked, one was actively indifferent because as far as he was concerned it was their town and they could do what they liked, one now felt obligated to obliterate the entire town. It was a good mix, and with that the game ended.

All in all it was a successful night. In the two hours we fully played we got a lot done and the easy rules helped tremendously with that. The combat with six players and almost twenty mook bandits took probably about fifteen to twenty minutes and everyone seemed to have a good time. I know a couple of the players got frustrated for different reasons, but for the most part they had good reason to be with some of the bad rolls being made.

The Dragon Warriors rules system handled the game really well. I like a good skills system and this game is lacking one, but the general rule of thumb is choose one of the five main attributes and roll against it. It worked for the most part, although I did have to make a couple of spot rulings to keep the game moving, but the simple rules really helped as I didn’t get bogged down in detail and was able to concentrate on the adventure. The players coming from more complicated, tactical-based systems may have missed the lack of detail on the character sheet and may have been a tad confused by the initial mini-and-battle-mat-less combat, but once they got into the flow of the game it worked out fine. For the most part I’m sure they had a good time and, hopefully, they’re looking forward to the next game.

Dragon Warriors - COMPLETED!

2012-01-05T22:51:00.003Z

Today I recieved a special package from Patriot Games, speedily posted out to me. It was the Dragon Warriors book 'In From The Cold', and why was it a special delivery? Because this book completes my collection of the printed works of the Dragon Warriors RPG.

It's excellent. I've spent the last few weeks searching for this sucker and I think I nabbed the last one from Patriot Games (which is a pretty good online store, I might add, the book was quickly dispatched and well packaged).

It arrived on the very day my new Dragon Warriors campaign started. After playing in a Pathfinder game for the better part of a year I'm back in the GM's seat and I'm having fun with it. I've got six players in the game and the combat was fluid and the game system easy to manage. I think I'll make this my group fantasy RPG game of choice, now, and use the more complicated systems for smaller groups. It's old, it does show some cracks in the rules, but it's great fun.

Dragon Warriors movie

2012-01-02T16:50:00.003Z

Not quite, but it's a good start. I'm starting a new Dragon Warriors campaign on Thursday and I was looking for some visual inspiration. I found this little gem on DVD - Black Death.

It's a pretty good film and has lots of period flavour. I know I'll be playing my Robin of Sherwood DVDs to death as I design the game but this film gives me another, more visceral angle to work from. I can also recommend it as a really good movie.

RPGs are NOT doomed!

2011-12-30T12:15:00.003Z

Thank heavens! After seeing countless threads on message boards about how the RPG hobby has taken yet another nosedive, or the industry is DOOMED!! and therefore the hobby is DOOMED!! also, Bottg started a thread on www.rpg.net asking about how gaming is thriving.

It makes a hell of a change to hear positivity regarding the hobby. More of this please.

Dragon Warriors... again

2011-12-27T12:51:00.005Z

I'm a massive fan of Dragon Warriors, especially the new version released through Magnum Opus Press that I pushed with a passion. Now a new company called Serpent King Games have picked up the torch and are re-releasing the game.

And good luck to them - Dragon Warriors is a great, simple and atmospheric game and they deserve all the good fortune they can get. They're dead lucky and they have a stable platform to work from - if I was to release my own version of Dragon Warriors there wouldn't be a single thing I'd change.

Well... maybe one or two things.

1 - Introduce a skill system. I'm a sucker for skill-based games and a skill system to reflect general skills and career-based skills would be cool.

2 - Random damage rolls. As much as I like the Armour Bypass system I'd like to see a random damage roll. I know there is an optional version in the rulebook but a more solid version would be nice.

3 - Lots more careers. You could get another dozen careers in the book easy by paying atention to number 4 below.

4 - Don't give the Assassin career half the book. Because that was just plain stupid. Yes, we've all seen Robin of Sherwood. Yes, we all wanted to be Nasir.

Dragon Warriors is a great game. If I could convince my gaming group I'd love to run a long campaign in the Lands of Legend with a whole slew of new PCs. If you can get hold of a rulebook, and I know there are plenty floating around still, then do so. If nothing else it'll give you a whole new campaign world as Legend is definitely one of the best out there.

On The Table

2011-12-11T19:53:00.003Z

I was a tad shocked today to find a TV show called 'On The Table', that featured all manner of tabletop gaming thingies, from miniatures to rules to all kinds of things. It's run by the guys over at www.beastsofwar.com, supported by Wayland Games, and it's a pretty good short show letting everyone know what's going on in the market. I'd like to see a little more roleplaying in there, but it was good enough to hold my attention for the time it was on even though I don't have much interest in the wargaming hobby. It was slick, well made and really very good.

For UK Sky viewers it's on Showcase TV, every other Thursday.

Nice one, lads.

Using game trailers as RPG campaign teasers

2011-12-07T21:43:00.003Z

So I was wondering how to entice players to play my games, or how I could get them excited about what they could do, or give them a taster of atmosphere... you know, there is nothing you can write that will get them all on the same page because everyone will imagine something different from what is written and in many respects expectations will be either too high or too low. Either way there's a good chance my game won't work, might not even take off.

One way to get them on the same page is to show them visuals, and recently I've been perusing some computer game trailers.

Let's say I wanted to run a gritty, dangerous fantasy game. Well, of course, I'd show them the live action Skyrim trailer - not that they'll be playing in the Elder Scrolls setting, just to invoke some atmosphere.

Then I thought about a World War Three post-apocalyptic military game. MW3, anyone?

Science Fiction horror? Dead Space is pretty perfect.

Like I said, it's not the game setting I want to use, just the atmosphere that the trailer is trying to invoke. Game trailers really try to push the envelope with imagery whereas movie trailers can sometimes feel stilted and forced. Game trailers also tap into the part of you that just wants to play and have fun, makes you want to experience what they're advertising instead of being a passive observer, like in a movie.

Roleplaying games want exactly that - involvement. Yeah, I think game trailers are pretty cool for advertising the kind of game you want to run.

Music Memories

2011-11-30T21:10:00.003Z

When I started out gaming in the 1980s I was never bothered about music in my games, but I used to always listen to it when I was designing stuff.

I used to write up a lot of stuff for my basic red box D&D games, fantasy adventures in which I'd try to emulate my two favourite fantasy things at the time, the John Boorman movie Excalibur and the HTV show Robin of Sherwood. I designed a fantasy version of middle England and I'd listen to classical music while I did it. I've still got my notes here - I'll scan or photograph them sometime and put them up.

The music of choice was Beethoven, and I'd usually listen to his Fifth Symphony. It's a famous piece but most people can't get past the dot-dot-dot-dash V for victory opening. The rest of the piece is incredible. In fact, it's become so embedded in my memory as a piece of music associated with my 1980s roleplaying and basic D&D in particular that every time I hear it, it sends me back to the tiny box room that was my bedroom, and the hours I spent under a lamp scribbling notes, drawing maps and imagining grand adventures in my make believe country. It was a grand time, when creating and designing were just as important as the game itself.

I've been a bit lacklustre in my creativity lately, mainly due to time constraints, but I'm wondering if putting on some Beethoven might stoke my creative fire.

Hey - it worked twenty plus years ago.

GAMMACON update

2011-11-27T10:20:00.001Z

Here's an update about what's happening at Gammacon 2012:

Angus Abranson of Cubicle 7 has kindly donated an adventure for the wonderful Starblazer Adventures game. I want at least four players for that so let me know if you're up for it! It'll be a first time for me with the FATE system!
http://www.cubicle7.co.uk

Kyle Daniels will be there on the day, creator of 'Braggart - The game of heroes, lies and unfortunate fish...' with demos and copies for sale.
Braggart Card Game
http://www.spiralgalaxygames.co.uk
UK Distributor of Board Games and Card Games

Hopwood Games will be joining us, with the charming Andy Hopwood doing demos of his games MIJNLIEFF (winner of the Best Abstract Game Award at the UK Games Expo 2011) and Niche.
Hopwood Games
http://www.hopwoodgames.co.uk

Jedi News, the largest UK Star Wars fansite with 6 million monthly hits and all kinds of sway in the Star Wars community will be there for charity and promotional work.
http://www.jedinews.co.uk

http://www.gammacon.moonfruit.com

Anne McCaffrey

2011-11-23T22:08:00.004Z

Anne McCaffrey passed away on Monday 21^st November 2012.

And I’m not sad about it.

Her Pern books were the first novels I read that catapulted me into a world that I could escape into on my own. I shared Star Wars with my friends, Lord of the Rings with my brothers, but Pern was all mine and nobody read that but me, and in 1986 I fell into the pages of Dragonsong. I ate up the Harper Hall series and then went back to the first book, Dragonflight. I was hooked. It was 1986, I needed a place to escape to, a place that was just mine, and here it was.

In 1987 I took the plunge and wrote a letter to Anne. I poured out my sixteen-year-old heart and gushed to her about how much I loved her books, how they moved me and how I would love to write myself. I posted it and thought nothing of it, just enjoying the cathartic experience of finally releasing the pent-up emotion the books had instilled in me.

A month or so later, I got a reply. From her. From Anne. From the woman that had created this wonderful world. She appreciated my words, she loved the fact that I loved the books, she told me of other books that I should try and she wished me luck with my own writing endeavours. She typed the letter, wrote my address on an envelope and licked a stamp to get it to me. I can’t tell you how amazing I felt, how special she made me feel by taking the time to answer my letter. She had no doubt done this a thousand times but, at sixteen, I didn’t care. I knew that for a few moments, while she read my letter and wrote the response, that I was her focus, the only person in the world she was thinking about. She had spent time thinking about what I had written and she had taken even more time to write back. Anne McCaffrey did something for me that nobody else has ever done – she told me that it was okay to like what I like and that I should be proud of it.

From then on I absorbed her other books religiously; Dinosaur Planet, the incredible The Ship Who Sang, the beautiful Restoree, the Crystal Singer. I read them all. I loved them.

Ten years ago I packed her books delicately away and I haven’t touched them. Last week I was looking at random websites and there was a mention of her book The Ship Who Sang and I thought, ‘Wow, it must have been more than a decade since I last read a Pern book’ and I decided that once I had finished my current read I’d dig them out and dust them off. Yesterday, I read that she has passed on. I have cried for her and I will mourn her.

But I will not be sad. I absolutely refuse. Because if I’m sad about her passing then that is how I will remember her. I’ll think of her and feel sad that she has gone. All I want to do is remember what joy she gave me, what happiness, what wonder she unleashed into my sixteen-year-old head.

In fact, it’s not that I won’t be sad. It’s that, after everything she did for me, I simply can’t be.

Bye, Anne.

Dungeons and Dragons Online

2011-11-21T20:56:00.003Z

The online game I'm getting a kick out of at the moment is Dungeons and Dragons Online. It's set in the world of Eberron (admittedly not my favourite place to adventure - give me Forgotten Realms!) but it's a well put together game and lots of fun. The best thing about it, it's free! Well, not completely free, you have to pay for certain aspects, but there's enough free stuff to keep in gameplay for hours.

This is my good dude Bulward Whitehair (level 4 Fighter) getting tangled up with a bad dude. Check out the D20 on the right! Nice little addition, that.

The locations and vistas are excellent.

The graphics settings can go pretty high and it runs on my 3GB RAM machine really well. It's a well designed game and is very nice to look at, with a pretty intuitive user interface. It's all left click for interaction and combat, and it's not turn based so you don't have to just sit and watch the action unfold.

Although it doesn't feel like an open world the way World of Warcraft or Rift do, there's plenty of things to do. It's a bit more like the game Guild Wars, where there's a central area (in this case, Stormreach) where the players gather, and once they go out into instances the game becomes private. It's a neat system.

It follows the rules for D&D 3.x pretty closely and you even get a little D20 die rolling in the bottom right hand corner! You primarily go off on dungeon adventures, and they can get a little samey, but there are wilderness adventures, too.

All in all it's a good, fun game, and I like it as a pick-up-and-play game, just to kill half an hour or an hour if I've got the time spare. It's well designed and looks and plays great and, even though you might tire of it after a short while, it's good while it lasts. I can recommend it.

And it's free!!

Eh? What?

2011-11-16T21:14:00.003Z

Has it really been a month since I last posted? Wow. Time flies when you've got better things to do, eh?

I've been hard at work on my GammaCon, the gamer's convention.

And I've been doing other things, too, such as:

- Beta testing Star Wars: The Old Republic. Don't ask because I can't tell.
- Playing in my mates Pathfinder campaign. Is it fun? Yes. Have we got anywhere in the 8 months we've been playing? Erm... no.
- Working on Gamma Con and all that entails.
- Writing. Bit of this, bit of that. I've got a lovely new screenplay to play with and I'm looking at my older works for inspiration.
- Starting to fall in love with Traveller, the original game. It's lovely and simple and the Mongoose version appeals to me. Looking forward to running a dark science fiction game, inspired by classic movies such as Alien and Outland.
- Reading classic Harry Harrison.
- Catching up on recent movies. Jonah Hex? Rubbish. The Green Lantern? Terrible. Thor? Pretty good. Inception? Brilliant.
- Catching up on old movies. I watched my favourite movie Alien in HD for the first time. Wonderful wonderful film.
- Lamenting the death of my PS3. You could have waited for me to finish Killzone 3, you piece of crap!
- Trying not to get too excited about The Hobbit movie.
- Or John Carter of Mars.
- Or Prometheus.

So, yeah, I live a thrill-a-minute life.

WING AND MILK - or: How to run a game without really trying

2011-10-15T13:41:00.004+01:00

Before I go any further, can I please thank Andrew C, a once regular player of my games, for the title of this article. It was originally written for a Star Wars website, hence all the Star Wars references, but it's pretty much applicable to every gamer.

We (Andrew C, Mark Newbold and myself) sat in my living room on Monday 25^th of June, 2001, about to start a role-playing session (set in the universe of Buffy and Angel) and we were discussing where the characters were going to go from here.

I said I had a few things designed when Andrew suddenly said, ‘whatever happens your games are usually wing and milk, anyway’. Both Mark and myself looked at him quizzically.

‘What do you mean by wing and milk?’ I asked.

Andrew shrugged. ‘This game. You’ll wing it and milk it’.

We all laughed. ‘Top line’, Mark said. ‘We’ll have to write that up.'

Oh, fine. A funny quip at my expense and they want to write an article about it?

Okay, then.

LESSON 1 – COMPLETELY IGNORE EVERYTHING THAT'S EVER BEEN SAID

There are plenty of articles already on the internet that concern preparation, design, ideas and atmosphere. They detail advice on how to get a game together and how to run it. Because there are a few things to consider before running a game the articles detailed most things you can do and, therefore, were quite long. That, in turn, might mean a lot of work.

But what if you simply don’t have the time to spend designing and preparing a game? You might have a busy work or social schedule, might be running more than one session for more than one group and can’t afford the energy and effort. What if you don’t want to prepare in detail? Hey, you might be laid back or easy-going and think ‘the hell with it; we’ll just see how the game goes’.

If this is the case, then ignore the other articles. They won’t help you now. What you want to do is get down to it, get the game on and just let role-playing nature take its course. Isn’t this lazy? Hell, yes!

This will mean less work in preparation – unfortunately, it will mean more work when the game is actually running.

LESSON 2 – YOU’LL NEED SOMEWHERE TO PLAY

The usual thing is to get yourself a location. Make sure you have a place where the game can take place and then insert the PC’s. But surely this means you have to design a location, a planet, a city?

Not really, no. Just take a location you know or have seen and just Star Wars it. If the players go to a busy shopping station then take your local shopping centre or mall and jazz it up. Escalators become anti-gravity tubes, computer game shops become speeder showrooms, and clothes shops become multi-species clothing specialists. People don’t walk about; they zip along on rolling conveyor walks, or fly about with personal replulsorchairs. What’s more, you don’t even have to take the effort to describe in detail what the place is like – tell your players what location you’re basing it on.

GM: ‘So, you know the shopping mall down the road?’

PLAYERS: ‘Yes?’

GM: ‘Well, this place looks like that, except where the escalators are there’s two discs which send people floating to the next floor. The roof is polarised glass to keep the sun’s rays at bay and every species you can imagine is walking about. People fly overhead with jet belts and repulsorchairs and the noise is deafening.’

Is this cheating? Hell, yes! What’s more it gives the players an instant visual and they can even interact with it better if they know the location, too, because they’ll tell you exactly where they want to go. All you have to do is decide what changes (if any) have happened.

The same goes with a city. Take New York, slap a few starships overhead and roads between the buildings and what do you get? A city suited for Star Wars. Need a small town? Grab a town local to you and stick a crashed starship in the middle, remove the second stories of all the buildings and replace them with glass domes and there you go – instant Star Wars location. All you have to do is ignore real world references.

Need a Planet? Pick terrain. Rocky, icy, sandy, windswept, green fields, mountainous – just define the land and you’ve pretty much defined the planet. Throw in a couple of weird creatures (six-armed apes, two-headed gazelles, that kind of thing) and job done.

LESSON 3 – INSTANT CHARACTERS

So, you’ve got the location, now for the people who will be there.

I’m not even going to insult you GM’s out there by detailing how to do it, so I’ll just make it simple – what do you think character templates are for? Need an NPC who might need to make some rolls? Is he/she a smuggler? Take the template and there you go – instant stats. Need a bounty hunter? Same thing. Need a professional? Normal stats and then the extra dice for their profession – done.

That’s it. Unless you don’t have access to these details (which is highly unlikely, being a GM) then you’ll have to do that extra work.

But isn’t that cheating in character design? Hell, yes!

LESSON 4 – NAMES AND PLACES

It’s all well and good describing these places, but what are they called?

Look around you. Take an average household item and do either one of these things – pronounce it backwards, remove a couple of letters or say it wrong.

What’s the planet called? Well, right now I’m looking at a calendar, so I’m calling it Calend or Radnelac. Or I could have looked at stapler, and called it Stapeel or Relpats. Or I could have looked at a picture on my wall, and called it Pikchoor.

Doesn’t just need to be a planet. A city could be called Pikchoor. An alien could be called Pikchoor. A bar could be called Pikchoor’s Place. It’s all the same market.

Isn’t this cheating a little, not putting much thought into the creation? Hell, yes!

LESSON 5 – SO, WHAT HAPPENS IN THE GAME?

This is probably the only part of the game where you’ll have to do at least a little work but even then you can get away with limiting how long you take designing stuff. It’s a simple case of this – watch some telly, or a movie or listen to the radio, or read a book, or a magazine.

You can refresh games by taking ideas and plot threads from popular media. But, in this case to minimise work, you actually take the story and re-create it in a Star Wars setting. All you have to do is change a couple of the plot threads (like who it was who actually committed the murder, or stole the jewel, or whatever the program deals with) and just change it all for Star Wars. Fair enough, the players may have seen the same program but when you do introduce that plot change they won’t be able to second-guess you. Word of warning, though; don’t re-create the program scene-for-scene, changing the New York Cop for a Imperial Security Bureau agent or a London taxi driver for Speeder Taxi pilot. That would be dull. All you need is the elements of the story.

Is this theft of other people’s ideas? Hell, yes! But you’re not making money out of it and it’s for personal not public use, so it’s legal.

CONCLUSION – YOU LAZY, LAZY PEOPLE

Let’s face it – there’s not much to this article, is there? All I’ve done is make you all very lazy creators and GM’s, relaxing in front of the video an hour before the game, looking at stuff in your room and twisting the words and thinking of someplace you’ve been to or know of and adding a couple of aliens. It’ll be game time soon but you’ll just take another sip of your drink, shrug, and say ‘I’m ready’.

How lazy of you.

GAMMA CON - JANUARY 28th 2012

2011-10-05T21:04:00.003+01:00

That's right - I'm arranging a convention. Just a one-day affair where gaming geeks can gather and plot world domination. And game, if they're so inclined.

GAMMA CON is a brilliant new gamer's one day convention coming to Lichfield, Staffordshire in January 2012, showcasing all the sellers that strive to bring quality products to the hobby we support and love. We aim to back all the independent traders and clubs you don’t want to see whither away and give them a presence and regular place to trade and play.

If you’re a player or someone who wishes to demo a game they created or simply wish to run a large or small game with your local group please get in touch and I can send details on running a game or demonstration (once we've sorted it all out, of course).

The West Midlands has a large Role-Playing community and its time we had our own event, so if you live in the surrounding Shires... get in touch!

You can join our Facebook event page HERE.

Ah, the good old PSX...

2011-10-02T20:45:00.007+01:00

I loved the 1990s. One of the greatest things I used to enjoy was coming home from a night out, slightly the worst for wear, and sticking on the Playstation 1. First of all, there was the classic Playstation noise which brings back so many great, warm memories - I could listen to it again and again. Until I get bored of it, then I'd stop.

I had plenty of favourites, and they all catered for the mood I was in at the time. For some great action I'd haul out Syphon Filter -

That was a kick-ass game. Nothing could better it. Well,not until Syphon Filter 2 came out, that is.

That was much better, and an amazing sequel. It was my first foray into split-screen player vs player games, too, and me and my gaming buddy Andy would play long into the night blowing the crap out of each other. I wanted him dead so badly. Great times.

As a Star Wars fan I bought the game of the film. The film had reached out of the screen and punched me in the nuts, but the game was amazingly good. A bit of free roam, some RPG elements, pretty good action. I loved it!

To fulfill my fantasy needs there was Diablo. Other fantasy-themed games didn't really do it for me but this one kept me up all night. Again, I'd co-op with Andy with this title, and the bugger would always 'accidently' shoot me. Damn that Syphon Filter 2!

And next is my all-time favourite - Colony Wars. An amazing background fleshed out by a fantastic in-game encyclopedia that really gave some history and detail to the settled worlds, and some great gameplay and wonderful imagery. Not only that, the soundtrack was amazing. I loved it.

I was somewhat disappointed by Colony Wars: Vengeance, I thought the gameplay and visuals were lacking, but Red Sun made up for it. It did slightly dilute the Colony Wars setting with more of a multi-species angle, but it was great fun. Soundtrack was great, too.

And an honourable mention goes to Metal Gear Solid. Cutscenes were too long and it was more melodramatic than every daytime soap rolled into a great ball of cheese, but the gameplay was stunning. And then the sequels came out on PS2 and PS3, and they were all shit. So that was that.

Fighting Fantazine

2011-09-27T12:35:00.005+01:00

As some of you may know, and maybe even some of you care, I'm a big fan of the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series. Not only is this fondness borne out of nostalgia, I also think that the system is perfect for introducing new gamers to the hobby, both via the gamebooks and actual roleplaying games. Indeed, I used this system to introduce young gamers to the hobby the end of last year and they went away to form their own D&D 4th and Pathfinder groups.

The fanbase for Fighting Fantasy has always been active and there's a whole new slew of books due out, but in the meantime the fans have been hard at work - so I present to you 'Fighting Fantazine', a magazine by fans for everyone to enjoy.

There's lots of interviews, games and resources for Fighting Fantasy gamers but there's plenty of stuff even non-Fighting Fantasy players can use, stuff that can be used for inspiration. I like this magazine a lot as it's incredibly well put together and very professional. I heartily recommend it.

Stream of conciousness

2011-09-24T16:05:00.004+01:00

So, I've been wondering what to blog about and I've decided to just write what I'm thinking as I think it.

- I think RPGs are an amazing pastime.
- I think many gamers are elitists who think their way of pretending to be a magic elf is the only way that matters.
- There is no such thing as 'gaming theory' because the reasons why people play, enjoy and create games is subjective. There's just games.
- I think the hobby is slowly decreasing but will never truly vanish. The days of the corporation gaming empires is over.
- Dungeons and Dragons is still a good game. Depending on which version you play.
- Guilds ruin online MMO gaming for me because in general they'll always contain opinionated sneaky ignorant little bitches.
- I couldn't give a flying monkey's toss about abiding by the rules in a game. I won't drastically alter them but I won't ruin the moment by spending ten minutes page-flipping either. It's my game, and contrary to some beliefs I can do what I want with it.
- RPGs promote communication, problem solving, group interaction, social skills, numeracy, imagination, creativity, lateral thinking, emotional and artistic expression and responsibilty. There should be more of them in schools.
- People whine a lot about what's wrong with the hobby but never really talk about what's good about it or how to make it better.
- RPG internet forums are a great idea, but useless for asking gaming advice because everyone posting wants a slice of that action.
- In all my years of gaming I've hardly met any proper full-on nerds who were so wrapped up in the hobby that they had no time for anything else. Like a life.
- Running my own gaming shop was the best thing I ever did, and the most heartbreaking.
- Gamers are fickle creatures.
- 'Mature' games, such as the White Wolf stuff, are anything but. Players will play any game as they see fit, and if they play them in a 'mature' fashion, then they will.
- Savage Worlds ain't all that.
- Too many games promise a lot but deliver very little.
- I know it's just a game. But I love it. And it's mine. And I'll be as serious, melodramatic and possesive about it as I see fit, and it's not your place to judge.
- And I know none of it exists, dickweed. It's called having an imagination.
- One day, I will rule the world.

Take your seats, please

2011-09-20T21:00:00.000+01:00

For the movie is about to begin.

Need some fantasy inspiration? Well, get your notepad out and feast your eyes on the greatness that is... The Magic Sword.

Full version.

Goodbye, RIFT

2011-09-17T12:35:00.003+01:00

You know, Rift is a good game. It plays well, it's very intuitive (especially if you're from a Warcraft background as it's basically the same game) and it looks great.

But in the end I found it somewhat boring. Uninspiring, even. It looks great and the backstory is wonderful, but it felt like I was simply walking from drab location to drab location twatting enemies. There were no moments where I found a location and marvelled at the imagery, like I did with Ironforge in WoW or the dwarven realms in WAR. There was no 'Cor, look at that!!!!' factor. It was a good game to play but was ultimately rather dull for me.

But don't let that put you off. My wife still plays Rift and she's loving every minute of it. If Star Wars: The Old Republic wasn't coming out I wouldn't have cancelled my Rift subscription, to be honest. Give me the choice between swords and lightsabres... sorry. No competition, really. But that's a matter of taste, not quality.

Star Wars: The Next Generation

2011-09-14T12:17:00.003+01:00

I was eight, maybe nine years old when I first saw Star Wars in 1978. I was the perfect age for it, being young, impressionable and full of beans. Even though I hardly remember anything about actually seeing it for the first time on the big screen I do remember how I felt. Amazed, excited, deliriously happy; Star Wars encompassed my life at that time and, even though the theatrical release of The Empire Strikes Back passed me by (you can blame Tolkien for that) I still retained my enthusiasm for it enough to see The Return of the Jedi three times in one week when it came out. After that, along with bestest buddy Mark Newbold, I continued my love affair with George Lucas’s creation. Together we wrote stories, recorded audio dramas, created worlds and characters and locations, spent years playing the West End Games roleplaying game and the computer games and then falling in love with it all over again with the Special Editions. I like to think that I was one of the millions of fans that helped keep the Star Wars torch burning.

So when Episode 1: The Phantom Menace was announced, I pretty much spent a couple of years in an excited daze, trying not to read or watch too many progress reports because I was sure my body couldn’t produce that much saliva.

To say that Episode 1 was a disappointment to me would be an understatement and I’ll not list the reasons why I disliked it here; there’s been more than enough opinion, discussion and downright hatred sprayed over the internet pretty much every day since the film was released. I will say that the primary thing that upset me was that I felt that I had been let down as an adult fan of the saga. After waiting for the possibility of a new film for fourteen years, and then waiting for the actual film for another two, I was hurt when I was pretty much told, ‘Yeah, but this film is for kids, isn’t it?’ So… I supported Star Wars for all these years to be told that this new film isn’t for me? That was quite a blow.

How would I ever get past that? That notion would discolour my view of Episodes II and III no matter how much I tried to like them and I could feel my love for the Star Wars universe unravelling.

My son Bruce is four years old, now. Recently I tried to sit down with him and watch Episode IV: A New Hope but – and it’s hard for me to say this – he didn’t like it. After the initial battle and the droids escaping the blockade runner, he got bored. Big vistas with lots of sand, some people talking, some weird old guy making funny noises to scare away ‘men in bandages’… he wasn’t impressed. We didn’t even get to Mos Eisley. I was kind of sad about that but he’s only four, though, plenty of time for him to appreciate it when he’s older.

So, I decided to sit down with him and watch Episode 1. I put in the DVD and sat back, settling him down with a drink and some lunch.

He didn’t just like it, he loved it. He was in danger of losing interest during the opening sequence, but once the battledroids approached the gas-filled room and the lightsabres appeared he was transfixed. He laughed at the battledroid’s silly voices. He sat and marvelled at the Jedi leaping about. He laughed at Jar Jar Binks and even had me wind back to watch his first encounter with Qui-Gon Jinn again as he thought it was hilarious. He loved the Gungan city and once again I had to wind back so he could watch Boss Nass again to laugh at his antics. When they were travelling through the planet core, he was on his feet yelling, ‘Look! Look, there’s something behind them! Oh no!’ During the escape from Naboo he got upset because the droids were getting shot off the ship. We had to watch the pod race three times – three times! – because he loved it so much (although I did laugh when, during the first viewing, he turned to me and asked ‘Is this a computer game?’). He cheered Anakin’s win every single time. He gave me a hug when Anakin left his mom behind and kept asking, ‘Will he go back?’ to which I had no answer. He even sat there and watched the senate stuff, and had a good laugh at Yoda’s voice and all the strange aliens on the screen. Then the space battle, the Gungan fight and the lightsabre duel amazed him. When Obi-Wan fell down the shaft he grabbed me tight – I had to tell him what was happening, as he couldn’t watch - and at the end he smiled, laughed and asked, ‘Can I watch it again?’ And through it all he laughed at everything Jar Jar Binks did, everything he said and every fart/poop joke he participated in. He loved him. He loved the film.

Most importantly, I felt all this with him. I felt every bit of excitement, fear and amazement he felt. I watched his eyes widen, silent wow’s spread across his face and I smiled every time he turned to me with a huge smile or a request to wind it back. I could feel everything he was experiencing and through him experienced it myself, saw the film through fresh, young eyes and enjoyed it as if I was watching it for the first time. I realised that he loved the film for the same reason I loved Episode 1 thirty-three years ago; it was something he’d never seen before. It wasn’t an obvious cartoon or a computer animated feature, it was actual people interacting with real starships, robots and aliens. The world of Star Wars was alive.

How can I stay angry at a film that does that for children? Amazes and impresses them? I know Bruce is only four, almost five, and no doubt he’ll have his attention drawn away by the next sparkling thing he sees, but this was the first movie he sat all the way through and responded to with such enjoyment.

Not only that, but I experienced Episode 1 in an entirely different way. Gone was the expectation, gone was the fear that the movie would be bad, gone were the years of creating the perfect Star Wars movie in my head. I hadn’t watched it for a long time but I was expecting the same feelings to surface; annoyance, frustration and disbelief to rear their ugly heads at certain points in the film, but none of them did. I felt no anger to the film at all because it was as if Bruce was loving the film for me, and I was finally seeing, through him, what all those moments in the movie that I disliked or hated were designed to achieve. There were no preconceptions, hopes or fears. There was just the experience, the experience of watching the film for the first time and loving it because I once again felt young enough to love it.

I’ll never rid myself of those impressions of seeing Episode 1 for the first time. I’ll never forget how I felt when I left the cinema, or the moment I realised that I shouldn’t be actively defending the film because if it was that good a film it shouldn’t need to be defended. That will always be with me.

But I’ll also never forget the day I realised how good the film is, not for me but for those who are going to inherit the saga. How much fun it is, how amazing and how dramatic.

It took a viewing with my four year old son to make me realise that I can enjoy the film. That I don’t have to have it on my DVD shelf just to ‘complete the collection’, and that I can pop it in my player and watch it and enjoy it, and rid myself of those dark thoughts of 1999 and immerse myself in the fresh child-like experience of 2011. I could fully love and appreciate Star Wars again. All of it.

It took me this long to realise it, but Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace really was made for children.

I’d just forgotten how to be one.

This article originally appeared on http://www.jedinews.co.uk/

Star Wars D6

2011-09-11T12:05:00.003+01:00

All this talk about the new MMO 'The Old Republic' has gotten me all excited about roleplaying Star Wars again. I've been looking over the setting, which can be found at the official website, and I just love it. The look, the feel and the sheer amount of fun you can have in this time period is just so appealing. I'll no doubt give the game a try when it comes out - I'm a Star Wars fan, of course I will - and I'll see how I get on, but I really want to run a D6 game for this. The sheer amount of info on the official page is more than enough to set me up for a campaign or two.

Just to prove my point, have a look at the three promotional videos below and tell me that this stuff isn't perfect for a Star Wars D6 game:

Problems with AD&D Part 2 - I've been here before!

2011-09-04T21:42:00.005+01:00

Holy crap!

I've been sorting my folders out this weekend, trying to manage my work and get everything tidied up, and I found this letter I wrote and posted to DRAGON magazine waaaaay back in the late 1990s, before 3rd Edition was announced. Even back then I had a bee in my bonnet about AD&D 2nd Edition.

I'm going to assume it was never published.

JONATHAN HICKS

* ******** *****

******** ****

*********

*************

**** ***

ENGLAND

Dear Dragon,

I have noticed a trend recently for players to continually discuss the necessities of certain rules and rule applications during a game. From what I can tell from the sort of enquiries you get in your regular SAGE ADVICE feature, there are a lot of players and referees who need clarification on how certain aspects of the rules system works. I am sure that this goes for other games, and not just the AD&D genre.

This worries me. I get the impression that more people are worried about the adjudication and interpretation of the system instead of the actual game itself. This leads me to conclude that there are many gamers out there who haven’t bought their games to role-play, but to take part in an elaborate wargame.

I think this stems from the old days of dungeon-bashing, when a wicked referee would design a cruel dungeon to pit his friends against, and not care about how the players would react in a role-play situation. I would like to think that the game has come a long way since then, but it appears not. Although I understand that many new gamers will treat the game in such a way, and this column helps them along the road to becoming a better role-player, it does not encourage any of the players to optionalise or find a way around the ruling to make everyone happy. I get the impression that the whole game is on ‘hold’ whilst the enquirer waits for an answer to the question.

In fact, the whole of DRAGON magazine is fundamentally the same. It appears to be a monthly book of charts and tables to add on to an already overbearing and outdated role-playing game. There are new characters and creatures, but they lack depth and just appear to be another monster with a long list of statistics and abilities. They have histories, sure, but these are just to make them appear more of an individual than the last monster or character.

You have to remember that yours is probably the only major international magazine on the shelves, with every other magazine either folding after several months or not even getting the kind of exposure you do. Personally, I think it’s time for you to change. I know that a lot of your readers will stand and cry ‘there is no need to change! Everything’s fine, and the magazine is just right for us! We will keep it that way!’ Remember, TSR are not their own company anymore now that WotC have taken them over, which, considering that TSR were supposed to be the biggest role-playing company around, does not bode well for the gaming industry as a whole. Now that other big companies have gone (such as Games Designers Workshop and West End Games), I think that Dragon magazine should reconsider it’s duty as ‘The World’s Most Popular Role-Playing Magazine’ and start to include other games for it’s major articles, and not just the AD&D game, which may be the original role-playing game but is now also the most stagnant.

AD&D was an inspirational game but now it’s time for a change. Keep the Statistics, such as Strength and Charisma, but lose the saving throws, which seem very contrived, and introduce a better skill system, maybe something based around the skill check roll or the percentile skill roll. This will broaden the abilities and scope of the game and make it a hell of a lot easier to understand. I don’t actually play the AD&D game anymore, I haven’t played it since the second edition came out, but I have continued to buy Dragon because I still like the nostalgic feeling I get when I read it. Now I am very disillusioned with the magazine, because all it does now is repeat itself.

I understand that this letter will probably not get printed; after all, it is not exactly a letter of praise, but my intention is not to offend or be unsupportive of your future. It is to make the readers think a little more about role-playing as a whole, and not just the AD&D game, and if they support the entire hobby as they support TSR, then the role-playing world will get the boost it needs to grow once more.

My final message is this - it’s time for a change, Dragon. Maybe you should shed your scales and start again.

Thanks for your time,

JONATHAN HICKS

Conclusions? Well, I obviously knew shit all about WotC's take over of TSR.

Problems with AD&D

2011-08-31T21:03:00.005+01:00

Now, I played a lot of Basic D&D in the 1980s and then went on to AD&D 2nd Edition. As much as I enjoyed Basic D&D I could never get my head around AD&D. My first opinion of it was that it was too complicated but that was to be expected, coming from Basic D&D as I did. I played it for about a year and during that time I slowly changed from simply disliking it to outright hating it. It just didn't work for me.

There were several reasons I didn't like it and quite a few things I couldn't quite put my finger on, but I recently found this website that lists a dude's problems with AD&D. He pretty much nails what I thought, and even though his crusade to make people discover other gaming systems seems pretty arrogant and some of his opinions are a matter of taste he makes some very good points, and reminds me why it was I stopped playing D&D for twenty years.

You can read the page here. It's an old collection of articles but I think they're still relevant.

I rediscovered D&D with 4th Edition in 2009 but didn't like that much, either, and I took a step back and bought the D&D 3.0 rules. Now, that was more like it. Even though there was still a lot of crap in there it was crap I could work with to get a decent game out of it. In fact, I've found an excellent website that converts the Birthright Campaign Setting to 3.x et al, and the documents are free to download. Birthright is my kind of setting and I'm seriously considering creating a campaign for it. In fact, if anyone out there has the old Birthright Conspectus and they don't want it anymore then let me know as I can give it a good home.

Right now I'm enjoying my mate Jason's Pathfinder campaign. I can watch him run it and, as it's pretty much 3.x in new clothes, I can observe how it plays and how he handles certain situations. I'm definitely interested in running a game but I know for a fact there'll have to be some trimming of the rules for me to fully enjoy it.

ADDITIONAL:

I'm not one to blow my own trumpet but a message a friend of mine left me has made me feel all warm and glowing inside. I'd been talking about the D6 Star Wars RPG and spoke about how those first few games taught me a lot. He left me this message:

'That's always been your biggest strength as a GM, as opposed to other gamers who only focussed on the rules and technical aspects of the game. You're always striving to finesse your GM skills and not get too stale, while always keeping the 'feel' of a Jon Hicks game. I think that's why your settings and game systems are so spot-on, you understand what makes a game work so well.
Yeah, thinking on it those first few months of SW RPG (I still have the map of the first game you did, the warehouse with the security guards) were pretty generic, but we were all so stoked to be playing SW RPG - who cared! It would have been easy not to analyse it, but you did, and what followed was far better!'

Cheers, Mark. I can't begin to tell you how much that means to me.

Gamers of the world - UNITE!

2011-08-29T08:56:00.003+01:00

I'm a big fan of bringing gamers together, and I didn't realise this existed over at ENWORLD:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/gamersseekinggamers.php

It's a way to find other gamers, stores and events for a variety of players.

The HARD SIXES Ebay store - NOW OFFICIALLY CLOSED!!!

2011-08-28T17:36:00.003+01:00

But how can this be???

Well, I need to take Hard Sixes in new directions and the amount of competition on the internet, especially on Ebay, is so huge that even larger companies with lots of stock are finding things difficult, and they outshine little old me in the corner pleading for scraps.

So, I'm refocusing Hard Sixes and I'm going to concentrate on the convention circuit. Where I live is a nexus for gamers and we have to travel far for a gaming fix. I'm going to change all that.

HARD SIXES - making some changes!

2011-08-21T12:09:00.001+01:00

The HARD SIXES Ebay store - we still have plenty of stock to sell off. We're moving from the world of retail into the world of conventions, so we want to get rid of this stuff to help fund our new ideas! Some good deals to be had, from very old collector's items to brand new material.

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Hard-Sixes-Games

Tell your friends! Tell them to tell their friends! And tell them to tell their friends to tell, oh, you get the idea.

And now for a word from our sponsors...

2011-08-14T11:18:00.004+01:00

I've been downloading lots of free RPG stuff recently and I've come across all kinds of wonderful stuff. Some of it is quickstart rules, some of it complete rules systems, some of it just fun stuff you can get some use out of, maybe even a campaign.

So, below are a few links where you can find some cool free downloads. (If the link doesn't work then apologies, but it's no doubt been changed since I posted this.

I've started this with Darkshire's list of links to free games in general - this is a fantastic list and there's some great games on here.

Then there's Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu Quickstart stuff.

Oh, and their Basic Roleplaying Quickstart.

Rob Lang's ICAR is always a winner.

AntiPaladin Games Minisix - a cutdown version of the D6 system - is excellent.

MicroLite20 is a great game for all you D&Ders out there who want things less complicated.

The Dragon Warriors Introductory game is always worth a look. (This link takes you straight to the PDF).

Savage Worlds is a good 'un.

A Song of Ice and Fire has a quickstart - and as I'm enjoying Game of Thrones right now, this is a good one.

An excellent Deathwatch Introductory Game from Fantasy Flight Games is here.

And I think I'll leave it at that for now. Some of these games you can get a half-decent campaign out of, but nothing quite takes the place of the full game, with all the options and opportunities it gives.

More FFG 'Star Wars' News

2011-08-14T11:02:00.006+01:00

Thanks to my best buddy Mark Newbold over at www.jedinews.co.uk - he's sent me some details about the upcoming Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars games, courtesy of www.clubjade.net and www.thehopelessgamer.blogspot.com - no news as of yet on the RPG, mind.

Gencon: Fantasy Flight previews Star Wars games

Just in from Gencon - X-Wing and Star Wars the Card Game from Fantasy Flight Games

New From Gencon - Star Wars the Card Game from Fantasy Flight Games Picture Megapost!

The Warhammer 40K Movie

2011-08-13T17:55:00.004+01:00

Let me explain to you why I feel let down by the WH40K movie 'Ultramarines'.

The WH40K universe is big. Like, utterly huge. It’s bigger than the car park at Asda/Walmart, that’s how big it is. It’s so big, it would take longer than ten minutes to walk across it. A lot longer. The history is huge. HUGE! 40,000 years worth of HUGE. It’s an intricate story spread across thousands of light years and encompassing billions of souls – THAT’S MORE SOULS THAN THE COMBINED NUMBER OF SUPPORTERS OF EVERY FOOTBALL TEAM IN THE LONDON AREA! Can you even get your head around that? Mine hurts just thinking about it.

But primarily, it’s rich in design, atmosphere and sheer batshit insane gonzo baddassery. The imagery is something to behold and some of the artwork over the years has been incredible. This cyber-gothic-grimdark-religious-psychotic-conspiracy feel it has, that every dark place in the universe is out to get you and that the threat can only be answered with explosive bullets. It’s insane.

So what do we get from ‘Ultramarines’? Some pretty standard CGI animation that looks like it belongs on a Saturday morning cartoon. I’m wondering if the guys behind Dan Dare simply had free weekends. I watched a story about some Space Marines getting into shit on a planet I didn’t care about, shooting other Space Marines who were bad. I’ve been told that if I didn’t like it, then I’m not a true WH40K fan and that this was made for the fans.

It really was made for the fans, because only the fans would buy it. This does not bode well for a full-on blow-my-balls-off Space Marines movie. It’s almost as if the guys who own the IP are afraid to show the greater world, like there’s some kind of continuity that nobody else gives a shit about that cannot be intruded upon. You want to impress me? Tell me a story that affects the whole WH40K universe. Like a huge crusade. Or the collapse of the Imperium. Or the God Emperor waking up. DO SOMETHING BALLSY. Because I don’t give a crap about a Space Marine chapter that nobody really likes, anyway. God, even Space Wolves might have held my attention better.

I understand what went into the movie, the talent, money and man-hours, but WH40K, that huge insane conglomeration of panic, fear and imagery, deserved so much more than this.

Fantasy Flight Games acquires Star Wars IP

2011-08-03T22:37:00.002+01:00

Well, well, well - I have to say, they're a good choice for a publisher as they do some great games. No idea how they'll handle a roleplaying game, though. Will they do what they did with the WH40K games, going back to the original Warhammer game system, the percentile dice, but use the classic D6 system*? Will they create a whole new system? Or will they create a boardgame/RPG hybrid like they did with WFRP 3rd?

Full report here from my friends at Jedi News.

I guess we've got a wait on our hands.

*Here's hoping! But it's unrealistic.

Warhammer Online - Age Of Reckoning

2011-07-31T15:28:00.010+01:00

It's not often that I find any kind of inspiration in a computer game. I've played many over the years and apart from the obvious console games like Fallout and Mass Effect, games that would would make great RPGs, I've never really been inspired by them. I'll rob ideas, sure, but I've never actually thought, 'I'd love to game in that world!'

I played Warhammer FRP extensively in the 1990s/early 2000s and so it might seem strange that I would draw inspiration from a computer game of a world that I'd already been playing in. The thing is, this was the new updated version of Warhammer's Old World, and as I'd also bought the collector's box I also got a gorgeous hardback book filled with artwork for the game.

I saw Warhammer in a whole different light, this highly stylised and atmospheric game far removed from the pseudo-historical low-magic games I'd been running more than a decade before. The PvP was the best I'd ever played and the huge battles were incredible. It was wonderful and gave me a whole new outlook on and drive to run Warhammer FRP.

It also gave me the chance to physically design my characters as well as create their WFRP stats. I played each of these characters extensivley in the online game world. First, there was Salmonius, the human Witch Hunter melee DPS:

He was my first experimental PC for the game - I never take my first toons seriously and just use them to get a grasp of the world. He turned out pretty good, mind.

Then there was Beerswiller, my dwarf Warrior tank:

He did a little better and I got him the furthest, but as a tank I have to rely on too many other players to have my back and... well... let's just say I couldn't count on anyone, especially in Tier 1.

Then there was the cream of the crop, Hellfeur, my human Bright Wizard ranged DPS:

Definitely my favourite, and his AOE attacks were devastating. He was maxed to the... well, max.

For each one I created a past and a backstory, and created their stats for WFRP. The artwork book gave some imagery that sent me into giddy giggling fits, I was so excited about opening the book to show the players different characters or locations. I even had the strategy guide book filled with more art and maps! It was going to be... AMAZING!!!

Of course, it was going to be, but it never happened. Pisser. I still want to do it!! DO YOU HEAR ME, GAMING GROUP?!

Oh, and I stopped playing Warhammer Online about three months after I began. Why? Well, the game was excellent, far better than most MMOs I'd played, but the gaming world felt small and limited and once you'd fought everywhere in every tier you'd pretty much covered the game. Also, the business minds behind the game had rubbish support and customer updates, and they kept dangling teasers in front of our faces as if something huge was about to happen - you know, game-changing Warcraft Cataclysm huge. But no, it never happened. Shame. Warhammer Online could have been huge, but I think EA/Bioware's new Star Wars: The Old Republic might give it that final push into an undeserved grave.

Call Of Cthulhu... in SPAAAACE!

2011-07-27T22:31:00.006+01:00

Well, not exactly.

After perusing some of Chaosium's free downloads on their website www.chaosium.com, I realised that a science fiction version of their flagship horror roleplaying would be amazing. If you took the basic Call of Cthulhu system, kept the sanity rules, and added a few skills to represent the sci-fi then you'd be on to a winner. You don't even need to include stats or rules for starships, really, as you could just use all that as window dressing, like an ocean liner or aeroplane in CoC. Like in Cthulhu: Dark Ages you could keep the rules to a basic minimum and flesh out the atmosphere with the rest of the book, making it self contained so that you can use it with the mythos or use your own creations. I was thinking of running a Dark Ages game minus the Cthulhu mythos, and use creatures from the Runequest games. Dark Ages is a wonderfuly simple fantasy roleplaying game, if you want to use it like that.

Anyway, I digress. So, you could keep the Cthulhu mythos if you wanted (that would be proper cool - imagine searching long-abandoned asteroid bases overrun by Mi-Go, or travelling to the other side of the galaxy and finding a Great Old One's ancient, deserted city) but you could also use it for other sci-fi horror/mystery games and do your version of Alien, or 2001: A Space Odyssey, or Outland.

It's something to consider, for sure. I know we've got Cthulhutech, but in my book Lovecraft, mechs and anime don't mix. Take me back to the dark sci-fi of the late 1970s.

Horror Science Fiction

2011-07-25T23:00:00.005+01:00

It's official. I'm in love with Eclipse Phase.

I love the idea, the atmosphere and the rules system. The thing is, it doesn't do exactly what I want it to do...

I've been getting back in to my science fiction horror recently and enjoying it immensley. I think it's because I'm getting all excited about Ridley Scott's 'Prometheus' movie that comes out next year. I remember those horrible feelings of terror, of the fear of the unknown, when I was a boy watching 'Alien' and 'The Thing'. This kind of horror these days is done for the shock value, the kind of nervous jump and disgusting visuals we now come to expect. Yeah, I know, The Thing was pretty damn visceral and gory, but the story and the characters held up well in between the moments of fleshy explosions and the horror was palpable. Alien even more so.

So, I'm wondering what system would I use to run a game such as this?

Eclipse Phase would do it, but the horror level isn't exceptionally well represented in the game. It's there, but it's not the forefront of what the game is about and the whole morph/resleeve coolness would overshadow the terror.

Call of Cthulhu is perfect - the Sanity rules alone help, but the far-future concept isn't really covered. Sure, there's CthulhuTech, but that doesn't appeal. Maybe a combination of classic Call of Cthulhu and Basic Roleplaying to get hold of the sci-fi aspects of the game system?

My next port of call are the Warhammer 40K RPGs: Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader and Deathwatch. The thing is, I'm looking for PCs that are normal and out of their depth, whereas 40K PCs will solve any terror situations by either calling in an orbital strike or standing behind the guy with the heavy bolter. Great games, but not sure about how much of a threat the terror could really be in the face of explosive bullets.

Of course, any of these games - or any game - can be tweaked to make the setting work but all things considered I think I'll stick with the tried and tested system; Call of Cthulhu. The 6th Edition has details of the modern day in it's system so, adding a few extra skills to reflect the sci-fi era the PCs are in, I can make that work and get my own seven man crew on an interstellar commercial towing vehicle in no time.

'Oh, God, it's moving right toward you! Move! Get out of there!'

My Gaming Memoirs Part 29 - 2011

2011-07-24T10:51:00.003+01:00

So, here we are.

I've come a long way with this series of blogs. There's a heck of a lot of other things I could talk about but what I've written here are the bullet points, the important incidents that I thought were worth recording. I'm of the mind to take the whole series and expand on it, filling in lots of smaller details and letting all and sundry know of the full story, of the gamers, incidents and upheavels that have changed my hobby, my perspective on life and my life in general. There's a lot more I can say (a lot I haven't included due to the nature of the incidents, but I now feel that I can address these as long as nobody is incriminated) but I'll gather together all the blog entries and consider filling in the gaps at a later date.

So, I was unemployed in a recession and becoming desperate. I managed to secure small amounts of money that kept my family afloat but then, out of the blue, I found a temporary job that managed to solve most of my problems. I was back in my dayjob mode, back into customer service and account management, and even though it wasn't where I wanted to be it got me through. Recently they decided that I was more than just a temp and made me permanent so now I have job security.

Hard Sixes still exists on the ineternet as an Ebay store but the money it makes hardly covers the monthly outgoings. I'm looking at it as an account for a possible future gaming convention, to be held in Lichfield where I live and to help support the gaming community and other local stores.

I still play every Thursday night and we have a new gamer in our ranks called Nic, who I met at my shop, and he's an experienced gamer who brings a whole new dimension to the game. I've also been in talks with my old Warhammer pal Andy and he's thinking of rejoining our group. Paul is attending when he can, too, so it looks like we're getting the band back together. In fact, now that my home is up for sale and we're looking to move on to greener pastures things are looking good and for the first time for more than two years I'm starting to feel relaxed and happy with everything. I find it almost humorous that my simple hobby of make believe that I love so much almost ruined me.

So, there you have it. This, as they say, is the end. Now I can get back to blogging about normal stuff.

Define normal.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 28 - 2010

2011-07-24T10:04:00.007+01:00

Now, I didn't totally give up MMOs. I had a stab at quite a few - Guild Wars, EVE, Lord Of The Rings Online - but I couldn't quite get into them, The only one I had any success with, and truly loved, was Warhamer Online: Age of Reckoning. That was brilliant, and as a lover of Warhammer it gave me all kinds of fun.

My game of choice was Dragon Warriors, a game recommended to me by James Wallis, the publisher, who sent me a preview PDF to tip me over into the game. I bought it, and the supplements, and ran it. It was highly successful and I felt that I was getting back into gaming proper. After this I ran Buck Rogers XXVc, and then Jason took over with a Pathfinder game that we're still playing today.

This year also took me into an area of the RPG hobby that I had always wanted to do. Own my own hobby shop. So, with my friend Richard, we opened an account, located a small store in an indoor market and got in the stock. My dream had come true - Hard Sixes: The Hobby Shop was born and opened early August. It was a much smaller enterprise then an idea that my wife and I had envisioned earlier in the year, a full gaming shop with gaming areas and clubs. We were going to call it 'Halfling House' and had even registered it as a limited company and secured suppliers, right before the money people ripped the financial rug out from under us.

Now, I had spent a couple of months on the pulse of the local gaming community and the support for the shop was great. As far as I was concerned, this was the greatest thing to happen for gaming in my local area and now gamers wouldn't have to travel for miles and miles to locate a gaming store.

Let's just say that the support was very vocal. Unfortunately, it wasn't backed up by purchases and the shop was forced to close in the following December. I managed to introduce lots of new gamers to the hobby - and they're still gaming today - and met lots of great people and interesting groups. I miss my shop terribly but I knew the risks when I opened. So now, when people accuse me of taking my hobby too seriously, my answer is - 'Yeah, I opened a shop and managed to get myself more than ten thousand pounds in debt. You're damn right I'm fucking serious about it'.

So by the end of the year I was jobless, in debt and in danger of my whole life being turned upside down on every level because of the risk I had taken in opening the shop. Things couldn't get much worse, surely?

My Gaming Memoirs Part 27 - 2009

2011-07-18T19:07:00.005+01:00

Well, well, well. World of Warcraft. The game I said I would never play because, well, it's not real roleplaying, is it? No. It isn't. What it is, is a very good computer game.

I never played it much for the first couple of months as it my wife was the one who loved it. It was a pretty good arrangement - get the little one off to sleep and I'd work on my writing whilst she played WoW. It worked really well, until I noticed she was having a lot of fun with it. So, I thought I'd give it a bash, as well.

Warcraft was very addictive. We played it as often as we could, joined guilds, did raids and dungeons and festivals. We got very friendly with people from all over the world and I figured I was finally getting some gaming done. I was sadly mistaken. I was playing a repetative, linear and somewhat dull computer game given depth by the illusion of interactivity. It took me several months to realise that it wasn't a pastime, it was dominating my life and that of my wife. It wasn't a pleasant realisation.

I had also started gaming with Mark, doing one-on-one Star Wars D6 games. The old buzz was back and I remembered what it was like to get truly excited about roleplaying games and I started wanting more.

During all this I was contacted by Jason - the poor bugger had broken his leg and had become bedridden for a few months and during this time he purchased and absorbed Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition. 'Fancy a game?' he asked, and with that me, Mark and Paul started spending Thursday nights at Jason's house playing the new D&D.

Now, D&D 4th is a good game but it's not my kind of game. It felt too much like a boardgame and the similarities to WoW (which many people will deny but are unmistakebly there) stood out to me. Although I didn't fall in love with 4th I realised that I missed roleplaying terribly. Slowly and surely World of Warcraft's grip on me started to slip. It all came to a head later in the year and both me and my wife dropped WoW for good and swore never to go back to that kind of gaming.

I was back at the gaming table and, with new gamer Andy joining our ranks, we ran through D&D 4th and I eyed a new system for us to have a go at, a fresh game that I could run.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 26 - 2008

2011-07-12T21:33:00.003+01:00

So... this was the year in which I never gamed. At all. Not once.

The entire year went by and I never gamed, bought any gaming material or even sat down with anyone and just talked about games. Nothing at all.

So that's pretty much it for this year.

Oh... except for the time I started my own gaming company. Okay, that's probably a bit misleading - I never started up a huge enterprise with shedloads of money and stuff. I started a small company I called 'Farsight Games', I designed a dead simple game system called the SKETCH system and I published a free e-zine called 'ODDS' magazine. I was pleased with the work I did - I know I only spent time doing it due to the fact that I wasn't gaming and I needed to get a gaming fix somehow, but I also felt - probably wrongly - that I had spent so much time in the hobby that I wanted to kind of give something back, put my experience to use and put my own work out there. And start small, too, after the disaster that was The League of Seven.

My e-zine 'ODDS' did well - I managed to secure interviews with business names such as Bill Coffin and Eric Gibson, covered events, did competitions and generally had a high circulation. Sadly, lack of material forced it to cease and I do miss it.

My SKETCH system got some good reviews and di the rounds but only for a short while. Already established free games such as Risus were all that gamers needed and a small, simple and free system wasn;t worth that much time. I experimented with some settings, some established and some of my own design, and let the system rest.

What did I learn from all this? That editing an e-zine and developing and promoting a game, even a free one, is hard work. It was satisfying, though, and given a little more time I'd do it all again.

By Christmas I had exhausted myself and just wanted to rest, so my wife suggested we have a go at World of Warcraft.

Damn.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 25 - 2007

2011-07-10T21:16:00.004+01:00

This year was somewhat better for me. Gaming was still scarce but I managed to get half a dozen games in with my old friend Andy, the guy who I kicked all kinds of roleplaying rear end with in the 1990s. We dived into a Warhammer FRP game which I set in the city of Remus - basically Rome. I was going to use some of my Roman knowledge and set up a deep, involving murder-mystery (and shedloads of ultraviolence).

It was great. It felt natural, slipping into an old system with an old friend and the game flowed well. The murder happened, the mystery deepened and the ultraviolence blossomed. It was a fun, deep game that taxed us both.

Taxed us both for two reason - Andy was running around after three kids, and I was running around after one and I also got married. Yes, that was quite a year!

It was this year I published a short story anthology called Those Dark Places, which got me into the local papers and a few copies were sold. I was going to follow on with another two novellas called All Fall Down and a historical fiction novel called A Soldier Of Rome, but these books never materialised as I had got the roleplaying bug again. I had some time on my hands - most of my nights were spent looking after my wife and my son.

Sadly, Andy didn't have the time. The game ended on a cliffhanger and Andy couldn't make the next game. Or the one after that. The game stopped and Andy couldn't make it anymore. I realised then that I had to stop looking back for my gaming fix, I had to start looking forward, try and find other games and start new games and adventures. If I wanted to game, I had to start afresh.

Strangely, I saw Andy for the first time in a long time today, just a few hours ago, totally by accident, and we didn't even have the time to reminisce about our adventures. I miss our games.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 24 - 2006

2011-07-03T22:12:00.005+01:00

And this was the year that I realised that my gaming could only go in one direction, the direction that any avid roleplayer at least considers dabbling in to test their mettle, try their hand and attempt to revolutionise the industry.

I was going to attempt to self-publish my own roleplaying game.

So I did.

And it was shit.

I had done loads of work on The League Of Seven years before but it had petered out and all that work was still sat on my hard drive, doing nothing. I had to do something with it and with support from my wife-to-be Lisa I set up an account with www.lulu.com to try it out. Did I playtest, edit and scrutinise the work I had done? No. No, I didn't. The system was broke and useless, the setting wasn't filled out properly and the art... the art I did as fillers and guidelines for a proper artist. But, considering that an artist was not going to work for very little (ie free), I ended up using that. And it sucked.

I suppose I was under a bit of pressure. You see, I was also going to be a dad.

That's right. Nerds breed.

I had taken a long, hard look at my roleplaying collection which consisted of pretty much an entire bookcase and decided that 90% of it wasn't being played and it should go on Ebay, to fund my son's arival into the world.

So, my collection went from this:

2300AD plus 2 supplements. Advanced D&D 2nd Edition plus 8 supplements. Advanced D&D. Alternity. Amber Diceless. Basic D&D first three boxsets. Battlelords of the 23rd Century. Buck Rogers XXVc plus 1 supplement. Bureau 13. Call of Cthulhu plus 14 supplements. Champions. Conspiracy X. Cyberpunk 2020 and 2 supplements. Darksword Adventures. Elric! Everway. FASA Star Trek plus four supplements. Fighting Fantasy plus one supplement. Ghostbusters. Golden Heroes. GURPS. Judge Dredd plus 2 supplements. Manhunter. Marvel Super Heroes. Mechwarrior. Megatraveller. Men in Black. MERP plus 18 supplements. Mutant Chronicles. Paranoia. Pendragon. Prime Directive plus 1 supplement. Runequest and Advanced Runequest plus 1 supplement. Shadowrun plus 2 supplements. Star Wars D6 (including 2nd Edition and Revised) plus every supplement published except for 2 books. Stormbringer. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles plus 2 supplements. The D6 System. Twilight 2000 plus 3 supplements. Vampire: The Masquerade. WFRP plus 6 supplements. WFRP 2nd Edition plus 2 supplements. I also had the games: Aliens Boardgame, Dark Future, Dragonstrike, First Quest, Star Trek III Starship Tactical Combat, Warhammer 40K, Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

To this:

Star Wars D6 RPG (1st edition) with the Star Wars Sourcebook, Imperial Sourcebook, Rebel Sourcebook, Rules Companion and Gamesmaster's Screen. WFRP (1st edition) with Warhammer Companion and Gamesmaster's Screen. Buck Rogers XXVc. MERP boxset. Fighting Fantasy.

Yes. That was quite the cull. Still, it not only paid for my son Bruce, there was lots of money left over for other things, too. I have no regrets. Well, maybe the Cthulhu stuff. But that's it. And my Basic D&D boxes.

So, my life was changing and roleplaying was still helping me through it.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 23 - 2005

2011-06-19T10:14:00.009+01:00

And another slow year. But, to be fair, that wasn't totally my fault.

I discovered two things this year. One, I found that blogging was helping me with my lack of gaming and was giving me focus and something to write. It didn't help that the blog was basically me ranting about everything I hated about the world, usually after a few drinks. My nights became alcohol-fuelled rages about anything that even mildly upset me, and after several hours of typing, a bottle of Southern Comfort and smoking a packet of twenty Embassy No1 I was usually pretty much useless for anything else.

So gaming came to a juddering halt. No games here or there, no swift scenarios or a quick bashes. There were no games, period. I didn't write for them, didn't run them, didn't play them, didn't even read them. There was no gaming, at all. None. Zilch. My roleplaying days were over. Gone. Finished. Behind me. I was destined to never sit behind a GM's shield ever again, or roll dice, or imagine myself as an otherwordly hero.

You get the picture.

The second thing was finding out that my writing skills were getting me paid work. I was approached to draft a treatment, design the missions and write the dialogue for a video game of the new re-imagined 'Battlestar Galactica'. I had seen the whole first series so I jumped at the chance and within a couple of days had written the entire thing, including the presentation for the pitch to Universal and extra bonus missions. The contract was won and my work was turned into a video game. At last! My work was being recognised!

It was a thrill, but I still wasn't gaming. In fact, my gaming really had seemed to have come to an end.

Now that I think about it, I should have just skipped a few years until 2009 when I got back into gaming proper. Still, a few things did happen between now and then.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 22 - 2004

2011-06-07T21:47:00.004+01:00

So my gaming had taken a turn for the worst but my writing hadn't. It was this year I decided to have a serious stab at getting published and I did so by being featured in the British Science Fiction Association writer's magazine 'FOCUS' with a short story based on part of a huge science fiction roleplaying campaign I had done years before. It got some pretty good feedback and gave me the impetus to try some more. My League of Seven setting began to take form in a detailed novel, the first eight chapters I managed to complete, but this was abandoned and the chapters incorporated into the Lo7 game as short filler stories to help invoke atmosphere.

I found myself longing for the old days of my gaming. I wanted the 1980s back - not the music or style, just the gaming - as I missed the wide-eyed wonder of new games, discoveries and realisations about what I could do with the hobby. I missed dungeon-bashing, and those first few emotionally-driven games that I would throw my heart in to with abandon, and laugh and fantasize and not care about anything else except being there, in the game, as that character. Now I was working, I had responsibilities, I was much more self-conscious about the level of emotional involvement I had in the game, and was now very coy about expressing myself as wildly as I used to. I was playing at being grown up and I wasn't being very good at it.

I realised then, as I do now, that one of the things I missed the most about the old games was becoming invested in a character. It seemed I had gone full circle - the stats on the paper were just numbers to me when I first began in the hobby, and they were number on a sheet to me once again. The PC was a playing piece, not a character by any stretch of the imagination. I still think I feel that way and I still long for games I can lose myself in.

This was mainly due to the lack of gaming. The games were quick, one-off, simple, with next to no chance of blossoming into a larger campaign. I was becoming lethargic about the whole thing, cynical. I needed a kick, something that would re-ignite my passion for the hobby. I was spending my time writing and that was just fine, but I needed game time.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 21 - 2003

2011-05-10T22:44:00.008+01:00

And like that - my gaming ceased.

I'm not entirely sure what exactly happened. I know that my gaming friends had moved away, become too busy or had conflicting schedules and my main gaming partner Andy had moved a couple of hundred miles away for a new job. It suddenly stopped and I was left in RPG limbo. I still socialised with my non-gaming friends and had fun at weekends, but my weeks were primarily made up of me designing lots of stuff for RPGs and then ultimately binning the ideas. That was pretty soul-destroying as I was having some great ideas, some of which I have or am hoping to replicate in upcoming campaigns, and they were being discarded or forgotten about. My initial enthusiasm for the projects was being extinguished by there being no game to give the idea an outlet. I became incredibly frustrated.

This led to finding other avenues of creativity. I joined the British Science Fiction Association and became interested in submitting work for their writer's journal 'Focus', I delved into more script writing and I wrote setting bibles for different projects. Now my ideas were being given flesh outside the RPG hobby and it was amazing how my years of gaming aided me in my endeavours. I was pretty fluent in story and plot creation, characterisation, dialogue and even art that helped me visualise my ideas. I then started reading books on writing and filmmaking and world creation by established and famous authors and through those I learned a lot.

But even though I was learning new skills that would utlimately lead to publication I still wasn't gaming. All that year the same thought burned through my head - could this be the end of my hobby?

Don't be daft.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 20 - 2002

2011-05-08T13:41:00.002+01:00

Well, my gaming plodded on. There were some great WFRP games still, but they were dwindling. A lot of my time was now being spent on reading and writing games, and even more was being spent on tweaking my D12 system game 'The League Of Seven'.

A non-gaming friend of mine, Lee, was a bit of a computer genius and we spoke at length (during one of our drunken conversations) about making games available online. You sign up, pay a subscription or just a flat fee and you get access to the game, gaming materials and extras. We decided to use my D12 game and he set about building the website and I wrote the game.

It was long, arduous work. I redesigned the game system, the setting, the adventures, the history, the suppplements - I created everything from scratch. Lee built the website from the bottom up (sadly, it no longer exists) and created everything we would have needed to get the project started. I even did the artwork, simple sketches to fill the gaps until proper artwork could be sourced. It would have been amazing, if it had actually happened.

I have no general idea why it was we never took the plunge and just released the game. I know I wasn't 100% satisfied with the game. The system was still a bit clunky and I was leaning further and further away from using a single D12 as the main die and was angling more towards 2D6. I couldn't get much playtesting done as my gaming circle had reduced to virtually nothing quite dramatically and Lee had other things going on in his life that he had to attend to. There was never a moment where we said, 'okay, we've gotta let this go', we simply stopped working on it. It was a real shame.

In other gaming related areas, the Lightsabre website was still going strong and more material was being added to it all the time as we found old notes, drawings, gaming material and books. The Setnin Sector was larger and vaster than even we had realised, until it got so big we had to cut away a lot of the planets in it and call it a region, not a sector. It amazed me just how much material a gaming group could create over a few combined years of gaming. Everything was being edited and used, everything from every GM that had run a game in Setnin. It was numbering tens of thousands of words and filling our allocated website space quite rapidly. It was something to be proud of. In fact, Lightsabre was becoming so popular that we had started to interview the stars of the books and movies - Kevin J Anderson, David Prowse, Kenny Baker. In later years Anthony Daniels, Irvin Kershner and Rick McCallum would join the illustrious roster as Mark email- and telephone-interviewed his heart out. Lightsabre had become much more than a resource for the Setnin Sector and took on a life of it's own, becoming one of the most popular Star Wars fansites in the world.

After this year, my writing and roleplaying would start to pay off in ways I didn't see coming.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 19 - 2001

2011-05-01T22:04:00.005+01:00

I had found a group on the internet - I'm not giving away any names here - and the GM, John, seemed like a likeable bloke. We exchanged a few emails regarding the kind of game he was going to run, a Call of Cthulhu 1920s adventure, and I agreed to take part. A train journey later I was knocking on the door of a huge expensive house in an affluent area.

John was welcoming and polite and after getting a drink I was shown to the dining room. It was a big room, with a huge long table. There were six other players already there, all the same age or older than me. John himself must have been in his forties. I exchanged hellos but the very first thing said to me was, 'You're late, why?' And not in a nice way, either. I simply said that my train times dictated my arrival.

The next question, from another gamer, was, 'How long have you been gaming? I started in 1984'. I was somewhat taken aback by this, but I answered that I started in 1984, too, in D&D club. 'What month?' the same man asked. 'I don't know, May?' I answered. He smiled smugly and jammed a thumb at himself, 'January,' he said. What the hell?

'I game five nights a week,' said the next guy. 'Okay,' I answer. Great.

'What do you play, usually?' says gamer four. I answer with my usual - SWD6, WFRP, MERP and anything else that takes my fancy, really. He nods. 'I like WFRP,' he says, which begins a five minute Games Workshop hating rant from the other players at the table, and why WFRP players are just sheep, apparently, and that the system is broken etc. All this time John is smiling and listening, stroking his chin with narrowed eyes as if he has somehow masterminded the whole thing and is watching his nefarious plans come to fruition.

'Have you ever played Warhammer 40K?' I'm asked of gamer one. I answer yes. 'You look like the type', he says, and then turns to the GM. 'Right, let's get started'.

As John is about to begin the game I ask, 'What is that supposed to mean?'

'You can't talk, now, the game has started,' gamer one snaps and turns back to John. He really didn't want me there. John begins again. But it's too late, I've been riled. 'No, honestly,' I ask again, 'what the fuck is that supposed to mean?' The table goes tense. Gamer one doesn't even look at me. There's no answer and the game begins and I'm left hanging.

Now, I'm not going to sugar coat it, but the game was shit. I mean, properly shit. Dull, boring, ridiculously railroad and just totally uninvolving. I think I was doubly annoyed because John's gaming style reminded me of me ten years ago, with flamboyant but hollow dialogue, cliched characters and linear, gamebook-style gameplay. I mean, we got nowhere. In the four and a half hours I was there, we got absolutely nowhere. The group couldn't agree on anything, everyone was convinced that they were the elite roleplayer at the table and that their opinions were the only valid ones, and just about every argument descended into 'I've gamed longer than you!' and 'I've played this many games!' point-scoring debates. It was utterly, utterly pathetic.

I knew I'd reached my limit when ended up in a library after closing hours and one of the gamers I'd not really spoken to found himself in the local history section with a female library assistant who was helping the group. 'I'll have sex with her,' he stated. John the GM nodded, trying to talk over the argument between the other players. 'Okay,' he sighed and rolled some dice, 'tell me what you do'.

I held up my hand. Everyone looked at me. 'You've got to be fucking kidding me,' I say.

'What's wrong?' asked John.

'What's wrong?' But at this point I've not got the energy any more. 'I've got a train to catch,' I say, I gather my things and take off. I never returned, and had to spend the next two weeks avoiding emails from John and one of the other players wanting to know why I hadn't returned for the next session.

I just couldn't face it. This was my first ever contact with gamers fully outside of my social circle, a group I had met completely fresh and not been introduced to. They were the biggest bunch of cocky, arrogant, rude, ridiculously self-absorbed and, dare I say it, sad individuals I had ever met. They wouldn't be the last, to be sure, but it amazed me. Pure amazed me.

It was quite simply the worst evening of roleplaying I have ever had, and the reason why I don't search out random gaming groups anymore. Any new gamers I'm going to play with... well, it's a trip to the pub first, a friendly chat about the game and real life, and then the game. One of the reasons why I thought about this group, why I thought about doing this memoirs series in the first place, was that I saw one of them in my town centre a few weeks ago. He hadn't changed at all, still a big lad with thinning greasy hair and a howling wolf t-shirt.

He didn't see me. But then, I did hide in W.H. Smith to be sure.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 18 - 2000

2011-05-01T11:56:00.004+01:00

A new millenium signalled a change to my gaming. Now that I had access to the internet and a gaming console, mainly a PSone, I was spending a lot of time on the net conversing with other like-minded individuals and blasting through games. I had also purchased a DVD player for the first time and was beginning what would be a huge collection of movies, shows and documentaries that I would watch whilst designing my games. My collection of 500+ video cassettes were slowly being replaced by shiny new DVDs. In a similar fashion, my RPGs were being replaced by immersive, enjoyable console and PC games. It was also clear that the movies were having an influence on the games I was designing. More than once, much to my disappointment, the fact that my adventure was similar to this movie or that show was mentioned in the few games I did run.

This was mainly due to the fact that my gaming circle had dwindled. Family responsibilites, especially Andy who had small children of his own, and general changes in life had taken players away from me so I had time to kill. During this long hiatus I designed more for my League of Seven setting, created more material for the Lightsabre website and spent my weekends socialising and partying with my non-gamer circle of friends. I didn't mind the break in games as I had plenty of other things to keep me occupied.

There were no new gamers during this period. I didn't meet, introduce or even converse on the internet with anyone who wanted to game with me. I started posting on internet forums and spent a lot of time conversing with other roleplayers. In fact, I spent more time taking about games than actually playing them but it was good to hear other people's views and opinions on tabletop gaming, from all over the world.

By the end of the year I hadn't really accomplished much as far as gaming was concerned, so I decided to put myself out there and actively searched for another group. I found one local to me who were starting a new Call of Cthulhu campaign the following year and they invited me to it. The GM, John, seemed like a nice bloke.

I say seemed. Oh, and just so you know that my next memoir entry is going to be a horror story about joining an existing group in which most of the players have apparently been gaming longer than anyone in the entire world, John isn't his real name.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 17 - 1999

2011-04-29T15:48:00.005+01:00

My gaming was now running at a steady pace. I was primarily running WFRP with Andy, but every now and then we'd all partake in a quick Star Wars game. It wasn't the full group - in fact, it was mainly only Mark and Paul who'd join in - but we had fun. I had no other games running anywhere else and things ticked over quite nicely.

Mark and Louis had pretty much finished their work on the Setnin Sector, Mark doing all the consolidation of material and Louis working on the internet site, and www.lightsabre.co.uk was launched. It doesn't exist anymore, the link here goes to an archived version of it (and you'll see just how fans built websites back then - ah, the wonder of animated gifs!). A more up to date version of it can still be seen at www.legacy.lightsabre.org.uk and you'll see the sheer amount of information that had to be collected, written out and entered. We also wrote a lot of short stories over the years, primarily based on our gaming adventures but many were original. It was also the year that 'Episode I - The Phantom Menace' came out and we had plenty of new material to play with, both on the website and in the RPGs. It was a good year for Star Wars gaming.

I also started work on putting my Spirit game onto a PC and changed the setting. I ditched the underwater setting for a high-concept science fiction setting called The League Of Seven. It was a grand space opera inspired by Dune, Star Wars and Star Trek and I spent a lot of time adapting the system and re-writing it. Which, as it turned out, was a massive mistake because I managed to overcomplicate the game and lose what made it fun in the first place.

My collection, now, was huge. It took an even larger leap in content when I managed to secure the entire collection of Star Wars D6 books from a friend. I now had everything I needed to run a massive, detailed Star Wars campaign with the Revised and Expanded rulebook. My games were about to leap into hyperdyperlightspeed!

As it happened, we ended up sticking with the first edition rules and the mass of books I had acquired sat on the shelves gathering dust as we used the Lightsabre website as source material and a way to introduce new players to the gameworld. I figured out I didn't need that many books as I was perfectly happy with what I already had.

You live and learn, and it was after this that I seriously cut down on the number of books I was purchasing for my hobby.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 16 - 1998

2011-04-23T08:53:00.004+01:00

I think this was the year when I realised that I was a collector of games as well as a player.

My bookshelves were groaning under the weight of the number of books I was buying. My disposable income was going on weekends out ( I was still enjoying socialising and the odd beer) and gaming materials. I was spending a lot of time in a shop called Dungeons & Starships and nosing through their second-hand bins. It wasn't that I was going to play all the games I bought, I was mining them for ideas and information. If there were charts and tables I could use then I'd nab them, too, and I took a huge interest in game mechanics and how they worked.

I was still writing a lot - short stories, articles and the such - and one of my articles had been accepted for a roleplaying magazine called 'Arcane'. They also accepted a rant letter I sent them as the article for their feature 'On The Soapbox'. If you've got the very last issue of 'Arcane' magazine then the soapbox article in there, 'Please Hug The Roleplayer To Your Left', is mine. Sadly, even though I got a letter of acceptance from 'Arcane' and a monetary offer, the magazine ceased publication.

Still, I enjoyed writing the articles and it gave me the push to have a go at writing a game. For no creative reason whatsoever I started work on a game called 'Spirit', which used the lowly D12 as it's only dice. I think I chose the D12 for no other reason that there were no other games that really used it. I know nothing of probability curves or maths, so there you go.

'Spirit' was a post-apocalyptic game set on an Earth where the atmosphere was somewhat toxic and the oceans had risen and then mainly frozen over, so everyone lived underground and travelled by submarine. I got my inspiration from 'Das Boot', 'Crimson Tide' and 'The Hunt For Red October', and the system was simple; you had a skill level from 1-12 - the higher the better - and you had to roll less than the skill level on a D12 to succeed. I only ran a few games in playtest and it went down quite well. I liked the setting, but the system needed some work. I think, to be honest, the players were more interested in the setting than the game. Indeed, I ran the same setting using Twilight: 2000 and the the D6 System a couple of years later.

So this was my first foray into proper game design. I'd been playing with mechanics for some time but this was my first attempt at putting them into practice. My WFRP and some new Star Wars D6 games were still going strong and drawing crowds so I was satisfied in that regard. My gaming hobby was ticking over nicely.

It was this year that best mate and fellow Star Wars gamer Mark realised that there was far too much sporadic information regarding our Setnin Sector, and he decided to get together all the stuff we'd created and build a definitive, accurate setting bible, of all the characters, locations, technology and incidents. With Louis, they would build a website that would hold all this information and they'd make it available to everyone.

It's not until you gather all the stories, creations and details of a long-term campaign setting that you realise just how huge it's become. What Mark and Louis were attempting would be back-breaking work and take the better part of a year to fully realise.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 15 - 1997

2011-04-20T21:23:00.003+01:00

The Warhammer games grew in intensity. Now Andy's character had inherited a small kingdom, old enemies surfaced to wrestle it from him, he had to save his wife and unborn son, then he gave it all up to go back to his small town and run his inn, which culminated in a huge campaign in which he survived to make it home, only to die on the edge of town... oh, I could go into all kinds of detail, but suffice to say that it was huge, epic and world-shattering.

We also dabbled in MERP, with his last-of-the-elves character in Dark Age England, and we brought Star wars out for a dusting every now and then. But WFRP dominated, and when he created his new female elf character Herenya, things went from great to amazing. Other gamers drifted in and out but me and Andy were the hardcore. We started up a Call of Cthulhu campaign which I wasn't happy with, but then something amazing happened. I realised that my emotional state influenced games incredibly.

I found this out when Anne, my girlfriend I had been living with for four years, up and left me because I wasn't ready for marraige. Her leaving had nothing to do with my gaming - she let me get on with it as she had no interest in gaming, computers, sci-fi or fantasy, or anything even remotely connected with imagination - but had everything to do with me not doing what she wanted to do, i.e. get married and have lots of kids right now! She tried to emotionally blackmail me by threatening to leave me if I didn't propose. That's not a solid foundation for a life together, so I called her bluff and said goodbye.

That night she left me, a Monday, I ran a Call of Cthulhu game I had already arranged. I was in a daze and didn't even think to cancel, the players turned up and I went into auto-pilot. I was so down, feeling betrayed and terribly angry, that the game I ran was bleak, angst-ridden and dark.

It was amazing. Maybe one of the best games I have ever run. I realised that my mood meant everything to the atmosphere of a game so since that incident I have tried my best to mentally prepare myself for the game to come, and tried to invest myself emotionally in the campaign and the setting. If I feel it, the player's feel it. That was my goal and the games prospered.

My new-found preparation techniques paid off immediatley. The new WFRP games with Andy were incredibly enjoyable, more than his previous character, and a whole new campaign arose. The campaign went from strength to strength and now that I lived on my own I could dedicate more time to my games. I could purchase and invest in more material.

And, boy, did I do just that.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 14 - 1996

2011-04-17T21:26:00.003+01:00

So. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay it was, then.

I knew that Andy enjoyed his Warhammer. His skill at the tabletop wargame was testament to that. But we'd never really talked about roleplaying in the Old World. I'd not really seriously played the game for ages, just odd adventures here and there, so we both sat down and went through the book with a fine tooth comb. After some deliberation, he decided to play a gnome.

Bear with me, it's not as bad as it sounds.

We decided that he'd roll up a halfling character and that the place he came from referred to them as gnomes. That was fine. Then I introduced a magical bow, a flute that cast random spells and a small town called La Mortineux, a slice of Bretonnia in the lands of the Empire. These small details would result in our first great RPG epic.

Years ago, Paul had sucked me into a fantasy world and gotten me creatively and emotionally involved to such a level that I couldn't imagine going back to the old dungeon bashing games. Now, after all the years of experience I had accrued with different games, players and GMs I stumbled into the same role. Now it was my turn to create a world that a player would fall into.

I can honestly say that it was the most satisfying thing I have ever done, even now. We ended up gaming twice a week, starting early and gaming into the small hours. It went from small adventure to epic journey, complete with memorable NPCs, locations and events. The town took on a life of it's own, to such a point that whole gaming sessions were taken up with Andy doing odd simple quests around the place to help out before buying the local inn outright, and I even had to change the Old World history and a lot of the setting to suit the huge game it had become. Together we created a world and a story I still think about even now.

It was my chance to really get under the skin of the characters, really create some shocking and adventurous scenarios and stage fights and battles that were, to be blunt, batshit insane. It was the grim Old World in all it's bloody and frightful glory and we loved every minute of it. There was no way we were going to improve on this.

Not this year, anyway.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 13 - 1995

2011-04-16T13:24:00.005+01:00

The Setnin Sector. Our own slice of the Star Wars galaxy. It was independant from the rest of the galaxy although it was severely affected by the goings on in the Republic and then the Empire, but it was our own playground to have Star Wars adventures with the grandiose feel of the movies without treading on the toes of official canon. Star Wars D6 was the game of the moment and we were loving every single minute of it.

Me and Paul were the primary GMs - we knew each other well and swapped the GMing role once our campaigns were finished. Because we had a similar attitude to the games and the setting we were pretty much interchangeable and the players could use the same PCs in either game. Great. When three other players asked if they could run their own games we were like, 'Sure! Why not? Bring your own ideas to the sector and add to the mix!'

In hindsight, maybe it wasn't such a great idea.

It's not that the other GMs were bad GMs, it was that their idea of how to run a game was... different to what me and Paul had been doing for the past year. Their approach, attitude and style was far removed from what we had been doing and they didn't mesh well with the games that had come before. The PCs were suddenly in a very different place and had gone from sandbox to railroad. The games were becoming something of a struggle. Not only that, but the deviousness and subterfuge had gone beyond the characters and was starting to become a little personal. Certain players took great delight in the anger and frustration of others at being double-crossed or cheated in the game and it stopped being about the story and more about who could get one over on who. I'm all for player character conflict, but definitely not player. there was part of me that found it all quite childish and my frustration with the games grew.

Anyway, I'm not going to go into particular games, but I knew it was time to jump ship when the PCs were sucked through a wormhole and ended up in the Star Trek universe.

Yeah.

Me and Andy especially were starting to feel the squeeze, like the destinies and decisions our characters were making were making no difference to the route the story was taking. I felt I was beyond that kind of linear game and was rapidly losing interest.

Here's a hint - two GMs running games in the same world for the same PCs is difficult but possible, but five? Don't try it. It only leads to frustration and disappointment for everyone. In the end me and Andy bailed. The venue changed, anyway, and we had lost interest in the games.

So, burned out and dejected, Andy came around to my place and saw Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition on my shelf.

'Is that any good?' he asked.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 12 - 1994

2011-04-10T11:08:00.005+01:00

There is a time when everything comes together in a roleplaying venue. The right players with the right attitude, the right game and the right location. With me it was Star Wars D6 at Paul's house with Paul, Mark, Andy, Darren and Louis (with an occasional visit from Jason, my first DM from 1984).

Paul's house was perfect. The room was a dining room far removed from the rest of the house. In it was a large oval dining table with a hanging light directly over the centre, with easy access to bathroom and kitchen and there were very few distractions inside. The head of the table was wide and great for a GM, with a table behind to put other stuff. There was room for paper, maps, dice, food, everything a gamer would need right in front of him without intruding on anyone else's space.

Here - I made a video a few years ago of that very year in that very room, check it out:

The second dude with the long hair who looks like he's trying to strangle himself - that's me. The hair, sadly, is no longer with us.

The games were run by me and Paul, and we'd swap duty every now and then to keep the games fresh. We both knew the Setnin Sector inside out and played the NPCs pretty much the same so we could flow on from adventure to adventure, using the same PCs, locations and NPCs. Because we were playing games set in the underworld the players soon got tired of double-crossing the NPCs and slyly turned on each other.

It was a case of outdoing each other, not through combat but through double-dealing and dishonesty. Notes were slipped under the table. Every now and then a couple of players, or a player and the GM, would call for a secret meeting and slip out of the room. Everyone knew that everyone else was out to get them. The games were, to be frank, brilliant. Andy and Mark especially revelled in the insidious nature of the campaigns and discussed the situations outside the game to try and get one-up on the other PCs.

I was also running games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for groups in two neighbouring towns - one group I got in touch with through an advert in a gaming magazine (I'm not sure which one but I think it was GM International), and one of the players in that group introduced me to another group. Luckily he was local to me so I got lifts to both places. The one group was good and enjoyed Star Wars games. That was easy, I just recycled the adventures I was running for the Sunday night guys, and the other group chopped and changed every three or four weeks; a bit of Star Wars, a bit of WFRP, a bit of Call of Cthulhu, it really depended on what mood they were in that month. Both groups were pretty good fun but they petered out after three months or so due to the members going back to their respective universities. It was nice to hear that they were running games set in my campaign worlds, but we lost contact soon after and I've not heard from any of them since.

It was, however, the Sunday night games I concentrated on and enjoyed the most. They were fun, exciting and every week bought new suprises because the players were so invested in the game. I'd finally cracked how to run large group games effectively, and the fun the other two groups in the week had was testimony to that as there was constant communication between players about the game between session. Each player was treated fairly, with time and attention equal between them all, the story flowed, the action was furious and dangerous, I didn't allow the game to get bogged down in details or rules interpretations or page-flipping... I went with the flow, created sandbox games and created situations, not stories. It was as much fun for me GMing by the seat of my pants and winging it as it was to play.

Yeah... that was a great year, and every game just seemed to get better and better. It wouldn't last - what does? - but I learned some very valuable lessons about running group games, lessons that I still adhere to today.

1995 was pretty much the same, but of course there were a few changes. Me and Paul were the main two GMs of the group, and two was enough. But five? Five GMs all running games in the same campaign world with the same PCs?

Uh-oh.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 11 - 1993

2011-04-06T18:49:00.003+01:00

This was a bumper year for me, as far as roleplaying was concerned. I'd moved out of the house that I shared with my friends and into a flat I now shared with my then girlfriend, Anne. The roleplaying group that consisted of PaulG, Rob, Dave et al had drifted away and now I was gaming regularly with Paul and Mark, the guys who had stuck with me through everything, and the primary game, in fact the only game, was Star Wars D6. Oh, great and wonderful Star Wars D6. The Setnin Sector was huge, now, encompassing dozens of worlds and star systems, dozens of NPCs and literally hundreds of locations. Now Andy had joined the group proper, and with Darren and Louis regularly attending it was usually a great turnout for games. Everyone had their chance to shine.

That is... they would have if Andy could have kept quiet for more than five seconds.

Andy was a force to reckoned with in my RPG group. He was constantly thinking, pushing the story and the action forward, taking his time with certain situations when it suited him but if things looked even slightly awkward - BLAM! Out came the repeating blaster and down went the bad guys. He was loud, sometimes brash and he roleplayed his characters to the hilt. It was all everyone else could do to keep up with him. In most cases it may have been a case of him drowning out the other players, but he actually drove the other players to try harder, push faster and generally get involved more so that they weren't sidelined. The games were amazing. I revelled in the way he drove forward and didn't wait to be told what to do or where to go, or ask a thousand and one detailed questions about what he could see, hear and smell. He also loved stories and taking part in an overall plot and that was what I had been trying to do for the previous three or four years. I now understood that it wasn't just up to me as the GM to drive the story and do all the work with plot and character arcs... the players had to do their fair share, too, and buy into the world I had created to want to develop their characters in such a way. It was quite a revelation to me, and I realised that that was what Paul had done years ago with MERP. He'd allowed me to drive the story, which was another reason why I had been so emotionally invested in it.

Of course, characterisation and plot development aside, things kind of got out of hand when Andy decided to booby trap his entire base and left the othe rplayers out to dry so that he could run away with 15 million credits. I say 'he', Andy was playing Luschia Arkensaw, human female mercenary/bounty hunter/pilot/assassin/whatever she was in the mood for that week. The Star Wars games came to a juddering halt.

Other players drifted in and out of the games once I'd managed to get the games back on track (and anyone would even remotely trust Andy to game with him again) but the core players remained. I GM'd (mostly), and there was Paul, Mark, Andy, Darren and Louis. It was a fine group and we got some fine games in. Star Wars D6 in the Setnin Sector would be our go-to campaign for the next two years.

Which meant for the next two years, gaming at the greatest venue we ever gamed at ever would mean lots of secret plots, player-vs-player action and secret machinations. The gaming group was about to get devious.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 10 - 1992

2011-04-03T15:26:00.003+01:00

I'm not exaggerating this - I can't rightly remember much about my gaming in 1992 because... well... I can't rightly remember much of what I was doing.

I was now living with two friends of mine; Nick (a serious gamer) and Stan (a casual gamer). Every night was party night and if I wasn't working I was down the pub. No, it's true, I was continually on the beers and not a night would go by without me getting partially or totally drunk. Even the Thursday gaming night wasn't safe and we'd generally slowly stew on tins that'd take us unto the early mornings. If I got more than four or five hours sleep a night I was lucky.

As a result, gaming suffered. Not only that but the amount of beer we were drinking and the things we were smoking resulted in some pretty colourful games. Alcohol-fuelled arguments, grandstanding, and even embaressing in-character physical attacks (and the reason why I'll never play Vampire: The Masquerade again) took place on those nights.

Then I met Andy.

Andy was a proper boisterous cigar-chomping gamer. He was loud and jovial, had hair down to his arse and he'd done shedloads of RPG-related stuff. He'd played some LARP, he'd helped with a fanzine in the late 1980s called 'The Jester', he'd even come second in the nationals of the Warhammer Fantasy Battle tournament. He wanted to play, get well into character and have some great, powerful games. And he was most certainly a force to be reckoned with. There were some great games.

Sadly, however, the majority of games are just blurs to me now. I do remember a lot of them were downright awful, thanks to the booze and marijuana, and I'm pretty sure there were times where I'd be running a game and I'd get so bored of the whole thing that I'd call Andy into the kitchen for a 'private in-game conversation', and we'd climb out the window and go down the pub. Once we left, came back hours later and the players were so engaged in their party conflict that they hadn't even noticed that we'd gone. Dicey.

So, the games wore on and the party house partied. It was this year we also met Louis, another gamer who wanted a slice of the Star Wars D6 action, and the Setnin Sector games really started to expand. It was, truth be told, the year that the Star Wars D6 Setnin Sector games really took off. The following year would see an explosion of Star Wars gaming that would shape the future of many gamer's involvent in the hobby and what they did with their spare time outside the game.

But my GMing mettle would be tested, also, as Andy, the incorrigable loud-mouthed git, pretty much threw everything he could at me and the other players.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 9 - 1991

2011-03-29T22:03:00.005+01:00

*stone hits window*

'Jon!'

*stone hits window again*

'Jon!'

I sleepily open the window and stare down at the dimly-lit street below my bedroom. It's Nick.

'What? What do you want?' I whisper down. The neighbour's dog has already started barking.

'Are you okay to game?' Nick tries to whisper, but let's face it, he's shouting.

'It's... it's 1:00 in the fucking morning!' I blurt out loudly when my eyes finally focus on the red glowing numbers on my alarm clock.

'Yeah, but are you okay to game right now?'

Now, I was still living at home at this time. I wouldn't move out until the end of this year, but it was the only place many of my gaming friends could come to regularly for games. And I was gaming a lot. Even at 1:00 in the morning, on a workday, when Nick had had a few beers and decided that playing his Star Wars character was a good idea. And he'd walked three miles to do so.

I worked out recently that I was gaming four times a week - Paul, PaulG and group, Paul Mark and Nick, and Nick. Nick, at 1:00 in the morning. The games did get intense with Nick, sometimes too much so, and we'd game until stupid o'clock in the morning... when my mom had gone away, of course. I perfected a few GMing skills during this period, learned how to combine a player's need to control his PCs destiny without compromising the story. In fact, these were some of my first ever sadnbox games, the kind of games I revel in. Sometimes I was given such short notice I had to run a game on the fly. After all, 1:00 in the morning is pretty damn short notice. I learned by the seat of my GMing pants.

That was a lot of gaming. I was playing a lot, only GMing every now and then, but playing a lot. Some games were good, some bad, some amazing, some atrocious. Now, Tere Swordsong had retired - not died or been defeated, he'd just retired - and we were playing a lot of Star Wars D6. A lot. Me and Paul had kind of locked horns on how cool our primary PCs were, and we had started to not only have a stab but royally screw each other over as we GM'd for each other. This was my Mary Sue period - my Star Wars PC, Goah Galletti, was simply the best and I expected respect when I played him and demanded respect when I GM'd him as an NPC. Me and Paul fought back and forth, always trying to outdo each other, and awarded our PCs special plaudits and equipment whilst NPCing them. I'm sure there was some great gaming in there somewhere, but mostly it was juvenile rubbish. Sadly, it's the juvenile rubbish that I remember the most.

I was also partying. A lot. My hair grew long, I started to smoke, I barely got through the weekends sober. Towards the end of the year RPGs had suddenly become a week-time thing, as weekends were far too valuable to use up on dice when there was beer to be had. Beer and cigarettes. And girls. By the end of December I'd moved out of my home and into a house with Nick and Stan, and that house became the party house for not only our friends but pretty much everyone we ever met.

I'm not saying this to give myself some kind of street cred, considering that I've been going on and on about my roleplaying. I had no intention of giving up RPGs as I loved them too much, but I found out that there was more to life than rulebooks and dice.

It's when I tried to mix the two that things went crazy.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 8 - 1990

2011-03-29T21:39:00.002+01:00

This was a very active year for me.

On top of the gaming I was also playing Star Trek: Starship Tactical Combat (in which Paul kicked my arse), Dark Future (in which I kicked Paul's arse), BattleTech (in which Paul made me look like a massive loser by kicking my arse) and Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (in which Paul continued to kick my arse). Our MERP games were still going strong but Paul obviously wanted to get back to the 'big fight' kind of games and we found that in MechWarrior - enter Matthew Haskenn, crap as a secret service investigator but give him a Rorynex and a few grenades and he'll blow up entire planets. If you ever meet Paul, ask him about Haskenn, the grenade, the ammo dump and 'Chariots of Fire'. Hilarity will be sure to ensue.

I'd started a new job that year so I now had some money to spend on gaming materials. I got in new books and RPGs that caught my eye - my roleplaying collection had started in earnest. 2300AD, Twilight: 2000, Runequest, Call of Cthulhu... my shelves begam to fill with books and material and I lost myself in the rules and settings. They'd be played - not much but they would be played - but I wanted them for the pleasure of reading them and experiencing other forms of roleplaying.

Anyway, Nick had entered the gaming group by creating a character for our Setnin Sector Star Wars D6 games. The games were getting longer, incorporating many wolrds and NPCs, and a large ring-binder folder had been started to catalogue all the designs, and locations. It was turning into a big campaign. Nick also gamed with some guys at a house only five minuites walk from where I lived, so after a few introductions I became involved in an AD&D 2nd Edition game with PaulG, Dave, Phil, Darren, PhilP and Rob. I'd already fallen out of love with D&D after several abismal games, and these games only hardened my opinion. This isn't to criticise the gaming group or PaulG who DM'd the games, it was just that I did not like the system at all. I introduced them to Warhammer FRP and we played some Star Wars D6, and we even went on and played Shadowrun (Paul, MERP Paul, had introduced me to that already, but I wasn't hot on it). I tried to get into character or try to throw them in to epic, emotionally-driven or story-centric plots but most of the time I just made myself look stupid because they didn't go for it - we'd end up just taking the piss and drinking more. They were an excellent group of gamers and friends, and we'd game together and socialise together.

These were fun, dungeon-bashing games. I could bop orcs over the head and moan about treaure, XP and dodgy players whilst knocking back beers in one environment, and get into character, play a role and tell a story in another. I had the best of both worlds. It was MERP I still enjoyed the most, though, but, sadly, Tere Swordsong's adventures would come to an end the next year.

Oh, yeah - I kind of discovered alcohol this year, too. That's a story all of itself, but my party habits didn't really affect my gaming for a couple more years. More on that later.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 7 - 1989

2011-03-28T21:25:00.005+01:00

MERP. A scout named Tere Swordsong. Clannad.

These three things would define roleplaying for me, and set me on a gaming course I've hardly ever steered from. And it's thanks to Paul, that crazy bastard, that I game the way I do today. God bless his mom and dad for knowing what he wanted for Christmas.

I was used to simple systems. Basic D&D, Star Wars D6 - hell, I'd even run some games of Fighting Fantasy for some people. I was used to spending half an hour tops in the character creation process, I'd slap a quick name onto them and send them in. They'd usually be dead in a few games, but to me they were playing pieces and I'd be as attached to them as I was to the top hat in Monopoly so it wasn't a problem. Shot in the head? Roll up a new character. Squashed by boulders? Pass me another character sheet. Ejected into space in only his underwear? Give me ten minutes, I'll have his successor ready. Not a problem.

It took me the better part of two hours to create Tere Swordsong. I was excited about playing MERP - after all, I was deeply in love with Tolkien's world so to be able to play in it sounded amazing. I decided on a scout, rolled for his stats under the watchful eye of Paul (it was his first time playing MERP, as well) and built him up.

Now, let me put this into perspective. One of my favourite shows on television was Robin of Sherwood, the Michael Praed episodes especially. I'd always wanted to play a character like Robin, the way Praed played him, and I had always failed to do so. So, I designed this one specifically to be good with a sword and a bow. He wasn't great - I didn't choose the best class for the job - but he was well-rounded and skilled. So, when I turn up for the first gaming session at Paul's house I'm ready to go, and what music does Paul unknowingly put on in the background? Clannad's 'Legend'. The soundtrack to Robin of Sherwood. It was like the fates had taken an interest in RPGs, all of a sudden.

So, the game begins. The character also had two large mountain lions as pets (don't ask me, Paul said I was allowed) and I enter the Trollshaws and the Inn of the Last Bridge... yep, the introductory adventures in the MERP boxset. Paul used the adventures to stretch his legs and get used to the system. I got ready for the game in the expectation that it'd be like all the others I'd played in. Kill-loot-XP-kill-loot-XP-death.

But that didn't happen at all. Walking into the inn I had to ask around for news and adventure. I talked, actually had conversations with, the locals and the barman. For the first hour of the adventure I asked questions and learned things, about the trolls that had kidnapped the innkeeper's son, about the tumbled down tower in the hills. I drank ale, ate ham and cheese, smoked my long pipe and sat back by the fire whilst the patrons talked and joked and laughed with me. I slept long to gain strength and then went out to find the inkeepers son. I found the troll lair, got in, fought the trolls, broke my ankle for the trouble (that was embarressing - I threw my shield and fumbled the throw, and it rebounded back at me and hit me in the shin) and saved the boy. I was helped with a magical healing salve and just in time, too; horsemen were bearing down on us, crying out that we must not report their presence! After deftly blocking a mounted rider's strike with my shield I hit back with a roll of 60 on an 'E' critical! Bingo! (if you know MERP, you'll know what that means). After driving off the others we got back to the inn and reported what had happened - who were these soldiers, and why were they hiding in the woods? The innkeeper offered me treasure and Paul the GM offered me expereince points, but for the first time ever I was thinking, 'Gold and XP be damned! What were those soldiers up to?!?'

And that was it. I had had my first fully immersive roleplaying experience. It had taken the better part of five years to get to this point, to this moment of sheer passion and enjoyment and the excitement of beginning the next adventure. I had almost given up the hobby several times, but now I was here to stay. I understood now how profound an emotional experience an immersive RPG could be, like losing yourself in a good book or becoming embroiled with a movie.

I tried to emulate what Paul was doing with my own games, I ran some Basic D&D and I bought the softback version of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay which I put on the shelf pretty quickly (it would be a few years before WFRP would dominate my gaming life) but I was lousy at it. I'd be trying so hard to push the drama and the story I'd forget about the players and they'd soon become bored of the whole thing. Paul had a natural talent, he had an instinct and he knew how to run an amazing game. I was wasting my time trying to copy that but I didn't realise it at the time, I just kept trying. I think, in reality, I was so impatient for the next game that I was trying that for a gaming fix. That's how good Paul's GMing was. That's how hooked I was.

I still ran Star Wars D6 every now and then and the games got bigger, but it was mainly me, Mark and Paul. When Nick came on the scene later that year he introduced me to other gamers in the area and my gaming social circle explosively increased. Suddenly, I was gaming much more than I'd hoped.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 6 - 1988

2011-03-28T21:05:00.004+01:00

It took a little while for things to get off the ground. First of all my family and I had to move house - in which several books of my collection and many figures went missing. I managed to replace the gamebooks that disappeared (luckily, none of them were any of the original prints that I had acquired) but I could never replace my orc warband and bolt thrower, but mostly I could never replace the missing model of my first ever RPG character, the badly-painted slinking thief Jamm Donut. It was quite a blow and I was sorely disappointed.

It took quite a while to settle into the new house, but gaming soon commenced. Along with my two friends and regular gamers Mark and Paul we set about delving into a huge Star Wars campaign, starting with some simple adventures that eventually grew into huge campaigns. I got my inspiration from the movies - if we'd been to see it at the flicks, then I'd run a game based on it. Aliens? Kelly's Heroes? Rambo III? Top Gun? If you'd watched it, I'd GM it. There were times we'd get back to my house, still buzzing after watching a suitably high-octane movie, and say 'Hey - maybe we could do a Star Wars version of that!' and out came the dice.

It was fun, but this is where the problems started. Firstly, we'd made a mess of the character development rules so the PCs were advancing at an incredible rate, which made the games almost impossible to enjoy when some rolls would take more than a dozen dice. We rectified that pretty quick, I can tell you, and basically started our characters from scratch with a couple of extra building dice.

Then there was the problem of recreating the movies. The games started to become flat and dull, with predictable stories and obvious plot changes to make the adventure seem original. It was just someone else's creation with a story change and the serial numbers filed off, and out of all of us I was the culprit. I was in danger of stunting my interest in roleplaying games because I was starting to become thoroughly bored with the whole thing.

But then, for Christmas 1988, Paul got MERP, and things changed. I finally began to understand what the word 'role' in 'roleplaying' actually meant.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 5 - 1987

2011-03-18T21:19:00.002Z

'What? Star Wars? A Star Wars roleplaying game?'

I was incredulous but there it was, the bright pictures taunting me from the back of the magazine. It was going to happen - there was going to be a Star Wars roleplaying game and I would have the players, players that would not only game with me but they loved the Star Wars universe. What could be better?

But it would be a long, long wait. My home life had improved somewhat - my father had finally left - and things were much more quiet. I would have to wait until the end of the year before I could get hold of the rulebooks and it was a long, long summer. I dabbled in D&D, ran some more Fighting Fantasy RPGs and basically bided my time. Me and my friend Mark had been creating a huge Star Wars setting with our stories and cassette dramas. It was called the Setnin Sector, and we already had dozens of characters, worlds and stories under our belts. So, we already had a campaign setting designed, fleshed out and mapped. All we need was the game.

It wasn't until the November of that year that I was able to walk into Game and hand over the cash. A week later, a trip to the Virgin Megastore got me the Sourcebook.

I was ready. I was ready and able and confident to run Star Wars games. The system was easy and fluid, the atmosphere was amazing. The game captured the movies wonderfully - remember, it had only been about three years since Return of the Jedi had been released - and I was ready.

A fellow gamer named Paul joined the mix and we began. The game that would dominate my RPG hobby for the next seven years had started, and the players had to find out what had happened to a Rebel outpost that had been destroyed by unknown assailants...

The erratic nature of my roleplaying was coming to an end. With Star Wars I had a small group of dedicated players with whom I gamed regularly. Nothing could stop us.

It took a few months for the problems to start.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 4 - 1986

2011-03-17T20:22:00.003Z

Things were bleak. My home life was a mess and my only escape, other than the cassette dramas me and my friend Mark were making and my gamebooks, were my very few forays into RPGs. A stolen game here, a quick lunch break scenario there. I managed to sit in on a couple of sessions of a Star Wars-themed game of Traveller, but the erratic nature of the game and the fact that I didn't feel altogether welcome at the table put me off it. I hadn't tried any of the AD&D stuff - I only had the first three Basic boxes - so my RPG experience was very limited. I was only looking at games I could find in the local toyshop and that was just D&D and miniatures.

But then I made a fateful trip into the next city and it was here, nestled in between plenty of other mainstream shops and not tucked away down a back alley, was a gaming shop.

I can't remember what it was called, I'm pretty sure it was just called 'Game', long before the chain we now know as the electronic gaming shop. And in there I had life breathed into my flagging RPG enthusiasm.

There were dozens of games. Lots of boxsets, loads of AD&D stuff, science fiction and fantasy and pseudo-historical and historical and just plain weird - shelves and shelves of games and accessories and figures and dice. It was like walking into a revelation - RPGs were HUGE! Much bigger than I had ever thought, and here were other gamers standing and talking and exchanging views and ideas. I was only 15 years old and still very shy and nervous so I stood and listened whilst thumbing through books and gazing lovingly at miniatures.

I purchased a copy of 'Titan: The Fighting Fantasy World' (which sits proudly in my bookcase, signed by both Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone at the 2010 UK Games Expo) and walked out, stunned and deleriously happy. The prospect of going home to the anger and the trauma didn't mean anything in those precious minutes I had spent gazing longingly at the myriad of games I so desperately wanted to own. I had been lost in the world of games, realised that I wasn't the only one with a passion for these things which meant I didn't feel so alone. I'd danced in the worlds of those books and boxsets, and I was determined to play more regularly and with other players who appreciated RPGs. I wanted stories in my games, not encounters. Characters, not playing pieces. Adventures, not incidents. I wanted to tell stories with my games, and the players and I would create sagas.

At least, that's what my 15 year old self would have said those many years ago, though probably not so articulately. But what game would attract players to the kind of games I wanted to play?

My Gaming Memoirs Part 3 - 1985

2011-03-14T20:39:00.007Z

So. My parents were getting a divorce. And it wasn't a mutual decision. My mother needed to leave my bully of a father after many long years of sadness and so she bravely took the plunge and started the ball rolling.

Over the next couple of years things would become increasingly bleak in my home. My parents would become embroiled in constant arguments, long evenings of threats and abuse, sometimes degenerating into violence. I'm not fishing for sympathy - this was many years ago and the issues have long since been dealt with. Suffice to say that my mother and the two remaining children of her six offspring were put through an abusive, torturous hell by a violent bully of a father. And that's the first time I've ever said that in public, so there you go. That's what it was like.

How did I handle this? I tucked myself away inside gamebooks and RPGs. I was still an impressionable youth at 14 years old and the world had suddenly become a dangerous, violent and scary place. I had no control over it, no say in what happened in my home, no way to change or influence the outcome of every single long day and even longer night. Gamebooks and RPGs gave me that control. I wanted that control so badly I switched from being a player to running the games as the GM, so that I could have control and everyone would be able to have fun because I decided it. My grades suffered (it was, after all, the lead up to my final 'O' level exams at 16) and my schoolwork was pretty much neglected, thanks to the battle going on in my home. Strangely, the blame was laid squarely on the fact that I spent a lot of time with my nose in these books and not enough time studying. Yeah, right - so the blazing rows until 2:00 in the morning and the crashing doors had nothing to do with it, then.

It was during this period that I discovered another kind of roleplaying; me and my best friend Mark who helped me through this difficult time also made radio plays on cassette tapes, both dramatic (usually Star Wars) and comedy (our own juvenile creations). It was the Star Wars stories that stuck and grew - in later years these roots would be the beginnings of the longest ever campaign I had ever run.

But that was still 4 years away.

My actual RPG gaming time was lacking during this year as people drifted from the hobby into the arms of ZX Spectrums and C64s - even then the power of the computer game was looming. I had the red box D&D and I ran a couple of games using the Fighting Fantasy introductory RPG for a couple of friends and even my family. I didn't really know what I was doing, but it was fun to run a game. I stocked up on miniatures (my first 'army' was an orc standard bearer, drummer, general, about four warriors and a bolt thrower crew, all from Citadel Miniatures). I realised very early on that I didn't have either the patience or the talent to colour up my models and the majority of them stayed silver. It didn't matter. They were mine, and they were perfect for the very few games I got to play.

I played so little, in fact, I almost stopped gaming altogether, but the following year something happened to keep me on the gaming track.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 2 - 1984

2011-03-13T20:41:00.002Z

'Dungeons and Dragons? What's that?'

I'd heard of the game but never actually seen or played it. I was knee-deep in Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and had no inkling that the experience could go beyond choosing paragraph entries. This was long before the internet made such things easier to find and learn about. I think the only time I'd ever seen the game even mentioned was on the back of an old issue of Conan the Barbarian (which, incidentally, I still possess).

'It's called a role-playing game,' said Des, one of my school mates. 'It's supposed to be really good. You like playing those gamebooks, yeah?'

'Yeah'.

'Yeah, well, they're supposed to be like that, but you can do what you want'.

My 13-year old brain was slightly muddled. A game like that? With my curiosity piqued, me and my new best friend Mark sought out more information.

We didn't have to look far. It turned out that one of the teachers at school, Mr Bowen, was starting a D&D after school club in room 1A, and potential gamers of all ages and sexes were invited. I was lucky to get a seat at the table of Jason, my first ever DM and a member of my present-day gaming circle. Jason had been dabbling in the dark arts of DMing for a short while and this was his first big game. Room 1A filled up and the games began.

My very first Basic D&D character, in fact my very first RPG character period, was a thief named Jamm Donut. Okay, not a great start but we were all young and we didn't really know what we were doing. Fighting alongside Mark's character, a wizard named Taskmaster, and several other players we assembled in a tavern and trudged down to the dungeons. I can't remember much about the adventure but I do remember my very first kill - a random skeleton wandering the dungeon. After taking a hefty hit I managed to defeat it and Jason described it collapsing in a heap of bones at my feet. It was exhilirating.

After a couple more weeks the dungeon ended with us defeating the bad guy and being catapulted through a portal back to the inn where we had started with our spoils.

It was an incredible experience. Many times I had wondered what I could have done beyond the choices in a gamebook, even decried the fact that there were choices I would have preferred, and here was a way to do that. I was hooked. Within weeks I had saved up enough pocket money to buy my own Basic D&D red box, and then my money after that went on miniatures and paints.

The club, sadly, did not last and we began to travel to each others houses to play. The hobby waned for some but I couldn't put it down, always eager to play. Others didn't really understand it and drifted away and others really bought into it and played not only D&D but other games, such as Traveller and RuneQuest. But it was always Basic D&D that thrilled me.

The following year, roleplaying games and gamebooks would become an important and much sought-after escape for my teenage self as my family life entered a traumatic period.

My Gaming Memoirs Part 1 - 1983

2011-03-12T14:58:00.005Z

Is that how you spell memoirs? I suppose I could have looked it up on an online dictionary but I didn't. I guess I could have looked it up in the time it's taken me to type this up, but now that I've spent the time writing this it seems a shame to delete it all. Ah, well, I'll go with 'memoirs'.

MY GAMING MEMOIRS Part 1

It's 1983. My little sister Christina is still at primary school and I've not long started secondary school. She comes home one night with a small pamphlet filled with small images of children's books, all published by Puffin and being made available to schools. She wants to know if anyone wants anything as she is going to purchase a book or two.

Up until this point I've been a passive observer of the science fiction/fantasy genres. I've cut my teeth on Star Wars, Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, the BBC dramatisation of The Lord of the Rings and plenty of classic sci-fi movies such as This Island Earth, The Thing From Another World and the Day The Earth Stood Still. I was still a distance from appreciating science fiction and fantasy in all it's forms - I still didn't like Blade Runner because Han Solo wasn't doing what I expected him to do.

So I'm scouring these book images for anything that seems even slightly quirky when my roving eyes fall on the image of some kind of cat/wolf beast with black fur and red eyes, at the head of a long line of beasts all exiting a castle as bat-winged creatures soar through a blood-red sky. It's 'The Citadel of Chaos', book two of the Fighting Fantasy series, and I'm intrigued. An original fighting fantasy adventure in which YOU are the hero? Whatever could this mean?

So, bang goes a week's pocket money and the book is ordered. Several days later, I sit down on a rainy Saturday afternoon to read it and I'm perplexed by these scores, dice and apparent rules. After raiding the tattered Monopoly box for two six-sided dice I tentatively have a first go at the book.

I don't remember how well I did, but I do remember missing my tea as I was totally absorbed by the book. I went to bed late and arose early the next Sunday morning, like pre-8 o'clock early, to carry on playing and it was only when my mom physically dragged me out of the bedroom to eat my Sunday dinner was I able to get any kind of grasp on the real world. At school the following Monday I gushed to classmates about this book, how amazing it was and how it allowed you to take part in and even decide the outcome of a story. I was hooked, and after I located a copy of 'The Warlock of Firetop Mountain' I began to collect the books in earnest. I loved reading and my over-active imagination loved adventures - how could it get any better than this?

The following year, I'd have that question answered.

My Convention Disaster

2011-03-09T09:16:00.002Z

It was the UK Games Expo a couple of years ago and I offered my services for the Friday RPG sessions as a GM to help fill a table and demo my SKETCH game. I designed a dungeon, advertised it and got some interest. I was alloted six places and I filled them all.

I got there in plenty of time on the Friday, set up, and watched the eight or nine other tables around me fill up. I sat there eagerly waiting.

And nobody came.

While the other gamers roared and laughed and rolled their dice I sat there with a vast empty table, the seats all pushed under, the spaces filled with character sheets and notes. The dice were piled in the centre of the table in a neat pyramid and didn't move for the two hours I waited. I sat and wrote notes and tried to look busy, but considering the trade halls were not open until the next day I couldn't even take a wander around the show.

As I was also covering the show for two online magazines I was given a free pass for the weekend so it wasn't a total loss. But I never found out why they never came - as far as I can tell they all signed up independantly and they never knew each other, so it's not like they all bailed for the same reason.

The thing I remember the most is the lady DM running a game at the next table looking over at me with a pained expression, like she really felt my pain, and then leaned over and whispered, 'Are you sure you got your times right?'

Yes. Yes, I did.

STORMLAND - My D&D campaign setting

2011-03-01T22:21:00.004Z

I'll be putting up my fantasy campaign setting STORMLAND for people to use at their whim, soon. I'll make it available as a free download at Farsight Games. It's mainly fluff and the races/classes in the D&D 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder books, including all the monsters and magic, can be used willy nilly.

So why am I using D&D 3.0?

2011-02-24T10:46:00.003Z

My friend JB asked me, quite politely, why it is I'm choosing 3.0:

From: ************
Subject: D&D 3.0
To: "Jonathan Hicks"
Date: Wednesday, 23 February, 2011, 22:59

Oi....

Stop being stupid and going on about that crappy out of date system .....

GET PATHFINDER!!!!!!!!!!

GET IT NOW!!!!!

If there's any mention of 3.0 Thursday night I'll introduce you to the greatness of my PRPG Core Rulebook ......via the back of ya head.

LOL

J.

To which I responded:

Okay - here's the reason why I got the 3.0 stuff -

Twenty quid for all three books, and it's pretty much the same game as 3.5/PF. Pathfinder would set me back the better part of 35/40 quid with the bestiary being another 25/30 quid, and the 3.5 core books are roughly 40 quid PER BOOK! A lot of the Pathfinder is overpriced and I can't afford that and the updated 3.5 is holding it's price because it's compatible with Pathfinder, and anyway I'm enjoying the nostalgia of old D&D - I missed out on all that because AD&D 2nd ruined it for me.

There's that, and all the 3.0 supplememts are less then a tenner each - I got three books yesterday for a fiver! What I need right now is cheap and simple and that's what I'm getting from 3.0. It's the same game as 3.5 with a couple of tweaks, and I'm modifying the system to make it simpler, anyway, so any version I get will end up being streamlined and simplified so I may as well do that with the cheap 3.0.

So there you go - I'm old school, baby! I could duff you up with my three hardbacks and three detailed supplements and do more damage - for 25 quid!

Best Regards

JONATHAN HICKS
FARSIGHT GAMES
www.farsightgames.com

*Dusts off hands* I rest my case, m'lud.

Sometimes, I surprise even myself...

2011-02-21T20:59:00.002Z

And, no, it really isn't that hard.

I'm going to hold up my hands and admit I made a mistake - my animosity towards AD&D 2nd Edition clouded my judgement and I allowed D&D 3.0 to pass me by with a dismissive wave of my hand. It's a really good game. I'm kind of looking forward to running it.

Just wanted to get that off my chest.

Dungeons and Dragons 3.0

2011-02-18T10:19:00.002Z

I never really enjoyed D&D after the 2nd Edition came out. I felt it was convoluted, overly complicated and uneccessarily detailed. I didn't really enjoy playing in the games I was invited to and I never even considered DMing it. In 1989 I gave up on D&D and lost myself in D6 Star Wars, WFRP and MERP.

So the whole 2nd edition explosion and subsequent collapse of TSR, the WotC D&D 3.0 and 3.5 passed me by, but in 2009 I was invited to play D&D 4th. I hadn't played D&D for 20 years so I figured what the hell - it won't kill me. It was fun, but once again I felt like there were lots of details in the game system that weren't needed. The cards and powers were just annoying and games felt like tactical simulations rather than roleplaying encounters. It just wasn't for me.

Last year I was asked to take part in a Pathfinder game. That was good, certainly better than D&D 4th, and I enjoyed it (all the way up to the TPK - damned electric iguanas!) and really liked the system. Then I was invited to another group to play D&D 3.5, which was very good. The DM stripped down the rules to her requirements and the game was less about the mechanics and more about the story she was trying to tell and the adventures she wanted us to have. That was my kind of game - rules light with plenty of roleplaying opportunities.

So, I figured, what could I do with it, a guy who hasn't touched D&D for twenty years? In fact, the last time I DM'd a D&D game must have been 1988 or thereabouts, just before Star Wars D6 took up most of my time. That's 23 years out of the D&D DM loop. I figured I'd start at the beginning and carry on from where I left off. I didn't want to get involved with 2nd edition again so I picked up the three core D&D 3.0 books and I've spent the last day going through them.

Honestly, it's a really good little game, much better than I figured it was going to be. It was highly adaptable and easy to absorb, and I can drop or change rules willy-nilly with very little effort. I'm even considering a gaming world now - my own Stormland from my free SKETCH system games on my website www.farsightgames.com. I'll make a few changes and add some monsters and races but the premise can remain the same and the players (and me!) can map as they travel. A solid, dark fantasy setting.

I know there were some changes made to the system in 3.5 and then Pathfinder but these mean little to me, to be honest, as I can make relevant changes myself. If they do spoil the gameplay then I might consider another purchase (probably Pathfinder and not the currently £40 a book 3.5) but right now I'm enjoying the system and the sense of nostalgia that D&D 3.0 is giving me. I'm looking forward to giving it a go.

I know a lot of gamers saw problems in 3.0 and, from what I understand, there is a sense that the books were rushed out before they were properly polished which contributed to these problems, but I'm not really seeing it. It's a pretty solid game and right now D&D 3.0 suits my approach to roleplaying well, primarily because I can modify the rules to suit me and especially now that I'm looking for more simplicity in a game.

Yeah, 'D&D' and 'simplicity'. Never thought I'd use those two words in the same sentence.

New D&D Advertisements

2011-02-16T22:19:00.002Z

Well... maybe not new...

More advertisements like this, please, in those little video ad things you get on public websites. And don't put them on existing RPG sites, dingleberry, put them on public sites where new gamers will see them.

In fact, sod it - take this advert and change the final product image to a newer edition of D&D. It's a start, at least.

None Shall Pass!

2011-02-15T09:53:00.004Z

I've been flicking through some of my RPG books recently and I was reminiscing about some of the games I've parted ways with. One of the games I sold was my original Red Box Basic D&D game and I regret that for two reasons - 1, it was a great little game and I get all teary-eyed and nostalgic sometimes for some classic gaming and 2, it was written in a style that eased new players into roleplaying games and didn't have them running for the hills because the rulebook seemed to be written in a different language and was so big you could beat someone to death with it.

And here lies my problem.

Rulebooks these days seem pretty impenetrable for the first-time or young gamer who's entering the hobby cold, that is without any kind of peer to help with explanations and examples. In fact, the whole hobby seems to be something of an enigma to those who don't know the game or haven't been involved with it for longer than a few years. I did a little digging by sticking the basics into a search engine, acting as if I was a new and interested gamer with no experience, and I was somewhat mystified by the results.

I got the basic details about roleplaying from Wikipedia - that much was sort of okay - and after sifting through computer and online roleplaying games I finally found some dedicated tabletop roleplaying websites. What I was greeted with was a whole mess of voices and opinions using words and phrases that, if I had been a new gamer, would have confused me straight away and possibly made me change my mind about getting into gaming, especially if I had been a (lot) younger and a bit shy. Lots of different posts from people, some of them vitriolic and confrontational filled with words and references I would have had no idea about. I don't want to surf the internet looking for translations or meanings, I just want to play a game and if I have to be made to work, or even seemingly earn, that privelige then what's the point? Gaming websites seem to cater to the experienced gamer and that will immediately put off new players as they don't want to seem like they're intruding and they don't want to look foolish.

Then there's the rulebooks. Some of them are somewhat accessible but otherwise they can be tomes of words that make no sense. They can be massive books filled with options and tables that have little meaning because the new gamer has no context. Sure, follow the rules as far as creating a character is concerned and learn the basics of dice-rolling, but how do you use it? The advice in some books can be cryptic and confusing as it doesn't talk about gaming in general but about gaming in that particular rulebook's world.

So, this is where I come back to basic D&D. It spoke to the new gamer as a kid, because it was kids that got this hobby fired up in the first place. Pre-teen and teenage kids who wanted to pretend to be warriors, wizards and elves. The books took them through everything, held their hand and explained it all in simple, kid-like terms. That's how I learned the game, and the only thing that made me nervous was sitting down for those first few games with other people. I didn't have these swathes of web pages making my head spin with words and phrases I didn't understand, or hundreds of experienced gamers telling how I should be playing a game of let's pretend.

I sometimes think that the RPG community is it's own worse enemy. They talk about the fading hobby but they spend so much time carping on about the minute details of their game using incomprehensible and sometimes offensive language that they don't realise that they're scaring away potential new gamers. We've managed to make the hobby this strange game in the shadows that people are afraid to approach because we simply make no sense - this was bad back in the 1980s when I joined in but the internet has only served to make that worse. How can we compete with the popularity and simplicity of MMORPGs and CRPGs if this is the case?

So this is what I miss. Simple, talk-to-them-like-children roleplaying games that ease gamers into the hobby with simple rules and long-winded explanations. A game that stands on it's own, like the different coloured boxes of Basic D&D.

Roleplaying games seem to be a dying breed and I have to wonder sometimes just who's fault that is.

A bit-of-fun campaign - BRING BACK VENGER!

2011-02-09T22:23:00.000Z

So he was diddled by teenage kids every other episode! That doesn't stop Venger being one of the class act bad guys of the 1980s - not only does he need respect, he needs to be resurrected as a proper full-on bad guy. You know, like Darth Vader used to be before it turned out he turned evil because he was a whiny teenager that nobody liked.

Back in the 1980s I wasn't only playing Dungeons and Dragons I was watching the cartoon, in which a bunch of kids get sucked through a portal at a fair ride and end up in a fantasy world where they are helped by Dungeon Master. Yeah... Well, the kids sucked, but Venger made his mark as a kick-ass bad guy.

The Facebook page linked on the right has been set up to promote the best cartoon bad guy EVER! That's right! He was even better than Megatron! And that prat in Battle of the Planets who built those crappy giant robots! Let's get Venger back out there! D&D modules! Adventures! T-shirts! Movie deals! I want frickin Venger Dancers doing high kicks with one horn sticking out of their Vegas headresses!

If we do this right there's money in this - girls, fame, deoderant ads and some such crap. REMEMBER VENGER!

Videos I've been perusing

2011-02-08T21:20:00.004Z

I spend a bit of time on Youtube scanning the vids as there's always a gem or two hidden in the trash. The stuff I like the most is the home-made stuff that oozes creativity and imagination, and every now and then I'll stumble across official stuff that's not being crowed about too loud because the movie industry is crowing about their multi-million budget blockbuster much, much louder.

So, draw the curtains and butter your popcorn - it's movie time.

First of all, some Mitchell and Webb goodness.

THis Judge Dredd fan film, I think, looks amazing.

Now for some more 2000AD goodness - ABC Warriors and an amazing Slaine trailer.

Now there's this grown-up, gritty version of the D&D cartoon which is all levels of awesome bonkers.

Finally, there's this. Because I love it. This is part one, so click on the video for the next few parts. It's what happens to the player characters in a D&D game, and I love it.

Ah, Youtube. Constantly a source of inspiration. And shit.

Warhammer Airships

2011-02-03T14:51:00.010Z

So I'm reading 'Retribution Falls' and it's a damn good book. Some of the imagery makes me think of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, for some reason, and this got me thinking about running more WFRP games but with a slight twist.

I'm imagining the Old World as it is in the normal games, especially with some of the imagery from the Warhammer Online Collectors Box book, but the main mode of transport is by airship. I got some inspiration from the Gotrek and Felix novel 'Daemonslayer' and some imagery I found on the interwebtubes

Art by David Edwards

The one above I imagine to be some normal trader, plying their trade across the Old World as a private enterprise, with a small crew to keep things running. Some could be converted boats with gasbags above them, designed for air and water, and some could be purpose built or modified with a flat hull so that they could land anywhere. They would be expensive, so it's not done to destroy them or send them down, much like the attitude of mariners in the 18th/19th centuries - better to capture them intact as a prize instead of sending them burning to the ground.

Art by Kornel Ravadits

The next one helps to illustrate a central town or city where many airships come and go like a busy airport. Places like Marienburg and Altdorf would be central areas of commerce and activity and there'd be huge towers for docking, landing fields for longer stays and giant hangars for repairs.

Art by James Ng

Then there'd be other countries vying for trade, travelling huge distances in massive airships designed for long-distance travel, equipped with all the luxuries that dignitaries and ambassadors expect.

Powered by gas and magic (hey - 'Gas and Magic' - that's a good campaign name) these machines are helped up by gases but held up by powerful sorcery, much like they're being flown by WH40K Navigators. Using the stats for boats in the WHFRP 1st Edition rulebook, this could work a treat. It'd be like science fiction free traders in the WFRP world, with flintlocks and cutlasses.

Hmmm. I might do some work on this.

Books - Retribution Falls / Science Fantasy Stories

2011-01-31T10:37:00.003Z

It's not a review, it's a small piece about a couple of books I've got my hands on.

First of all there's 'Retribution Falls' by Chris Wooding. I've not read any of his work before and it was the cover that grabbed my attention in the bookshop. After some perusing of the internet it seems that this novel is the kind of book I love and I'm looking forward to getting stuck in to it.

Then, in a charity shop, I found a as-new copy of a hardback book I used to have when I was kid - Science Fantasy Stories. This is a 1987 printing by Cathay Books and I can't find an image to share, suffice to say that I lost this book 21 years ago and I always regretted that. Now I have it again, in a better condition than when I first owned it, I somehow feel incredibly content, like all is right with the world and karma and balance and some such shit. Anyway, just thought I'd share.

Fighting Fantasy: Interstellar Adventures

2011-01-25T21:59:00.002Z

Considering that I'm a tad bored with game design, and the fact that I'm falling in love with old systems all over again, I decided to have a stab at messing around with the game system that got me started in the RPG hobby - the Fighting Fantasy system.

Taking my cue from the 'Fighting Fantasy The Introductory Roleplaying Game' book I set about getting hold of the rules (quite simple as they're all on Wizard Books' Fighting Fantasy website and can be copied and pasted quite easily) and then tweaking them to suit. I introduced a new set of skills and a Difficulty Number resolution system to keep the die rolling conventions similar. Physical combat remains the same and I've introduced the ranged and starship combat systems from Gamebook 4 'Starship Traveller' to the system. All in all it makes for pretty fun, simple game.

Right now I'm hoping to get some kind of nod from Wizard Books so that I can distribute the game for free across the internet. If nothing is forthcoming then I'll just change the combat resolution system and change the names of the stats. Simple as that. Hopefully, they'll say yes and then I can release:

3D Movies - It's RANT time!

2011-01-23T13:38:00.010Z

The Green Hornet - great film. But in 3D? Impressive. Initially. Then twenty minutes later it annoyed the shit out of me. Not again. 3D movies really do put you there... if you wanted to be put fifty years into the past. Make movies, not spectacles.

It's why Avatar, in the long run, turned out to be a bit shit. It was great on that initial viewing because of the whole spectacle and the new 3D stuff, but ultimately it turned out to be a shallow story with dull two dimensional characters who were there to serve the special effects. I mean, come on. If I wanted a colourful spectacle I'd go and see a fireworks display.

You can't really excuse the triteness of some films because they made money to make other films, because that's the only reason why the big production companies make them - to make as much money as they can, and they'll produce any old tut and use any old gimmick to get people in the theatres to watch the films so that they can fill their coffers. This means that future big movies aren't created on merit but on market research and demographics which has turned studios into industrial mass-marketing machines of money-making mediocrity.

I think James Cameron saw an angle and went for it, made a an (initially) stunning visual feast and opened the floodgates for more fireworks displays. Now people are so wrapped up in the spectacle, the movie itself partially passes them by so characters, plot and development go out the window in favour of a dead scuba divers in a shark mouth reaching out of the screen with a grenade in their hand, to make the audience react physically and not emotionally. Sure, some films are probably made to utilise the 3D (I only saw it in 2D but I imagine Tron looked amazing in 3D - and, yeah, it was a great film) and any other technology but I think they fool themselves into thinking the movie will have any longevity after the 'wow' factor has worn off.

And the money being pumped into these spectacles are denying other films their chance, because studios won't want to do a 3D movie of a family drama, or a political thriller, or a slow-moving sci-fi epic. They just want wam-bam-thank you for your cash-maam. I understand that they're a business, but forcing the little guy out is the same as building a faceless Tescos or Wal-Mart in the middle of the city and watching the small personal-service shops dwindle and die, only visited by those who care and hardly making an impact or closing completely.

Now, movies that use technology the accentuate the film - fine. Subtle effects, tweaks and even full blown events to make a point, fine. But making it a technological marvel in spite of the movie immediately destroys any credibility the movie might have had.

Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game opens my eyes

2011-01-21T19:00:00.008Z

Me and some friends sat down and did a Star Wars game last night, using the West End Games first edition Star Wars D6 rulebook, the first edition Sourcebook and the Gamesmaster's Pack.

It was absolutely bloody brilliant.

I've not run a full-on Star Wars game for my old group for years and it took me way back, long before I got really serious about RPGs and game design and even longer before Farsight Games was even a twinkle in my eye. It took me back to a time when I played the games because I loved to play, to a time when gaming was simple, fun and exciting. It took me back to a time when I enjoyed playing roleplaying games much more than I do now.

Yeah, that was quite a blow. It sort of hit me at the end of the game when everyone was really up for the next installment and seemed to really get excited about their characters, as new and as off-the-cuff as they were. There was no pretence - we weren't trying to delve into psyches, or experiment with new systems, or try a new way of or approach to gaming. We sat down, had fun and wanted to play it again.

I've not done that for years. Games that I've played or designed for recently have been an exercise in what makes the game tick, how it runs and how it works. Not if it was any fun. This is mainly because the fun is slightly sucked out of the game for me because I'm too busy juggling playing with note-taking and analysis. I'm a bit tired of that, now.

Playing Star Wars last night reminded me how much simple fun and excitement I've been missing out on. I kind of feel I've been reminded of a time when I used to play games for enjoyment, whereas now I've turned it into something of a job, almost a chore. I don't want to get under the skin of games and into the mechanics of a system anymore. I just want to have some fun. When did this happen? When did I forget the original reason why I got into roleplaying games in the first place?

So now I'm looking fondly at games of old that bought me great joy; Basic D&D, Star Wars D6, MERP, WFRP. Now I'm looking at having fun again.

Goodbye for now, game and setting design. Maybe I'll look to you again in the future if gaming becomes a little hard to come by but right now I want as much enjoyment out of the game as possible while I can still appreciate it.

Stars Without Number

2011-01-19T14:32:00.003Z

I'm pissed off. I made a lot of notes about a D&D system science fiction game, even promoted the use of the original TSR Buck Rogers XXVc game that used the AD&D 2nd Edition as a great example of what a D&D-type sci-fi RPG could be. I even messed about with my own version.

Then suddenly Dave 'Grubman' Bezio comes along with 'X-Plorers', the game that asked the question 'What if the fathers of the role playing hobby were more into science fiction than fantasy when they wrote that first set of official rules back in 1974? What if that game was about humans expanding and exploring their universe, instead of delving into deep dungeons to kill monsters to earn treasure?' It was a great game.

Now we have an old-school old-skool D&D inspired game from [S.]ine [N.]omine Publishing, and they've kicked arse on several levels. Here's the blurb:

'Stars Without Number is a retro-inspired science fiction role playing game influenced by the Old School Renaissance. The contents are compatible with most old school clones and are designed to be easily imported to your own favorite gaming system. In addition to a complete pre-made stellar sector, Stars Without Number offers GMs and players the tools to create their own sandbox-style adventures in the far future. * Compatible with most retroclone RPGs * Helps a GM build a sandbox sci-fi game that lets the players leave the plot rails to explore freely * World building resources for creating system-neutral planets and star sectors * 100 adventure seeds and guidelines for integrating them with the worlds you've made * Old-school compatible rules for guns, cyberware, starships, and psionics * Domain rules for experienced characters who want to set up their own colony, psychic academy, mercenary band, or other institution.'

That's brilliant. And the fact that you can download the PDF for FREE is even better! It's what I want to see in a sci-fi game - creativity and an appeal to both current and new gamers. Well done both of these products for putting sci-fi space opera out there and proving that you don't need a convoluted technical system to represent high-tech games. It's good old dungeon bashin' - in spaaaaaace!

Hunting Deer - The Horrible Truth

2011-01-17T11:15:00.008Z

I hunted deer at the weekend. No, not with a gun - I'm not that weird - but with a camera.

Ten minutes from where I live in the beautiful cathedral city of Lichfield is Cannock Chase, a huge conservation area forest where the wild things are. Me and my three year old (might-as-well-be-four-year-old) son Bruce went for a nice drive and a long walk across the hills and through the forests.

There's a great little place called Milford (there's a Wimpy burger bar there! Hooray!) and that's where we parked, slapped on our hiking boots and started our long trek into the deep, dark forest. It was hard going - after all, I'm trekking with a might-as-well-be-four-year-old so we're stopping every five seconds so that he can investigate bushes, run away from creaking trees and pick up rabbit poo. He finds a magic wand (stick) and then it transforms into a magic sword (he finds a bigger stick) and decides he wants to hunt for monsters (walk behind daddy and assure him he will help if we find one). Basically, I'm the tank and he's melee DPS.

We go a little off the beaten track (ie get somewhat lost), and then all of a sudden there's this thumping sound in the trees. I'm expecting a dog or something similar, but when a full-grown deer comes bounding out the bushes followed by three or four others I'm amazed. Wildly they crash off down the hill, across the path and then up the next hill. After convincing Bruce that they're not monsters and, no, he's not allowed to hug them if we find them we set off in pursuit, camera in hand.

Now, in a lot of fantasy roleplaying games I play a ranger/hunter type character. I've got a skill in tracking and hunting and he's usually quite competent. I mean, I've seen people hunt in the movies, how hard could it be? Pick up a track, make sure you're as quiet as can be and sneak up, and take the shot. In games we've gone into detail about what we would do to hunt game and it all sounded pretty plausible. The better the description the better the bonuses on the dice roll.

After more than twenty years playing RPGs I kind of like the little bits of factual knowledge I've picked up about hunting. Living in England I'd never get the chance to hunt for real - in fact, I wouldn't even consider killing a living creature even if I had the opportunity - so this will be the closest I ever get to tracking and taking a (snap)shot at a deer. It all seemed so simple in my head.

Alas, real life sucks really, really hard. I found the tracks, but they were so mashed up I had no idea where they were headed. Snapped and bent twigs and branches? They were all snapped and bent! By my reckoning there were roughly ten and a half thousand deer passing through this area every few seconds. Caught fur on fences and tree trunks? Erm... no. Even if I did find fur it doesn't tell me what direction they were heading in. The wind was so high that I couldn't hear them. What was I supposed to do?

After an hour we finally found them, deeper into the forest. Could I get close enough to get a decent picture? Could I bollocks. If I even twitched they'd bolt. At one time I'm pretty sure that a sparrow eighteen miles away farted, and that was enough to send them crashing away into the trees. If I couldn't get a picture from any distance with a simple line-of-sight snapshot, how on earth could I even hope to fire a weapon, bow or otherwise?

Another half an hour later we found them again. This time, I thought, I can't go wrong. Then the might-as-well-be-four-years-old jumped to his feet when he saw them and shouted, 'There they are!' All hope was lost. With a crash of tree branches they hoofed it.

It was then I realised I was slightly lost. I say slightly, I mean utterly. The only thing I knew was that Milford was to the north of us so I used the moss-on-trees trick and headed north. That bit of woodland knowledge helped me out, at least.

So there you have it, people. Forget all you know (or think you know!) about tracking and hunting knowledge you may have gleaned from the skills lists in roleplaying games. It won't help you. Using that information and taking a might-as-well-be-four-years-old with you is a bad idea.

This is why I play roleplaying games. Reality is such a let down.

Eclipse Phase

2011-01-10T21:43:00.004Z

The more I read about this game the more intrigued I become.

The turn-ons for me are the fact that it seems to deal with a slice of the science fiction genre that I'm new to but enjoying, that of high-concept transhumanist sci-fi, and it also has a healthy dose of horror thrown in. Sitting here listening to Jerry Goldmsith's ALIEN soundtrack and looking at that cover is making me nod my head. That and the system is percentile based, which is one of my favourite resolution systems coming as I do from a WFRP background. I downloaded the quickstart from http://www.eclipsephase.com/ and I'm impressed. I'm considering a full purchase in the near future.

It's nice to come across a game that I haven't had thrust down my throat by banner ads and drooling gamers. I've always known it was there, like we've been looking at each other across a crowded bar for the last few weeks, and I think I've got the courage to buy it a drink.

Mini Six, Mini Six, ooooh, loooolly-lolly-lolly

2011-01-04T18:29:00.002Z

Mini Six. (POP!) Badum-dum-dum...

I think the elegance and simplicity of the Mini Six system, a cut down version of the D6 System that's now available on OGL as OpenD6, has won me over. The great guys over at www.antipaladingames.com have done a cracking job and well done to them.

What makes this great for me is that I think I've now decided on a system for my magazine-format printed project. I was so intent on creating a whole new system for a whole new game I lost sight of th ereason why I wanted to do this. I wanted to present a whole new setting for players to gamein, the system itself was secondary. As a lifelong fan of the D6 System thanks to WEG's original (and, in my opinion, by far the best) Star Wars RPG I'm more than happy to use Mini Six for the game. Now I just need to get an SRD from the guys at Antipaladin that's not a PDF - I like to make my life easy and there's nothing easier than copy n' paste.

People complain about the D6 System, stating that it's easy to 'break'. Well, don't fucking break it, then. That's like buying a dog and seeing how many times you can kick it before it dies.

I'll be damned

2011-01-03T11:21:00.003Z

Yesterday me and the wife went on a little jaunt to the local places of interest, one of them being a small place called Barton Marina (www.bartonmarina.co.uk), especially a toy shop and museum (http://www.bartonmarina.co.uk/p3_5_1.htm) that dealt with new and classic, antiquarian toys.

After my last post about the old Star Trek RPG, what do I find tucked away in the corner? Yes, a complete and good condition Star Trek RPG box set, exactly the one I was talking about. I don't see one in years and then one turns up in the middle of nowhere in a shop I didn't even know existed until I went to the marina on a whim.

That's fate, that is. Fate is telling me I have to play the Star Trek RPG.

Star Trek RPG

2010-12-31T18:10:00.003Z

I was always really pleased with my quick 'n dirty D6 System conversion of Task Force Games' 'Prime Directive' core rulebook, that even used the book's own system and character sheet. It can be found in the free section of my website http://www.farsightgames.com/. It was simple and yet effective and, even though you'll need to locate extra rulebooks that are very old and out of print, it worked well.

This brings me to the original FASA game from waaaaaaay back in the midst of time, when hairspray was abundant and 18th century clothing and a white stripe across the nosebridge was the 'in' thing. Of course, I'm talking about the early 1980s.

The copy I have is the Games Workshop Second Edition printing. It was a great little system, percentile based, and the characters you could create were given depth by having them develop through applying to Star Fleet, going through Academy training and then active service. The final character was fleshed out and easy to play, and whilst the damage of weapons of the era (the Original Series) was slightly over the top (one hit disintegrations!) the system was pretty fluid and fun.

I created a character for this back in 1989 but never played him. I might give this game a stab at some point.