This afternoon I finished iLies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them/i, by Al Franken. Its a political book that dissects many of the lies that so many public Republicans tell (from Hannity to Bush). Like the movie iRecount/i it was something Id been interested in before but didnt feel able to deal with until after the election.br /br /It was an OK book, funny at parts, but not spectacular.br /br /What struck me the most was the longest chapter in the book, which was about the late, marvelously progressive Senator Paul Wellstone. Franken took real offense at the dishonest campaign waged by Wellstones Republican opponent and the Republican party in general both before and after Wellstones untimely death (which occurred just weeks before the election).br /br /Of course the scummy Republican who waged that scummy campaign was ... Norm Coleman.br /br /Who I think we can now pretty definitively say that Al Franken beat in one of the closest elections of our time. The rest of the Republicans may well try and sit on Frankens getting seated for a couple of months--but it turns out a href=http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/01/can-franken-give-burris-his-daily.htmlnot to matter until a valid appointment is made in Illinois/a (short reason: because the filibuster-blocking number is at 59 votes for 98 senators, but 60 for 99 or 100 ... of course Harry Reid needs to find a backbone and make those Republicans actually read the phonebook if they want to try and block the legislation we Americans want rather than just continuing to allow them painless procedural filibusters).br /br /In any case, it was nice to read about Frankens ties to and feelings about Wellstone, because it helps to tell the story of why he decided to run in 2008 for the Senate seat that used to belong to his friend (though it was written 5 years before he did so).

Looks like a-more-demanding-than-expected holiday season have gotten the better of Kat and my schedule-discipline. Were extending the deadline until Wednesday, January 7 for all events to be in to us. For all those whove sent questions, well get back to you as soon as we can.

Today was the service for Chris V. It was at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, and was a nice affair. The chapel is attractive and our 60 or so mourners managed to fill it sufficiently that it felt well-attended.br /br /T. gave a very beautiful eulogy that was heartwarming and personal, and reminded us of what theyd lost.br /br /Mark M. also offered a nice eulogy, and one that particularly amused me in one part. He talked about grilling hamburgers at Chris place one day, and burning them terribly. He said that he took one bite and realized it was inedible, and he looked over and saw that Chris was already three bites in to his own burger. He attributed it to Chris being too polite to say anything, but I suspect it was just Chris being oblivious. I guess we each see what we expect.br /br /hrbr /After the service the saturday gamers and I returned to my house where we drank and played games. Chris, who often brought hard lemonade to my board game nights, would have enjoyed it.br /br /I was happy to have a decent set of games that play very well at 6-8. We played iFormula D/i, iShadows Over Camelot/i and iHavoc: The Hundred Years War/i.br /br /Now the day is done, and the rest of us will wake up tomorrow and move on with our lives.br /br /hrbr /Yesterday I dug out the guest book from Kimberly mys wedding. I was looking to see if Chris had written anything that I could pass on to T., who was working on his eulogy.br /br /Chris note was funny, something that I didnt give him credit for enough, and I enjoyed seeing it again, but it wasnt anything that I passed on.br /br /What did strike, me, however, as I paged through that guestbook is that the four people who I know who died in 2008 had all written us notes there; every one was at our wedding or our picnic afterward: Betty Wiedlin, Bob Pepelka, Rory Root, Chris Van Horn.br /br /Not a good year.

Comment here with a link and sentence or two description of theory developments you see on blogs or forums. It doesn't have to be pure theory, but these developments ought to deal with how and why we play RPGs in some generality. br /br /I'll be adding comments here too, but without your help, I'm sure I'll miss something.

This morning I finished iThe Last Kashmiri Rose/i by Barbara Cleverly. Its a mystery novel set in 1921 India, and the first of a series starring police detective Joe Sandilands.br /br /I generally ask that my mystery novels do two things. First, they should move quickly, entertaining me without ever slowing down. Second, they should contain an interesting and fair mystery, with some surprising twists that a particularly clever reader might have sussed out.br /br /Its rare for me that a mystery book successfully manages both criteria. The Spenser novels and the alphabet novels are both quite quick-moving (Spenser moreso than Millhone) but they dont have particularly fair mysteries. In the Spenser novels, there isnt any particular attention paid to setting up a solvable mystery, while in the Millhone novels, things come way out of right field too often.br /br /iThe Last Kashmiri Rose/i has a good mystery with some good twists, but it was slightly on the slow side.br /br /And, in retrospect, Id generally prefer a quick-moving mystery-less Spenser than a slower mystery-ful Sandilands. However, I expect I will try out the next in the series at some point.

A few days ago I finished reading [i]Alex Me[/i], by Irene Pepperberg. Its her story of 30 years spent training an African gray parrot to a pretty amazing level of conversational and cognitive ability. Its also the story of how little support shes received from academia, due to some combination of the multiple fields she works with (from biology to psychology, while her degree is actually in chemistry) and the jealousy that her success has engendered in her colleagues (or so she says).br /br /The books a good read, mostly for the anecdotes about what Alex could do. He could identify numbers, colors, and shapes. He could measure whether things were similar or different. He could add small quantities.br /br /What I was most impressed by were the things that he did spontaneously.br /br /For example, he seemed to come up with the concept of none to mean zero all on his own (after having used it in a different context). On another occasion, when his trainer was teaching him phonemes he spontaneously started sounding out words.br /br /As is often the case with animal intelligence work, there was disagreement over whether hed been trained or just conditioned to respond to specific stimuli. Frankly, I think a lot of that disagreement originates in speciesism: people dont want to admit that creatures other than humans can be intelligent because it throws their whole world view into disarray. From what Ive read, Im pretty confident that Alex learned.

For a variety of reasons, some more personal than others, I've been unable to continue RPG Theory Review through last year. However, I've decided not to let that be the end of things. br /br /The time off has let me re-examine some of my goals and methods in RPG Theory Review. I realized that the focus had become too much on the weekly blurbs, taking a sizable amount of effort with often very little show for it. They took time from looking at less transient incarnations of theory, and at the same time I never felt they delved deeply enough to do justice the those theory ideas which arose. br /br /In view of that, I'm happy to announce that RPG Theory Review is returning this year, with some important changes. First, I'll be focusing on literature reviews (specific games, books, and the like and their import in RPG theory) and spotlight reviews where I delve more deeply into specific topics of current interest. Fleshing this out will be monthly reviews with reader contributed focus.br /br /In addition, I'll be continuing the tradition of editorials on the practice of RPG theory and expanding into what I'm calling sandbox articles which will talk about some of my explorations in the frontiers of RPG theory. br /br /As always this will be something of an experiment, but I'm hoping RPG Theory Review will continue to be enjoyable and informative. And most of all that I can help improve our understanding of the thought and play of RPGs.

I wish that Dogs in the Vineyard had a leveling-up mechanism like Trollbabe's or 3:16's.

(This is about Apocalypse World.)
By Vincent Baker in anyway. Filed under rpgdesign. 2009-01-03

In 2007 I tried to play at least one Knizia game each time I had a long gaming day. In 2008 I tried to work through as much of Martin Wallaces catalog as I could. For 2009, I have a new goal: to play through the entire set of Alea games, in order of publication (and write about them as I do).br /br /As far as I can tell, this is a complete, correctly ordered listing of Alea releases.olbr /liRa, LB #1 -- 1999br /liChinatown, LB #2 -- 1999br /liTaj Mahal, LB #3 -- 2000br /liThe Princes of Florence, LB #4 -- 2000br /liHoity Toity, LB #5 -- 2000(?)br /liThe Traders of Genoa, LB #6 -- 2001br /liWyatt Earp, SB #1 -- 2001br /liRoyal Turf (Winners Circle), SB #2 -- 2001br /liPuerto Rico, LB #7 -- 2002br /liDie Sieben Weisen, SB #3 -- 2002 br /liEdel, Stein Reich, SB #4 -- 2003br /liMammoth Hunters, LB #8, 2003br /liSan Juan, SB #5 -- 2004br /liFifth Avenue, LB #9, 2005br /liLouis XIV, MB #1 -- 2005br /liPalazzo, MB #2 -- 2005br /liAugsburg 1520, MB #3 -- 2006br /liRum Pirates, LB #10 -- 2006br /liNotre Dame, LB #11 -- 2007br /liIn the Year of the Dragon, LB #12 -- 2007br /liWitchs Brew, MB #4 -- 2008br /liUnnamed Alea Dice Game, MB #5 -- March, 2009br //olbr /br /I have most of that in my collection, though not always in the original edition, but Im not going to worry about that. There are two troublemakers: Chinatown and Die Sieben Weisen. I should be able to get Chinatown, but Die Sieben Weisen was never printed in English and is out of print in German, so I might not be able to play it. In any case, Im just going to skip over those rather than maintaining their chronology if I dont have them at the time.br /br /If youd like to keep track of my alea writing, just bookmark the alea games tag, below

I have this thing where I’m really not into scifi games. I do enjoy scifi as a genre of fiction (though I have pretty specific tastes, and I’m not very well-read overall). But even the dystopia/cyberpunk/modern info-punk stuff that I love to read I have no interest in playing. How weird is that?

So I’m reading this SG thread What makes a good Scifi game? (starting near the end, cuz thats whats interesting to me). And they start talking about the Sense of Wonder, so I start thinking about my game experiences where I felt a sense of wonder. And all of those times, to my recollection, have to do with making myth.

Like, the time in Ganakagok when Gary’s old man spilled out all of his wolf teeth to keep the tribe from fracturing. Or in Polaris when my knight placed his severed heart into the chest of the one he loved. Or in Annalise when Can called the Vampire “Father.”

These were all times when my understanding of the fiction we were making totally spun around in my head and resettled, re-integrating all that had happened up to that point, but creating a new picture, with a new meaning.

I don’t think this is something that needs to happen all the time, but it’s pretty neat when it does happen. But my entryway to wonder seems to primarily be through mythic fiction (Annalise being an edge case), not scifi. Not that this matters. But it’s an interesting thing, no?

Where does your wonder come from?

      

This is the defining moment of Left 4 Dead.br /br /Were walking along, and Im covering our rear. Everyone else is... doing something? I have no idea. Really, this game makes it pretty obvious if you are not much of a team player. The Zombie Survival Guide, at least parts of it, is actually pretty useful to keep in mind when youre playing.br /br /Anyway, as we stop, I turn to face the passage to our rear and think to myself, I wonder if the director will throw a ton of zombies at us, down this passage right now, because Im sort of positioned as if I expect that to happen.br /br /And it did.br /br /I have a feeling that this is the sort of thing that could completely change the way that digital games work. Its the artificial DM. I want more games like this!

According to my notes at BGG, here are the Wallace games I did play, in my approximate order of like (which doesnt necessarily match with how good of a game I think they are). Just for yucks, Ive also listed the BGG rating.olbr /lia href=http://shannon-a.livejournal.com/304541.htmlBrass/a (x1) -- BGG #15br /lia href=http://shannon-a.livejournal.com/301362.htmlLiberte/a (x1) -- BGG #187br /lia href=http://shannon-a.livejournal.com/305310.htmlByzantium/a (x2) -- BGG #406br /lia href=http://shannon-a.livejournal.com/333214.htmlSteel Driver/a (x2) -- BGG #315br /lia href=http://shannon-a.livejournal.com/301362.htmlRails of Europe/a (x2) -- BGG #??br /lia href=http://shannon-a.livejournal.com/337036.htmlPrinces of the Renaissance/a (x1) -- BGG #110br /lia href=http://shannon-a.livejournal.com/329896.htmlAfter the Flood/a (x2) -- BGG #681br /lia href=http://shannon-a.livejournal.com/301362.htmlPerikles/a (x1) -- BGG #212br /lia href=http://shannon-a.livejournal.com/310962.htmlLa Strada/a (x1) -- BGG #891br /lia href=http://shannon-a.livejournal.com/301362.htmlMordred/a (x2) -- BGG #1179br /lia href=http://shannon-a.livejournal.com/309089.htmlTinners Trail/a (x2) -- BGG #137br /lia href=http://shannon-a.livejournal.com/301362.htmlPampas Railroads/a (x1) -- BGG #1052br /lia href=http://shannon-a.livejournal.com/305310.htmlTyros/a (x1) -- BGG #657br /lia href=http://shannon-a.livejournal.com/307086.htmlWay Out West/a (x1) -- BGG #1302br /lia href=http://shannon-a.livejournal.com/302058.htmlToledo/a (x2) -- BGG #950br //olbr /br /Based on comparison to BGG, I apparently severely underrates iTinners Trail/i and iPerikles/i, but overrate iByzantium/i and iAfter the Flood/i. Im the most convinced that I could be wrong on iPerikles/i.br /br /And that ends my year of Wallace postings. I plan at least two articles for BGN: one about Wallaces style of designing, in general, and one offering mini-reviews of all the games Ive played. Ill link those posts in to this tag when I make them.

A few people in my year end post were interested in a friendly competition: paint 52 miniatures in 52 weeks, with the first to 52 and most minis painted for the year winning a noprize.br /br /I put together a blog we could use to post photos and track a miniatures count. If you are interested in taking part, drop me an email: my last name, at gmail dot com. I can set the blog to allow people in the competition to post, and I think there are blog add-ons we can use to keep a figure count.

A look at the major events and trends of 2008.

What a year! Blame Jason for this. I had no intention of doing a year in review sort of thing until I read his recap. So, heres what happened.br /br /Actually, strike that. I typed up a bit, then got bored, and really, heres 2008 in a nutshell. Screw the economy, forget the election, Im talking gaming here.br /br /4e came out! Man, that was a crazy, long, intense process, but in the end all that work paid off. Its still a little weird to think of all the work that went into the game, and the anticipation before its release. I think the best part is that whenever I look at a 4e core rulebook, itll mean something different for me than any other DD rulebook. There are stories in there, weeks and months of my life, friendships that took root and blossomed. It was a great experience, and Im pretty excited to keep pushing the game forward.br /br /Designed Players Handbook 2. Hey, look, another crazy, long, intense process! As above, except it isnt out yet.br /br /I think I played more DD this year than any other time in my life. Ive also designed more *stuff* for my personal use - entire adventures, dungeons, monsters, NPCs, and so on, than ever before. Im really happy with how easy we made 4e on DMs.br /br /Painted 42 miniatures. Thats almost one per week. Maybe I should make that a 2009 goal. In unrelated news, I finally found a set of easy fantasy skirmish rules that I want to play. Maybe Ill actually start, *gasp*, playing games with all those minis?br /br /Onward to 2009!

Heres some discussions of the games not played during my Wallace-a-Thon in 2008.br /br /First, the games not played from my personal collection, which are the most damning omissions, since theyd have been easy to play:br /br /bRunebound:/b This adventure game is overall a very non-Wallacian release. Id classify it with the light games that he designs for other publishers (like iToledo/i) if it werent for the fact that it were so frickin long (which is its biggest sin). Its got beautiful color and a fun ramping up of characters, but not only do you have long gameplay (45-60 minutes per player), but worse you have considerable downtime in between turns. Compare it to all those Warfrog releases where you get an action per turn, and its obvious how slowly things go as you work through movement and skill rolls.br /br /Its funny, because I respect this game in some ways, as a nice entrant to the adventure genre with some pretty fully featured game systems--but I cant imagine inflicting its 3-4 hour play during a game day, ever. (Playing it with my RPG group would be a whole different matter, but itd be tough to offer it up in comparison to the superb iDescent/i.)br /br /bStruggle of Empires / Conquest of the Empire:/b Im absolutely certain that I would have gotten this to the table if Id had the nice, compact release by Warfrog. However, the Eagle version, with its requirement for a huge game table and its (beautiful) plastic figures which sadly just muddle the gameplay is sufficiently overdone that it didnt enter consideration over the course of the year. If I played one more Wallace game in 2008, itd nevertheless be thus.br /br /Second, the Warfrog games, which I was making a concerted effort to play all of:br /br /bAge of Steam:/b Its ironic that I said that the overproduced iConquest of the Empire/i discouraged me from playing the iStruggle of Empires/i system, since I didnt play iAge of Steam/i, but I did play its big-box cousin iRailroad Tycoon/i. Mind you, this is partially because I got a review copy of iRails of Europe/i early in the year. I also like the fact that the iRails/i games are more forgiving and more colorful ... but I think I do personally like the components of the smaller box iAge of Steam/i design.br /br /In any case, I didnt see any need to play iAge of Steam/i because iRails/i is sufficiently similar.br /br /bEmpires of the Ancient World:/b Eric and I tried to get this to the table a couple of time, but its long playing time kept us from doing so with some frequency, and on the few occasions when we felt we had enough time, we couldnt convince anyone else to join us, because it looked too wargamer-y. A pity, as I pretty much dont remember this from the one time I played.br /br /bTempus:/b Eric and I tried to get this to the table two or three times, and again we couldnt convince anyone because there were enough players with bad memories of it. I dont know if thats because of disappointment over the (inaccurate) Civ-Lite label or just because they didnt like the gameplay. Ill acknowledge being disappointed in my two or three plays, but I was willing to give it another shot, hoping it was solely the inaccurate-label factor.br /br /Having played through so much Wallace in 2008, I can now list a couple of games that Id dearly love to get the Warfrog copies of: iStruggle of Empires/i, iLiberte/i. Id also like to get iTempus/i, through probably not $60 like.

iI got an e-mail from a gamer in Mexico (isnt the Internet cool?) asking about Serial Homicide Unit. He wanted to know whether it was like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. Im still getting used to talking about the game. This was my response:/ibr /br /br /Thanks for your interest. Serial Homicide Unit is not very much like a Choose Your Own Adventure. Its more like being taught how to play a game by audio tutorial. The audio doesnt contain details about the serial killer or clues found at the crime scenes. It tells you when the serial killer strikes again, and explains how your group can create these clues on your own.br /br /The first few tracks give an overview of the game and--because there can be no investigation before there has been a crime--teach you how to make interesting civilian characters that imight/i be the killers next victim. Then another track explains how to play out a scene from the life of these civilians. After everyone has played out a civilian scene, the next few tracks describe how the police begin to investigate the murders. Everyone plays their own investigator and imagines their own clues found at the crime scene. These clues work together in a growing pool of evidence that imay/i eventually lead to the killers capture. Then you play another civilian scene. Then, track 9 tells you which of your civilian characters have been murdered. Then, your police characters investigate that murder. You continue back and forth between civilian scenes and investigation scenes, with the killer murdering another civilian each round. Once you think you have enough evidence, you roll the dice to see if your case holds up in court. If so, you capture the killer! If not, the murders continue and some evidence is thrown out. The game ends when the killer is captured, or when the killer has murdered every last one of the civilian characters. Can you save them in time?br /br /br /iWhat do you think? For those who have played the game: Does this explain SHU without giving everything away?br /br /For those who havent played the game: Is this clear and understandable? Does it grab your interest and make the game seem appealing?/i

There’s a great Annalise actual play over here. Many thanks to Rachel for going to the effort to post it!

Something that makes me pretty happy is that the account of play really does hang together pretty well as a piece of written ficton. I don’t know how much of that is Rachel’s self-editing! But the game is meant to produce fiction, and it sure seems to be making that happen. Which is great.

I’m excited to see how things end up.

      

...Begins now!


This isn't a solar system, it's a galaxy.

The white circle is the galactic core; the ellipse shows trade out to Source and then back in from Source.

The planets are Core, c.1 - c.5, o.1 - o.4, s.1 (Source), i.1 - 1.4. They all have names too but I don't know what they are.

The three campaign objectives are:
Who controls the August Solar Throne?
Who controls the flow of Smoke?
Who holds absolute moral authority?

We'll go around the circle, Joshua, Rob, me, and:
1. Introduce your side;
2. Say which planet is your home planet, and what's its real name;
3. Divvy 5 points between the objectives, max 3 min 1.

Joshua, you're on the dealer's left so you start!
By Vincent Baker in anyway. Filed under rpglink mylife. 2008-12-31

Did another medium-length bike ride with Kimberly today.br /br /Nothing terribly notable. My main goal was to hit used book stores, because Ive been putting together an X-Men TPB collection (and I indeed found iNew Mutants Vol. 3/i and iX-Men: Decimation: The Day After/i at Pegasus on Solano), but I also thought thatd provide a nice opportunity to see some North Berkeley neighborhoods.br /br /So, we rode up to Solano, then down to the Ohlone Greenway which we took up to El Cerrito Plaza. From there we took Central down to the Bay Trail which we rode up to Point Isabel.br /br /Here, I got to see a bit of the bBay Trail/b I hadnt before. We rode straight out on Point Isabel (past all the cute puppies, for Point Isabel is a dog park), then followed the curve of the Bay back, until we returned to where wed first joined the Bay Trail. It was a nice little stretch of Trail, with some actual views of the Bay (and it allowed me to see more of Point Isabel, which Id largely bypassed before).br /br /After that, it was just various Bay Trails, streets, Ohlone Greenways, and bike boulevards back home.br /br /We probably rode 10 or 12 miles total, and it was a nice day to do so.br /br /Tomorrow, I rest, then (sadly) its back to work.