A Defense of Roll Under

I've said it here before, I'm a big fan of GURPS. GURPS stands for "Generic Universal RolePlaying System", and has been part of Steve Jackson Games' product line for more than three decades.

So, it may come a surprise that my first experience with a "roll-under" system came from a relatively unknown game called "Cascade Failure". Where GURPS is a mechanically unique, long-time mainstay of the roleplaying game industry; Cascade Failure is a Sci-Fi d20 game in most respects. In fact, the major deviation from the d20 model is in the fact that the system uses a "roll-under" dice mechanic.

The average player of something like D&D is probably used to the idea of target numbers. You have to roll a 15 or better on, let's say a stealth check, you roll a 20 sided die, add your stealth score, and if you meet or beat a 15, congratulations! You did a sneak!

In a roll-under system, the same logic is applied in a wildly different order. Instead of a DC 15, you might be rolling at a -3. Subtract three from your sneak score, and then try to roll at or below the modified score.

In fairness, this system is a little less intuitive in a couple of ways. Firstly, having to add OR subtract to set the difficulty might feel a little more daunting than just adding your roll to your score. Secondly, for players who are used to hoping for high numbers on a die roll, it can be tricky to flip that switch and think of a 3 (in GURPS) or a 1 (in a d20 system) as a critical success.

Still, I'd argue that in my experience, the benefits have outweighed the negatives. Players who get used to this style will quickly pick up the narrative difficulty of the tasks based on the plus and minus modifiers you call out. It also gives you a good "default" difficulty by having them roll an unmodified check.

More than any of that, and I have no real explanation for this, roll-under combat moves faster. I'm not sure the math behind why it does this, but something just seems to click right when the players are rolling low instead of high. Combat skips along at a wild and cinematic pace, as opposed to the long draw that more traditional systems tend to bog down into.

If you've never tried to re-imagine your gaming in a roll-under model, I'd encourage you to give it a try, and let me know in the comments what you've found to work at your own table.

Happy gaming, all.

Foreshadowing Done Right

Hey all,

Today I'm going to be talking about one of my favorite pieces of foreshadowing from one of my favorite games: Portal 2. This post will include Portal 2 spoilers.

Somewhere past the halfway point of the game, you begin working with conversion gel. This is a white fluid that can be used to solve puzzles by making surfaces that cannot normally take a portal into surfaces that can.

Through dialogue, Cave Johnson reveals that this substance is made from moon dust. The surface level payoff of this is his reveal that the moon dust has given him cancer, and this leads into the "lemon" speech Which is probably one of the most iconic pieces of dialogue in the series.

The fact that this element of the world-building is played for laughs, combined with it's place shedding some light on the composition of an in-world substance; means that most players will assume that this information has served its role in the story and move on not expecting anything else to follow.

Except that something else does come of this.

Portals can be made on conversion gel. This is a special function of its make-up. The only ingredient we know of conversion gel is moon dust, and what else is covered in moon dust? What else can, presumably, support a portal?

Why, nothing else except the cinematic solution to the game's final shot of the portal gun. With the world falling to pieces around you in a dramatic final showdown, what seemed like a throwaway line of comedy foreshadowed the game's climax, the one puzzle that takes you beyond the walls of Aperture Laboratories.

Happy gaming, all.

Where were we then? 2008

Hey all,

I thought it might be fun to look at how everyday objects have changed over time. Ten years seems like a decent increment (though my Back to the Future fanboy REALLY likes the sound of 30: let's do one step at a time). So let's look at 2008, when the Giants won the superbowl, and Miley Cyrus was a squeaky-clean Disney starlet.

The Phone of 2008

The biggest change in phones in 2008 was the iPhone 3G. The year 2007 had seen the first touch screen smart phones in the form of the LG Prada, and the original iPhone. The original iPhone didn't even have the GPS function that came with the 3G!
While the device we think of as a smart phone had some predecessors, in the form of things like the blackberry, the touch screen interface we know today was still relatively new only ten years ago.

The Music of 2008

Many popular artists of 2008 will still be familiar names today; including Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Kanye West, and Rihanna.
In 2008, My Chemical Romance and The White Stripes were still together and making music, while today, both of these names have faded into history.
Interestingly, Beyonce had left Destiny's Child only three years prior, and her solo career was still a fairly new development in the grand scheme of things.

The Politics of 2008

In 2008, Barack Obama beat John McCain for the presidency. This win secured Barack Obama's first term in office, and today it's easy to forget the fact that, very suddenly, Americans lived in a world where an African-American man could provably become president. What today seems inevitable was, at the time, a landmark moment in American politics.

Video Games of 2008

Some big series started with a 2008 debut, including Dead Space and Valkyria Chronicles; while Fallout 3 brought the Fallout franchise into the modern era. This is also the year of indie darling: Dear Esther. All of this, in a year where the public was still seeing expansions for The Sims 2.

The Playstation 3 had come out two years before, but the PS2 was still in production, and would continue to be for another FIVE years. The XBox 360 was three years old, and the original XBox still had another year before its retirement. The Gamecube had been retired, but with the Wii breaking sales records left and right, and the incredible sales of the Nintendo DS in Japanese markets, Nintendo wasn't suffering the lack of Gamecubes on store shelves.

Health in 2008

"Hot" yoga, nettle tea, and Goji berries were just some of the fads and buzzwords surrounding health in 2008. Low Sodium and Probiotic reared their heads, and, in defiance of today's feelings about the dreaded gluten; whole grain was a go-to for the health-minded individual.

Top Selling Car of 2008: The Toyota Camry

I'll be honest, I don't know much about cars. Anyway, here's a picture of a 2009 (because cars come out a year early of their model number for some reason) Toyota Camry.

Looking around, it looks like the Camry is known for comfort, safety, and fuel efficiency. So, I guess those must have been things that people liked in 2008.

The Movies of 2008

Iron Man kicked things off in what we now call the MCU with an after-credits scene that changed audience expectations of what movies could do. The Dark Knight contributed to make 2008 a watershed moment for superhero movies. The Incredible Hulk was there, too, I guess.

Kids movies brought Kung Fu Panda, which sparked off a sprawling franchise, and Wall-E: an instant classic with genuine artistry in its execution.
Taken, Tropic Thunder, Cloverfield, and Slumdog Millionare also came along to make this a year to remember in movies.


Overall, the last ten years have seen some tremendous changes, and a few surprises in what has stayed the same. It'll be interesting to see where the next ten years might take us. Thanks for reading, all.

Can we find Poetic Justice Horror in our Zombies?

Let's talk about zombies.

Prior to Romero's Night of the Living Dead, the idea of a zombie was steeped in magic and voodoo. The name even comes from an African and Caribbean term for a magical servitor made from a cadaver. However, this fear of the magic of tribal groups doesn't really play into our modern zombies. While the modern zombie no longer fills this role in the public mind, it's interesting to note that there's already an element of poetic justice in stories of tribal peoples visiting magical horrors upon their technologically advanced conquerors.

Still, the modern zombie veers more toward the idea of a plague. Thematically, we can see the zombie as a condemnation of human foibles. In Night of the Living Dead the risen corpses turn on humanity, to devour it. Meanwhile, the human characters turn on and, metaphorically, devour themselves. Each human character sees the group for what it can do for them, and "feed" on their fellows. In the end, the authorities can't tell the difference between the zombies and the men. The mall setting later in the franchise more directly condemns consumerism.

They can also represent a fear of death, and sometimes this can be pretty on the nose. During the cold war, the zombies were a looming threat that could be staved off, but never gotten rid of. Death was an inevitable march that would come eventually. Meanwhile, with the rise of terrorism in recent years, we see faster zombies that take their prey by surprise. The death we fear now is fast and unexpected. An age of dreading war gave way to an age of being terrified of war, and this difference between dread and terror is reflected in our portrayal of the hordes of undead.

So, how does this relate to poetic justice?

First, let's look at how poetic justice feeds into horror. The influence of Judeo-Christian thought on western literature is felt here. The horror of Christianity is that hell is waiting, and that hell is deserved. Because of the prevalence of this thought in the western world, the idea of punishment evokes hellish themes, whereas the existential horror of impassive suffering has historically held less fear, having, in the minds of religious communities, less basis in reality.

With this understanding underscoring western thought, it makes perfect sense that our slasher films "punish" promiscuity. It's why fairy tales tend to have two themes: don't go into the woods alone, and don't be cruel or inhospitable to a stranger. Retribution will come when the beggar you kicked reveals themselves to be a witch, fae, or djinn. These themes resonate in a western concept of horror.

This is why America, who committed dehumanizing atrocities in the frontier, still sets our horror in the wilderness; and it's why England, who committed dehumanizing atrocities in the factories and alleys, still set their horror in the cities. That is where we've respectively "earned" the horrific consequences shown in these movies.

This leaves the question; do modern zombies feature a form of poetic justice? Is the zombie in any way an ironic and deserved punishment for our actions?

Well, let's ask what humans, as a species, have done to other species. We hunt them with zombie tactics. As a species, we form larger and more unified groups than any of the packs and herds we compete against; and we are unflagging. Surrounded by species faster than us at a sprint, we have historically hunted as a slow horde. A mastodon might be able to run faster, but it can't run for three days straight while we chase it down. Compared to other species, we don't rest, we don't slack, we don't lose the trail. Slow, shambling death has chosen its prey, and humanity will not give up the trail until the panting and exhausted victim lies gasping on the ground: it's strength spent: watching the untiring horde close for the kill.

That is the horror we have visited on the other species of this world, and it's the death we deserve, when a new hunter emerges at the top of the food chain.

Thanks for reading, stay safe in those dark woods.

Graffiti Generator Table

Hey all,

Today I'm taking inspiration from a tremendous post by Improved Initiative. Go check out his blog, it's some great stuff.

He was talking about the role of graffiti in making a town feel vital and lived in, and I thought it was a fantastic jumping off point that just needed one thing: a generator table. I took some time to put together a first draft of a graffiti generator table for a typical fantasy world. It's a mix of rumor mill, plot hooks, and flavor text; and any of it might or might not be true, up to date, or accurate in your game world. Try it out, comment below with your own contributions, and have fun.

Graffiti Generator Table

1 "Sardin McClint's store sells stolen stuff."
2 "Albion knows every girl at Miss Hattory's"
3 This is a strange symbol in a single color (a successful streetwise or similar check will identify this as a gang tag, and will allow the players to search the city, surveying the borders of various rival gangs)
4 Ornate lettering spells out "This is Vandalism"
5 There is a crude portrait of the town sheriff, made to look cartoonishly obese. 
6 "Nearland steel is a hoax"
7 "Jericho was here"
8 "Flora Cooprider hexes hogs"
9 You find a crude drawing of, . . . let's just call it anatomy.
10 "Nymphs dance at Ash Cay"
11 You see a very simple symbol (a successful streetwise or similar check will identify this as a hobo sign indicating a safe place to beg)
12 You see a very simple symbol (a successful streetwise or similar check will identify this as a hobo sign indicating that the police harass beggars here)
13 You see a very simple symbol (a successful streetwise or similar check will identify this as a hobo sign indicating that there's an aggressive dog in the area)
14 "Trinkets for sale, inquire inside"
15 You see a portrait surrounded by an ornate painting of a frame. At the base of the wall is a small pile of flowers that have been left by others.
16 "Buy Enid Pott's Meat Pies"
17 You see the symbol of a defunct and near-universally hated army, defeated nearly a century ago.
18 "Dwarves not welcome"
19 "Tam Beck summons dead"
20 A well composed piece of genuine art, painted on a wall around fifty feet above the ground. 

Book Review: The Midnight Line by Lee Child

The Midnight Line
Author: Lee Child
Publishing Date: 2017
Setting: The American Great Plains
Narrative Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Themes: Military Honor, Addiction, Gray Morality
Series Information: Book 22 (in publishing order) of the Jack Reacher series. It should be noted that the novels have limited cross-over and can be read in any order.

Subjective Length: A day or two

Score: A work of entertainment value The Jack Reacher series has become a mainstay of realistic adventure fiction. If you've enjoyed any of the previous entries in the series, The Midnight Line will not disappoint.

Controversial Themes
Addiction: This book handles the subject of addiction with surprising tact for a series built on the appeal of violence and action. It takes care to highlight the role that once-prevalent prescriptions have played in the current addiction epidemic, and seeks to shed light on the struggle of addicts.
Sexual Content: There are a few attempts at seduction by a married woman; as well as a sex scene that neither veers into completely obscure euphemism, nor graphic description. There is also a scene in which a woman's skirt rides up while she is being restrained.
Violence: The Jack Reacher series has always contained the heavy use of violence to drive the plot. This particular entry in the series has a little less than some of the others, but it is still noticeable.

**SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD***SPOILERS AHEAD**


The story opens with Reacher thinking back about the woman he left behind at the last town. He steps off of a bus for a stretch and spots a West Point graduate ring in a pawnshop window. Reacher examines the ring, buys it, and sets himself the goal of finding the original owner. The novel is intentionally vague about his motives, as Reacher himself expresses a little uncertainty as to what's calling him to get involved in this situation. It seems to be a mix of military honor, curiosity, a touch of what might be chivalry (he quickly identifies the ring as belonging to a woman), and perhaps projected guilt or regret from walking away from another woman only a day or so before.

His quest sends him back up the supply chain, from seller to seller, as he tracks down the woman in hard enough straits to sell something symbolic of so much hard work and effort.

This novel adds more likable and memorable side characters than many previous entries in the series; and really sold the cast well. The ending was less climactic than some others by the same author, but that seemed to underscore the quiet sadness in the themes of drug addiction. There is no grand showdown with two unstoppable juggernauts squaring off in battle; and the threat is not in powerful enemies, but in stealthy and unknown enemies.

There's also a good moment of seeing a character like Reacher --someone of quick decisions and solid resolve-- faced with a situation more nuanced than "find bad guy, kill bad guy". There are moral dilemmas presented here that enrich the experience.

Overall, not required reading, but a solid read. If anything in the "lone tough guy" genre piques your interest, then The Midnight Line will be a page-turner far too late into the night.

Happy reading, all.

Beastiary Supplemental: Slide-Rock Bolter

High in the mountains lives a massive beast. First seen by miners in the area, the creature came to be known as the slide-rock bolter.

This creature most resembles a whale. It hunts by gripping the mountainside with it's tail and lying in wait. The creature seeks out slopes of at least a 45° angle with a relatively clear vantage of the lands below. The slide-rock bolter drools a slick substance, which helps it to strike at its prey. When a suitable target passes into the beast's path, the beast releases its grip on the mountain and comes charging down the slope with its enormous maw agape to capture its prey. 

In combat, the beast is a one strike and gone type of predator. It has both high natural armor and a deep pool of hit points. Avoiding the attack would require a reflex save to jump out of the path of the creature's strike. 

The creatures are about 25 feet long at the end of adolescence, and can grow to around 60 feet if they live long enough and have access to substantial hunting grounds. 

Mature bolters can be more wary, and tend to avoid heavily armored parties that could be harder to digest; but may still attack when driven to hunger. Juvenile bolters on the other hand tend to strike at any movement. This can expose them to attack, and, in fact, while several bounties on young bolters have been collected over the years, older members of the species are almost never brought low by adventurers. 

Bolter-territory is recognizable by once-well-trod paths that have been allowed to grow over. An absence of local tribes, packs, and herds can mark dangerous areas as well. However, small birds and rodents do not tend to leave the area, as they are too small to draw attention from something the size of a bolter. 

Best of luck on those desolate mountain paths, and happy gaming, all. 

Check out the blog at the new address here. 

Interplanetary Travel: What Works best for your story?

Hey all,

The other day I decided to sit down and think about the different ways that science fiction has justified interplanetary travel. Usually finding habitable worlds is a task that can turn interplanetary travel into interstellar travel in a hurry. It seemed like a fun idea to put together a list of all of the ones that I could think of.
Here's hoping writers and game masters will find some useful food for thought in this one.

1. Faster than Light (FTL)
ex. Artemis Bridge Simulator
Real-space FTL travel might seem like the easy category; and I thought it'd be easier to find examples of stories where ships "just go that fast, get over it." but it turns out that pseudoscientific explanations are pretty fun to make. That being the case, "just going that fast" is actually fairly rare in well-known and well-received science fiction. 

2. Jump
ex. Farscape (Starburst), Artemis Bridge Simulator
This is basically just a spaceship teleporting. Again, I thought it'd be a little more well-represented in the genre, but I had some trouble finding a lot of examples. I will say, though, that it adds a fun complexity to Artemis to play the game on jump mode. Official recommendation: jump drive mode on Artemis. Alright, moving on. 

3. Otherspace 
ex. Warhammer 40,000, Animorphs, Star Wars
Whether it's subspace, hyperspace, zero space, or the warp; it's the dimension next door and rapid transit is no issue, there. Sometimes this is explained as less restrictive physics, or that this otherspace is a small-scale duplicate of our own space. Travel an inch there, travel a light year here. Then just pop back into our reality when you get to that space's equivalent of your destination in our space. Nothing simpler, eh?

4. Generation Ship
ex. Quotzl, Wall-E
This is the Oregon trail of interstellar transit. Your family loads up and heads out, hoping that one day your great-great-grandchildren will be born on this ship, and live to see the new world you've headed towards.

5. Spatial Bending
ex. Star Trek
This is probably the background explanation for a lot of FTL. You can't go faster than light, but space can grow and/or shrink at whatever rate it likes. Now say you could induce space to grow just right that the place you're flying in were to be stretched to a place a hundred light years away. Now you've got it. Traveling quickly, don't be ridiculous. The simplest solution is to alter the shape of reality, obviously.

6. Wormhole Tunneling
ex. Farscape
Sometimes this also ties into Gate Transit (#8), but where Gate Transit might tether, or even create wormholes; wormhole tunneling is more a matter of mapping out the places where our three dimensional space naturally bends and meets through higher dimensions. Imagine that you could either fly to Russia, or go to an alley in Omaha that happens (via, let's just say, the sixth dimension) to be adjacent to a Moscow deli.

7. Relativistic Speed
ex. Ender's Game
Just because you can't go the speed of light, doesn't mean you can't take advantage of time dilation effects experienced when approaching the speed of light. In two-hundred years of travel, you could experience only a few years of time's passage in your own timeline. You do essentially guarantee that you'll never see the people you've left behind again, but that would have been an issue in generation ships, too.

8. Gate Transit
ex. Stargate, Cowboy Bebop, Mass Effect
It might be wormholes, otherspace, or teleportation; but what makes it Gate Transit is the gate. Maybe that's a literal opening, or it might be something like the mass relays. Either way, some piece of tech, networked into a system of similar tech can send you from "gate" to "gate", usually almost instantaneously.

9. Seed Ship
ex. Manseed
Like the generation ship, this ship doesn't really move faster than light, it just plans for a long haul. Unlike the generation ship, this isn't a flying colony, it's a flying fertility clinic. A ship heads off with the resources to breed and incubate new humans upon arrival. It protects the species, but memories of earth will fade pretty quickly.

10. Colonize a Better Space
ex. Firefly
Of course, any of these methods could be used to head for a solar system that's a little more tightly packed with habitable worlds. By the time your story starts, earth may be a distant memory, while interplanetary travel is just a week-long hop between nearby habitable worlds, moons, and asteroids. Massive terraforming in the Sol system might be another way to get the same effect.

11. Mental Projection
ex. The Shadow out of Time
This one's probably the oddest of all: aliens with powerful mental abilities capable of body-swapping through space, and perhaps even through time. This falls pretty far toward the sphere of weird science fiction, but the horror potential can make for some interesting storytelling.

Can you think of any methods I've missed? What's your favorite way of justifying this kind of space travel in science fiction?

Happy travels, all.

Egyptian Ratscrew

Hey all,

If you saw my youtube video Friday, you may remember my mentioning ERS. Egyptian Ratscrew, also known as Egyptian War, Egyptian Rat Slap, or (according to wikipedia) Egyptian Ratkiller, is a game that I remember very fondly from my childhood. In an article about 500, I spoke about the value of customizable games as educational tools. Well, ERS is another great game for teaching young people to look at rules from the inside out.

The basics are pretty simple. Deal out even (or roughly even) piles of cards to each player. The players take turns playing one card off of their deck without looking at it, and placing it on a pile in the middle of the table.

Every face card that gets played needs to be "matched" by another face card. When a player plays a face card, the next player plays out a specific number of cards (or until they play a face card), and then the player after them have to play out cards trying to get a face card, and the first player to not play a face card forfeits the entire pile in the middle of the table to the player before them.

Aces give four chances to match. Kings give three chances. Queens give two chances; and Jacks give only one chance to play a face card.

Of course, if this was all there was to it, there'd be no skill involved. This is where the slapping comes in. When a certain combination of cards is played, the first player to slap the pile gets to keep the pile. If the player slaps something that doesn't count, they have to add a card of theirs to the bottom of the pile. If another card is played before anyone slaps, the opportunity has passed. Slapping takes precedence over matching the face cards, so if someone plays a King, and the next player plays a King, the first player to slap that pair gets the pile, even though a run of face cards was still going.

Which combinations are used are what add spice and variety to the game.

Pairs: Almost every game of ERS will allow slapping on pairs. So, if someone plays a 3, and the next player plays a 3, any player at the table can slap the pile and claim all of those cards as their own.

Sandwiches: A sandwich is a pair separated by a single card. So, if a player plays a 6, the next player plays a 4, and the next player plays a 6, then the first player to slap the pile, gets the pile.

Marriages: The marriage rule treats a King and Queen combo as a pair.

69's and 96's: This is a bit of a cheat, and many players recognize it as an "easy mode". It allows a player to slap on any combination of 9 and 6. This helps very young players who can get easily get confused by the similar symbols.

Ham and cheese sandwiches: This is a sandwich, but with two cards in the middle. This can make the memory aspect of the game even harder, but experienced players will sometimes relish the challenge.

Runs: If three cards that are in sequence with each other are played in any sequence (i.e. 2, then 4, then 3), this can be slapped on.

Of course, these aren't the only possible combinations, and creative players will definitely begin house-ruling some slappable combinations of their own. Have any of you played ERS before? What are some combinations you remember from your own games?

Happy gaming, all.

The Lobheist

Hey all,

Per Saturday's video, I've got some info and stats on this creature, which I've dubbed the Lobhest. The write-up should lend itself to several systems, but for stats, I went to OSRIC. It's an open game license reference document, which makes it useful for statting a monster without worrying about the legality of using the system.

Lobheist
(pronounced "Lobe" "Iced")
[from Scottish Gaelic Lobais (craft, ingenuity) Bheist (beast)]

Hunt-bred Lobhest

frequency: rare

no. encountered: 2d6 (plus a sapient fae creature to act as handler)

size: man-sized (medium)

move: 220 ft

armor class: 0

hit dice: 4d8+2

attacks: 1

damage: 2d4+1

Special attacks: poison

Special defenses: immune to faerie fire

magic resistance: 15%

lair probability: semi-

intelligence: animal

alignment: none

level/xp: 4/230

Draft-bred Lobhest

frequency: rare

no. encountered: 1-2 (plus a sapient fae creature to act as handler)

size: large

move: 120 ft

armor class: 0

hit dice: 6d8+4

attacks: 1

damage: 2d4

Special attacks: poison

Special defenses: immune to faerie fire

Magic Resistance: 15%

lair probability: none

intelligence: animal

alignment: none

level/xp: 4/230

Feral Lobhest

frequency: rare

no. encountered: 1

size: large

move: 150 ft

armor class: 0

hit dice: 6d8+4

attacks: 2

damage: 3d4/3d4

Special attacks: poison

Special defenses: immune to faerie fire

magic resistance: 15%

lair probability: 15%

intelligence: semi-

alignment: none

level/xp: 6/550

The lobheist is a creature bred by the ancient Fae. When the elves fled their Fae masters, these beasts were used often in the hunt for runaway elves. As a result, the lobheist features prominently as a "boogeyman" of elvish culture and lore.

Several breeds exist. The Fae created breeds of lobheist to be used as hounds of the hunt as well as beasts of burden. Additionally, lost lobheist have been known to go feral. Feral lobheists tend to be solitary beasts who seek out primal natural areas and establish a den.

The small hunting breed grow to be about 1 meter tall at the shoulder and hunt in a pack commanded by a sapient fae. The massive draft breed stand between 3 and 4.5 meters at the shoulder and are used as needed in manual labor under the direction of a handler. They are the least intelligent and have the least training and fewest instincts for combat. The feral breeds fall in the middle, and, while savage, only stand about 2.5 meters tall at the shoulder.

A lobheist will not cross running water; however, this is an inherited fear borne out of their Fae heritage, and the water itself poses no threat whatsoever to their physical being.

This same Fae heritage grants them a noticeable defense to magic, including a complete immunity to the effects of the faerie fire spell. Their diet makes their saliva, functionally, a poison; and following a successful bite attack, the target must pass a poison save or incur an additional 1d4 poison damage.


Enjoy the monster, and stay safe in the dark woods, roleplayers.

If a tree . . .

It's a classic question: "If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound?"

On the surface, a lot of people can easily dismiss this. Why wouldn't it make a sound? There is no known force that could prevent it from creating a vibration in the air while unobserved. However, this brings in the impossibility of proving a negative. It is impossible to say what does or does not happen in circumstances that are, by definition, unobserved. That rabbit trail leads into weird quantum stuff, but there's another tack to take on this question, and it's semantics. As a literature guy, I'm thinking we veer into semantics rather than dig deeper into the weirdest of sciences.

So then, semantically speaking, is a "sound" a vibration in the air? You might think that, yes, that is what we know that sound scientifically is; but think about it this way: could sound be defined as the interaction between airwaves and eardrums?

If a vibration never interacts with a set of eardrums, is that vibration sound? 

Another old adage goes "In space, no one can hear you scream." If a tree falls in a vacuum, yet is influenced by gravity equal to that of earth, it still strikes with the same force, and creates the same vibrations; but without a sound-conductive medium, those vibrations do not travel through the right medium to reach human ears.

Most would say that a tree falling in THOSE circumstances would not make a sound, even though the force of impact creates the same energy's-worth of vibration as a tree falling on earth. So, in one set of circumstances, the tree falling and not being heard by humans makes a sound; yet in another circumstance, the tree falls, and goes unheard by humans, and does not make a sound.

I would argue, then, that the tree makes no sound; because until a vibration reaches an eardrum, it is not a sound; it is nothing but a vibration.

. . .but, what do you think?

Fallout Denver Session Notes 4: Wherein Our Heroes Obtain Information and Goods Before Fleeing Dangerous Situations

This is a record of a GURPS campaign set in a non-canonical version of Denver in the Fallout universe. The last part is here, or you can start at the beginning.

Once the party decided to stay on in Borealis, they ventured to a corner of the settlement where they were told public bounties would be available for consideration. On the way, they stopped off at a maintenance area where Gadget convinced the local smith to let her make modifications to Drengo's powerfist. His already powerful weapon would be equipped with a vicious blade for future encounters. They also did some trading with a local protectron shopkeeper, who seemed desperate to find a buyer for a surplus of life vests.

This done, they spoke with a local member of the town's administration team, who presented them with an array of possible public requests to look into.

For starters, they headed to a ghoul settlement that had lapsed on paying protection money to Borealis. Once there, they found a terrible malady spreading through the population that caused an outbreak of ghouls going feral. Drengo, as a ghoul, could pass without notice among the ferals, and Remington was able to sneak through the area with little trouble. Gadget and Chance kept watch at the perimeter, and missed Drengo's near-fatal encounter with a ghoul doctor.

Doctor Malone and his team had been desperately seeking a cure for the outbreak. Yet, when Malone found himself the last of his team, his focus shifted from treatment to quarantine. Upon Drengo and Remington's arrival, they found a ghoul who had shackled himself to the wall of a basement laboratory, and who tried to shoot them both to keep them from leaving the town as possible carriers of the mysterious plague. Remington and Drengo managed to survive the encounter, and flee without taking the doctor's life. Their questions answered, the party returned to Borealis to report the fall of this unnamed settlement.

Next, they sought out an abandoned RobCo plant. Borealis had an open bounty on electrical components useful to building the town infrastructure. On arrival, the party found a factory half buried beneath the ramped dirt at a crater's edge. Through the front doors, they took a left, and a shotgun immediately fired inches from Remington's face. The fear left Remy doubled over and retching for long seconds while the rest filed into an office-turned holdout shelter to salvage for useful equipment.

Scattered through the facilty, they found some assorted knick-knacks, and found protectrons roughly dismantled. The damage to the destroyed units was hard to identify, but the party was ready when they found an active protectron defending a small office unit. Beyond that, they caught a glimpse of what had fought against and beaten the protectrons. The back wall of the plant had been destroyed, and in the dirt behind it, tunnels spread, and a teeming colony of giant ants swarmed.

With armloads of tech, and no reason to loot ant corpses, the party decided to nope right away from that anthill, and return to Borealis with their spoils. Of course, they couldn't resist the allure of seeing what would happen if they shot a power cell with a 9mm pistol on the way. The results were colorful and radioactive, and the party decided to keep that option in mind if that level of firepower were to become necessary in the future.

The Orcs of Benighted Ur'alek: A Tale of Tulkas

(This is a story told by Tulkas, son of Gorgas, wardrummer of the clan Kalthas-Kor. He is a half-orc bard that I play in a D&D campaign in a homebrew world)

Benighted Ur'alek beyond the sea,
whence orcs of old did keep their ancient seat,
before the orcish lives of piracy,
before the gods of old did taste defeat.

O, Ur'alek of war-cursed, night-locked coast
where no orc e'er so brave would stand to post,
How dark against your former glory bright
Beyond the southern sea on shores of blight.

When glory in your old environs shone,
when Malor sat the honored coral throne
when Malor held the silver spear of kings
when orcs knew not of deep and maddened things.

When Ebir, son of Malor, sought his fame
when Nabak, and Ibakae with him came.
With Adiok, and Dolzayeh, and Kurr;
with Vozrid, and the traitor Raldanur.

All seeking trophies from the goblin-horde
all seeking glory from the goblins gored.
Each one an orc to kill the goblin theives
and crush the vermin skulls 'neath leathern greaves.

A cave three days from Ur'alek did break
and hearing howls from darkness, orcs did quake
yet, spurred to boldness by Ebir they went,
to darkness and to madness boldly sent.

Two days they searched the cave til Nabok shrewd
did spot a loosened stone within the gloom.
Together, all the orcs pried loose the way,
and at the stench-foul darkness all did sway.

"Come orcs," cried Ebir, "No dark shall master me.
Orcs, orcs, masters of the land and sea.
What orcish youth, eater of bonemeal bread
would quake to step where goblins bravely tread?

"My spear I'll red, with blood of dead
while fainter hearts tremble a-home, a-bed.
Or did you think the battle a thing so clean,
or yourselves above a task so foul and mean?

"With strength, we'll haul the denizens of dark
to searing light of sunlight's cleansing spark.
Our rivers ours, my homestead mine,
when thieving goblins dead upon the brine.

"Come arrow," cried with beating of the chest,
"Take blood and bone, and carve ye at the breast,
I won't be held by barbs and stinging bites,
but brush away the broken goblin-mites.

"For Ur'alek, the capitol so strong,
we'll charge a slaughter days and evenings long,
and when our wounding game leaves blood-slick stone,
we'll know ourselves the heroes of our home."

His boasting cried, the orcs resounded back,
no goblin-might enough to force them slack,
they stepped into the odor-haunted dark
lighting torches by a peer-shared spark.

Down the depths, and through the cavern-night
the orcish party sought their proof of might,
and at a sound all turned to see their prize,
and hearts all melted at the sight upon their eyes.

A mass of twisted flesh and nonsense shape
gibbering foul blasphemies from mouths agape,
a hunter of an age forgotten long
a thing of darkest lore and unsung song.

The terrible and twisted bulk of ages
kept worshipped by the darkness maddened sages
a god of shape unlike the mortal beasts
a-bed in bony evidence of feasts.

Abandoned by the coward Raldanur,
Nabak and Kurr were killed by tendril skewer
the rest were left to flee before the might
of such great power couched in wicked night.

Their flight to Ur'alek could not them save,
when wakened evil broke free from its knave.
And to the sea, orcs fled the darkness foul,
and vowed revenge on that immortal howl.

And so, the war 'tween orcs and gods began
when from our precious shores we swiftly ran,
and still the orcs avoid the cursed wreck
of land and stone we once called Ur'alek.

Can We Blend Narrative and Mechanical Magic?

Hey all,

This last weekend, I had the chance to watch a pair of videos that made some really interesting points regarding magic in fiction. They were Hello Future Me's videos On Writing: Hard Magic Systems in Fantasy and On Writing: Soft Magic Systems in Fantasy

The general premise of the videos was to break down what makes a rigid and well-defined magic system work, versus what makes a more flowy and ethereal magic system work. A key principle repeated throughout the two videos was Sanderson's First Law of Magic. "An author's ability to solve problems with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic." Stated another way, the less well-defined your magic is, the less it can be used to solve problems in the narrative. As a side note to this, magic of any level of mysteriousness can be used to CREATE problems in the narrative with little or no issue.

What made me want to write a blog post on the subject was Hello Future Me's complaint near the end of the videos that few fictional worlds create a series of magical systems within a single world, all of varying levels of "hardness" and "softness". Thinking about that, it's true that there are few, but one glaring example stands out as something that attempts to work a multitude of magical systems into a single universe. It is Dungeons and Dragons (as well as derivative products of D&D).

The wizard is not a sorceror, who is not a warlock, who is not a bard, who is not a druid, who is not a cleric, etc. etc. as deep as the splatbooks go. I see this as admirable. D&D makes a strong effort to incorporate various magical systems that are all meant to simulate vastly different approaches to magic.

All of that said, I believe D&D fails in this effort. This failing, in my opinion, boils down to the core of D&D's magical system, Vancian Spellcasting. Named for author Jack Vance, Vancian spellcasting uses three basic principles.

1) Every spell is a single, distinct unit of magic with a singular effect.
2) Spells must be prepared before each use.
3) Magicians have a set list of spells which may be prepared.

This is a highly specific set of rules. I.e. all magic in D&D is hard magic. To some extent, this is difficult to break away from. To reference back to Sandersons First Law of Magic: if the magic is not specifically understood, its problem-solving ability must be handicapped to maintain drama and tension in the story. Dungeons and Dragons needs magic that can solve problems for the players, and so, it will always need the magic to fall somewhat on the hard magic side.

However, I have a thought; and that thought is Lasers and Feelings. Lasers and Feelings has a mechanic that is truly wonderful in its simplicity. You have a single stat. If you're rolling one type of check, you must roll under your score, and if you're rolling the other type, you must roll over your score. This creates a mathematically simple solution to making a character better at some things, at the sacrifice of other things.

So, we would need a system in which rolling over your score is needed for specific, scholastic spell-use. This would also include literacy, magical knowledge, and analysis of the magical use of others. Specific spells would all be custom made by the players using a point-buy system similar to what Shadowrun uses for custom spells. These would be the more powerful, less versatile spells.

On the other side, a player would need to roll under their score to cast vague, improvised, or other spells like that. These would be less powerful, but more versatile. A prepared college wizard should be a trained combatant, while a wilder should feel more like a magical brawler, employing the magical equivalent of haymakers and dirty tricks.

As players advance, they would be able to move further toward the extremes of the track, allowing them to succeed more often, and with a greater margin of success in their preferred methods, while allowing their neglected skills to atrophy.

So, what do you think of this solution? Do you think that it capture a sense that magic feels like magic for you? How have you house-ruled magic systems in your own games? Let's chat that out in the comments.

Until the next one, happy gaming, all.

Fallout Denver Session Notes 3: The Regrettable Discovery of Borealis

This is a continuation of my records of a GURPS tabletop gaming campaign. You can see parts one and two at the links.

Having irreparably damaged relations with the pharmacy's Arcade Ganon, the party set out with Brick to cross I-225 and seek out the supermutant settlement of Borealis.

En route to this new area, a small detachment of Angels tried to attack the party, although, one well-placed grenade cleared up the encounter before things had much of a chance to escalate. Drengo interrogated the one survivor of the explosion, and learned of Chance, Gadget, and Remy's past with the dangerous gang. It was apparent, the party could expect hit squads in the days to come.

As the dying member of the Angels gang breathed his last, the party somberly recollected themselves and continued onward to Borealis in Brick's company. As they approached the area, they came into a region of sparse ruins and rolling fields surrounding the town of Borealis for about a quarter mile all around. In the distance, the too-human sounds of a mutated breed of eight-legged horses gave the party chills.

As they approached the town, they were accosted by a band of three supermutants calling themselves "tax collectors". Their leader, Davis, dropped some references to working with "east coast stock" in the form of his underlings, Claw and Break. The party, through Brick's half-remembered ramblings of the Master's Army, began to see a picture emerging of a brutish east coast batch of supermutants, and a mentally and physically superior batch made somewhere out west.

The town itself was built into the side of a crater, and guarded by towers. As the party entered the town, they were surrounded and captured by supermutant guards. As they were led away to locked room, Brick slipped into the crowd in the chaos, reunited with his people and disinclined to stick around.

After twelve hours' wait in lockdown, the party was brought before Mr. Callum, the boss of Borealis. He explained a bit of the bad blood between supermutants and humans, and gave the party an option to prove their good intentions, one mission for the town, and they could have some leeway to visit the marketplace and do business in Borealis.

Drengo and Chance left to deliver a report on behalf of Mr. Callum. They followed the crater's edge south until reaching a small encampment of a gang called the Devil Dogs. They reported, as ordered, that the Star farm had lapsed on paying protection money to Mr. Callum's tax men. They took the Devil Dog's payment for this information, and, at a bluff from Drengo, collected an extra 200 caps to line their own pockets with. Upon their return to Borealis and the delivery of Mr. Callum's money, the team was given the freedom of the town, and encouraged to stock up on supplies and take on a few of the open bounties at the town office to improve their goodwill in the area. The team conferred and decided that, since they were short on leads for good settlements for the inhabitants of vault 4, a little goodwill mingled with getting to know the area couldn't hurt.

. . . and, here, we conclude part 3. Until next time, happy gaming, all.

Special question

Hey all,

This isn't a normal blog post, this is just to announce the exciting news that last Monday's post hit over 500 page views! This kind of came out of nowhere, and I think it's a big enough milestone to do a giveaway. I have a poll for what I should give away on twitter here.

The giveaway will probably be in about a month, as I'm getting together with a blogger friend of mine in mid-February to pick each others' brains, and he's got a little more experience in this type of thing than I do.

Thanks everybody who's been reading, and here's to more adventures to come!

Attribute Assignment Overdose

Hey all,

This week, I'll be talking about some of the various methods, official or homebrew, that I've heard for determining attributes in tabletop roleplaying games. We'll start with The biggest distinguisher: Point Buy vs. Roll.

A point buy attribute system gives all players an equal amount of some currency which they use to build their characters, in games like D&D, this means checking a table at character creation and spending your points then and there on attributes only. In games like World of Darkness or GURPS, attributes are only one thing these points are spent on, and balancing points between attributes, skills, feats, etc. is part of the challenge of not only character creation, but point-based character advancement.

Rolling for attributes, on the other hand, adds a little more randomness to the whole thing. Opponents of rolling for attributes point out the randomness, and the chance for characters with widely different levels of competence. Within rolling for attributes, there are two major schools of thought: Roll Down, and Score Assignment.

Roll down is a fairly archaic system at this point, and few except for the most hardcore Old School Renaissance fans will default to this method. What roll down means is that the first number you roll is the score in your first attribute, usually Strength. The second number you roll is the score in your second attribute, usually Dexterity, and so on.

Score assignment just means that after you've rolled your scores, you decide which score to assign to which attribute. In score assignment, you might roll an 18, 14, 14, 10, 8, and 6. You would then decide which of six attributes to place each of these six scores into.

There are quite a few methods of rolling the scores themselves, and we'll finish up with a quick rundown of them.

3d6: Roll three six-sided dice and add the results together.
4d6 drop one: Roll four six-sided dice, remove the lowest scoring die, and add together the remaining three.
2d6+6: Roll two six-sided dice, add the results together, and add six to the sum for the final attribute score.

Beyond this, some GMs have thresholds to reroll. Usually, I've heard is as around 70 points in all attributes added together. Anything under this, reroll. It's also possible to not only drop the lowest die in a pool, but to roll one more attribute than needed, and drop the lowest attribute score roll. So a player might roll 18, 14, 14, 10, 8, 6, 4. They rolled seven scores to use in six attributes, and will use everything but the four to make their character.

As with anything that's been in the hands of the fans as long as tabletop gaming has been, you'll find six different preferred methods among any five players polled; but, hopefully, this article is a strong basis for considering what method will work best for your game. Happy gaming, all.

Fallout Denver Session Notes 2: The Journey to Mercy Hospital, and the Questionable Decisions Thereafter

read part one here

As Chance, Gadget, and Remington stepped outside of Vault 4 for the first time, they truly saw the devastation of the war which, to now, had been an old story of a bad memory. Emerging into daylight for the first time in their lives, they could see the span of the impact crater that held their now damaged and under-supported vault. Across the gap to the crater wall, the Angels gang had built up a bridge of scaffolding, leading to switchbacks, and finally up to the crater's edge.

Atop the crater, they were met with a sight they weren't prepared for. What, at first, appeared to them to be a decayed corpse in the road, stood and introduced himself. He called himself Drengo, and explained a little about ghouls like himself. He'd been walking the wastes for some time, and was in the market for a crew to join up with to make the journeying through the Denver wasteland a little safer.

It wasn't easy to trust some unknown stranger of even-less-known species; but the heroes had very little in the way of options. The services of a guide, it seemed, merited some trust. They still held back somewhat, but did let him know that they were looking for human settlements where they could trade for goods and services, and maybe some anti-radiation medicines. Drengo suggested Vault 57, also known as Mercy Hospital.

In the olden days, Vault 57 had been subjected to an experiment wherein only those with debilitating congenital birth defects had been admitted. Few know that Vault-Tec predicted failure for Vault 57. However; the little vault pulled together, and not only did they preserve many of the medical techniques of the old world; they made some small advances. Materials being in short supply, they're still well shy of the medical miracle workers of the the pre-war world, but no better medical service can be found anywhere in Denver. Even the raider gangs are more likely to make use of their services than to risk angering the vault in an assault.

After a day's trek up the I-225 corridor, the party arrived at Mercy Hospital. Once inside, Gadget headed for the cantina, where games of chance waited for a savvy gambler with just her skills. Thanks to a few shrewd bets, the party was able to buy a few important medical supplies. She also met a (relatively) docile supermutant named Brick with glorious, half-remembered stories of his time in the Master's Army and a desire to make his way to Borealis as soon as he could find a group to travel with.

Meanwhile, Drengo was asking around about finding anti-rad medications. A young woman named Flower Daveson pointed out the way to the pharmacy where a nearly decrepit old man named Arcade Ganon was working the dispensary. If you haven't played Fallout New Vegas, that name might not mean much to you, but let's just say he was a sarcastic man in his younger days, and old age hadn't made him any more pleasant. The encounter ended with Drengo punching him in the face, and Ganon kicking Drengo out of his pharmacy.

The party regrouped and, with no real options here to help their vault find a new home, and few other options, they decided to accompany Brick, and to make their way to the supermutant community in Borealis.

. . . and so concludes part two of our journey. Hopefully I got it all right, but if any of my players are reading, they can call me out on any corrections. Session three should be a little faster in coming than session two was, wish me luck on that!

And, as always, happy gaming, all.

Setting the Hook

Hey all,

Last week we talked about how players can work through their character design to give themselves reasons to come along for the quest, and avoid the dreaded lone wolf syndrome. If you're interested, you can read that post here.

This week, as I promised to Matt in last week's comments, we're tackling the same issue from a new angle. How can you, as the game master, establish a quest worth coming along for?

Something to keep in mind as you establish the inciting incident of the story is how you're going to draw the player characters into the story naturally. There's a balancing act, here. The players should have agency in deciding how their characters behave and, to an extent, how they have behaved in the past. Still, there's merit in saying "no" to a player who wants to, say start the game as the pope, for example.

Fundamentally, the three ways you can work with your players, not only in setting the adventure hooks, but in gaming in general is in-game, out-of-game, and Semper Gumby. Some might want to argue the comparative merits, but I'd recommend keeping all of these options open just to keep as many tools in your game master's toolbox as possible.

In-Game:
Two basic things can happen in-game to guarantee, or at least strongly encourage, player characters to be involved in the world around them. There are motivations specific to the character, and universal motivations.

Specific motivations have to do with the character's backstory. Family in need, mysteries relevant to their interests, or ideological loyalties can sway a character one way or the other. This does require a fairly strong grasp of the character's motivations and backstory, but shouldn't need anything that isn't be readily available to a game master.

Universal motivations require a lot less customization, and can often help to kick off an adventure as well as bringing a team together. This is any situation where refusal of the call would be a sign that a character genuinely lacks an instinct for self-preservation. Some classic in media include the inciting incident of Farscape. A prison ship breakout immediately puts the former prisoners into an alliance. Another would be Knights of the Old Republic: the ship is going down. An NPC offers the use of their escape ship to the party if they can help bring a critical item off of the ship with them. Basically, a universal motivation just means that for the players to expect to survive, they need to team up, at least for now, to work together to fight against or escape from an immediate common threat.

Out-of-Game:
At the outset of a new campaign, there's nothing wrong with talking to your players and just asking, "What do your characters each want? What would motivate them to get involved in a quest?"

Another thing to keep in mind is that you can periodically "debrief" your game sessions. "Hey guys, what did you like? What are you hoping to see in the games to come?" Basically, touch base to find out what's working and what's not working for your players, and see if you can work any of that in in the sessions to come.

Finally, and this is a last resort option, you have the option to just say, out of character, "Look, this is what's prepared, come on the one adventure I have for you, or don't" I don't recommend this, and some players, especially those who've never GM'ed before might take exception to it. Really, I only bring it up because it can sometimes help to know there's a last resort. Even when you don't invoke the "nuclear option" in this way, knowing you have it can sometimes be what gives you the confidence to not need it.

Semper Gumby: Always Flexible
This is less of a "start of the campaign" solution, and more of a technique for a campaign in progress.

"Semper Gumby" might be what some would call an "advanced technique", but it's actually pretty simple. Prepare a handful of bare-bones adventures, let the party do what they like with little to no direction, and throw the most logical pre-prepared obstacles into their path, fleshing out the details as you go.

You'll need a bit of improv to make this one work, but it can give a great vitality to your games if you can hit the sweet spot between rigid planning and improvisation.

---

So, there it is. Some tips and tricks for the game master looking to draw their players into the story. Personally, I'd suggest keeping all three fresh in your mind as you game master. Use what works when it works, and be prepared to deviate to another track when one method starts to run dry.

What methods have you used as a game master to bring your players in? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading, and until next time: happy gaming, all.

Say Yes to the Quest

Hey all,

I thought today I'd talk a little about a common pitfall in tabletop gaming, and what you can do to avoid it. At it's root, the issue stems from the fact that tabletop gaming is not only storytelling, it's a storytelling medium. There are some stories that simply work better in some media than in others. Bioshock works as a video game in a way it probably wouldn't work to tell that same story as a movie or miniseries. Ender's Game, in my opinion, worked better as a book than as a movie. A twenty minute episode of The Twilight Zone might become two lines of text if someone tried to novelize the series.

In the same way, there are tropes that work in some media, and not in others. A very common trope in most fiction, which doesn't tend to work well in role playing games, is the lone wolf archetype. The classic hero's journey in most media includes a refusal of the call. In contrast, experienced players at a tabletop game know that the pirate code applies: if you stay behind, you're left behind.

It's important to remember that role playing games are, among other things, improvisation games. Improvisation, famously, means saying "yes, and . . ." You agree with the world built, and you add to it. This can conflict with the player desiring a hero's journey experience. Most hero's journey heroes have the luxury of being pulled into the plot unwillingly by the machinations of fate. Sadly, in your tabletop game, "Fate" (the game master) has four other main characters to play with if you take your ball and go home.

That said, the hero's journey can be had by your character, it just needs a little more legwork than in other stories. Let's look at a few ways of getting the ball rolling on your character.

In Medias Res
Literally, "into the middle things", in medias res refers to beginning a story with the action begun. It means putting the inconvenient parts of your hero's journey into the backstory and saving the exciting character growth moments of your character's life for the game. For example, if you wanted to be Luke Skywalker, you don't start the game arguing with your uncle about chores, you write up a backstory and show up to session one ready for Mos Eisley, with a backstory and a justification for your involvement in the world.

Need Money
This is probably your simplest bet to get into the action with very little extra motivation. If there's a reward on the table, you don't care who's in danger, or what's at stake, you've got mouths to feed, or an heirloom to buy out of hock, or even just a family farm to sustain through a bad season.

Desire for Adventure
This is a little cliche, but at the same time, it can be magnificent if done well. Your character may be a seasoned adventurer along for curiosity, or even a cloistered youth with romanticized notions of what they'll experience in the wide world beyond their family estate.

Indebted/Sense of Duty
Typically associated with more stoic and serious characters, the sense of duty, debt, or obligation can motivate a character very well to set out on a quest. Whether this is to a lofty notion, to a king in need of champions, or to a single friend beset with troubles; your character can find in their beliefs and loyalties a reason to risk their life.

With any of these, you'll want to sit down with your game master and get a feel for the world. A game master might even drop a few hints as to the nature of the campaign's inciting incident to help you hash out your character's loyalties, needs, surroundings, etc. and how those elements of who your character is help to define them as someone willing, under present circumstances, to throw their lot in with a group of violent strangers set to take on a fool's errand.

So, what are your thoughts on getting into the story? If you have any additional ideas, or even stories about your own experiences at a gaming table, let's get a discussion going below. Happy gaming, all.

500: the outdoor game for gamer kids

Hey all,

I was at a church cookout a while ago, and saw some of my friends' kids playing a game that was just slightly familiar. I walked over because I was sure I recognized what they were playing, but I just couldn't put my finger on it. Then, it hit me. They were playing a game called 500.

I was shocked that I'd forgotten 500. Sure, it had been years since I'd played, but that game was an old favorite from my childhood, right up there with Egyptian Rat Screw, Liar, and British Bulldog. As I watched, I realized that this game was a much more potent educational tool than I'd ever realized at the time.

For those who aren't familiar with the game, to play 500, one player is made "it". They usually have a football, but any kind of ball or even a frisbee will do the trick. The rest of the players cluster together and wait for the football to be thrown to them. The person who is "it", calls out a number, and whichever player catches the ball gains that many points. The goal is to be the first player to reach 500 points.

So far, the game is pretty simple, but it's the little touches of added complexity that really make this game shine. If a player goes over 500 points, they bust and go back to zero. Additionally, there are a few extra things that the person who is "it" can call out. If they call a number, followed by the phrase "dead or alive", it means that the ball is worth points to the player who either catches it, or is the first to pick it up off the ground. The "it" can also call out "mystery box" which means the players catching the ball don't know until they catch it what it's worth, and it might even be an automatic bust!

These additional rules create a fast and intuitive incentive system. A player might not want to catch the ball to avoid busting, but they might still want to swat it down to prevent other players gaining points. The person who is "it" has to learn to balance good and bad results in the mystery boxes so that players still try for them, and players learn quickly that trying to hide bad results in every mystery box makes the mystery box undesirable to the players.

Besides all of this, the free-form style of play means that players can sometimes intuitively create new rules and test out how they work in play. While it's not in the official rules, it's fairly common for players to quickly create different values for dead and alive. A player might call out "50 dead, 150 alive", and the other players can usually pick up on what's meant quickly and easily. Players also usually invent some variation of "grenade" rules, where the first player to touch the ball gets the points. This is usually to handicap taller players who are swatting down balls they don't want to catch as a way of controlling the field.

Through this type of play, young children can be introduced to elements of game design and incentive systems design that could open up whole worlds of inquiry and interest later in life. For this reason, 500 is truly an asset to any child lucky enough to get the chance to play.

What are some of your favorite games from your childhood? Are there games that taught you more than you realized at the time? Hop down to the comments if you'd like to share.

Happy Gaming, all.