News: A pile of recent thoughts and issues

Today I am writing for the purpose of recording all of my gaming updates in one shot. My time for writing only continues to diminish as my family requires more of my time and attention. Thank you for continuing to follow Games on the Table when I manage to get something posted.

Stolen penguins!

During the Christmas break, I had accidentally left my copy of Hey! That's My Fish! in the staff break room where my gaming group plays board games every Wednesday at lunch. When I returned from the break, I was pleased to see my game waiting happily for me on the counter where I had forgotten it. I had brought my teapot to the break room to clean it, and so I set my recovered game box on the recycle bin right next to the sink. For some reason I can't remember now, I had set a paper towel on top of the box. After rinsing my teapot, I walked back to my office. Late that afternoon, I realized that I had left my game in the break room once again! I hurried back to retrieve it only to discover that the box was not where I had left it. It wasn't on the vending machines, microwaves, counters, or refrigerator. It was gone. I checked all lost-and-founds, which turned up nothing. I contacted the head of custodial services, who kindly checked with his crew to see if they had seen the game box, which they hadn't. My conclusion: someone swiped my game. Hey! Those were my fish! I had enjoyed 26 plays of that game before the pilfering. It was one of my favorite filler games, but I just can't bring myself to sink the cash on another copy. Goodbye, little penguins. I'll miss you.

Download the Dice Tower Theme

The orchestral theme I composed for Tom Vasel's podcast, The Dice Tower, is now available for download from the Dice Tower website. You'll only hear chunks of this 3-minute piece of music on the actual podcast, so go download the track to listen to it in its entirety! (Look for the March 11 news on the front page of the Dice Tower website).

My new favorite game

A few months ago, I purchased Donald Vaccarino's card game, Dominion. Back when this game was being developed, and was frequently hyped on BoardGameNews.com, I was following it with great interest. Well, the reports were all true - this game is fantastic. I couldn't have imagined any game being more enjoyable than my other favorite games, but once I played Dominion a few times, it jumped right up to the top of my list. After one play, I wasn't sure how I liked it. After two or three plays, I thought I was starting to like it. After several plays, I really liked it. As of 20 in-person plays as of this writing, and many plays on BSW, I love it. Coming this month or next is the expansion for Dominion. If I can get enough people at work to join a game order, I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on Dominion: Intrigue. Vaccarino's design is just brilliant. He can expand Dominion to no end, keeping it greatly customizable, and highly replayable. This game provides much of the pleasure of a CCG, without all the downsides. Thank you, Mr. Vaccarino.

RPGGeek?

I'm still tracking the development of RPGGeek as much as I can. There is very little information about it. The last I read, it looks as if RPGGeek is going to be incorporated into the already-existing BGG as we know it. In this post Scott Alden indicates that "Board Games" and "RPGs" will be selectable menu bar items. This makes one wonder if such a menu bar will eventually include the other proposed "geek" sites, such as Books, Movies, and Video Games.

Brief overview series

I know there are a number of you who are eagerly awaiting my next brief overview video. Thanks again for the encouraging comments you've sent - I appreciate them very much. I am still trying to find a minute here and there to work on the upcoming Race for the Galaxy video. I don't know how much longer it will be. So, the fact that this video is indeed coming is hopefully good news to you. Unfortunately, I think I will put the brief overview series on the backburner after this next video. I recently spent some time calculating my daily schedule, and my free time comes out to almost nothing. Because of the other pursuits and priorities in my life which come before board games (family time, music composition, reading) I am having a hard time fitting in time for other hobbies, including blogging and the brief overview videos. There are so many things I enjoy doing, but currently, I have a list of 3 abandoned hobbies/interests, 14 backburner hobbies/interests, and 10 current and ongoing hobbies/interests. And the one that takes the most time - wife and children - isn't even on the list. It's just reality - a pleasant one, mind you - but it's reality. My family needs me, and as the years go by, I find that I must abandon more and more of my personal pursuits for the sake of others. Thus is life.

The sweet taste of pulp

My background in the pulp genre, as I've explained before, was nil before I played the RPG, Spirit of the Century. Listening to the Red Panda audio drama (which I highly recommend) helped me to understand the genre even more. Then recently, I listened to a free audio book as a podcast from Uvula Audio. The book was The Man of Bronze, by Lester Dent. This is one of the early Doc Savage stories, and from what I've gathered, this actually may have been the first (correct me if I'm wrong). While I don't think the story has enough angst for today's audience, I actually loved the story. Doc Savage is the kind of hero I like - he doesn't seem to ever make mistakes. The guy has no weaknesses. He's better than everyone at everything, and you can always count on him to have a solution. He has a group of other skilled guys helping him, and they spend the whole story adventuring in . . . I don't want to spoil anything for you. So, if you're interested in pulp, Doc Savage, or adventure at all, go listen to this free dramatic reading of The Man of Bronze!

Why don't you play RPGs?!

According to the poll I ran on this blog, most readers are boardgamers. This got me to thinking.

Roleplaying, to me, is one of the most creative, well-rounded, and engaging forms of gaming. I'm surprised more people don't do it.

So, I'm posting today to give you an opportunity for some feedback. Please leave a response in the comments. Here's the question:

"Why don't you play tabletop RPGs?"

If you already play RPGs, don't answer. I'm trying to figure out the reasons people have for avoiding roleplaying. The way I see it, most of you are already geeks, like me. You already enjoy sitting at a table and gaming with friends for hours. What keeps you from crossing that line from board games into RPGs? Please be specific and personal. What are your personal thoughts on this? Would you be willing to play, given the opportunity?

Speak up! Comment below! Thanks, dear readers!

The Escapist - roleplaying advocacy

I really wish there were more people in the roleplaying hobby. Folks may have any number of reasons for not getting involved in roleplaying, for instance:

• they don't know such a thing even exists
• they've heard stories about roleplaying which give the hobby a negative reputation
• they don't have time to get involved in another time-consuming hobby
• they feel that they lack the skills or imagination required to play well
• they know all about RPGs, but they just aren't interested
• they're interested but don't know how to get started
• they want to play, but don't have anyone else to play with
  

Whatever the reasons, I still wish more people would give roleplaying a try. It engages many parts of a person's mind and stimulates creativity, among other benefits.

I'm not the only person who wishes more people would play RPGs. William J. Walton publishes a website and a podcast, both about roleplaying advocacy. He works hard to make the truth about RPGs known while dispelling myths. He sees RPGs as an educationally valuable experience in which all different types of people can and should participate.

I recommend visiting his website, The Escapist, and listening to his biweekly podcast, The Escapistcast. The amount of information Walton presents is astonishing. He seems to catch every mention of roleplaying in the news, and has a number of interesting projects he's working on for promoting the hobby.

If you love roleplaying and wish other people did too, head over to the Escapist and support Walton's work!

Spirit of the Century actual play audio

I was searching the Net the other day for some Spirit of the Century (SotC) actual play for a friend of mine who plays in my regular group. He was looking for some well-done audio. Good news: I found some.

A simple Google search brought me to a page on archive.org which houses an ample supply of SotC actual play audio recordings. Some are scenes, some are full adventures. They're pretty much all done by Mel White who records the podcast, Virtual Play.

The quality of these recordings is impressive. Most of the other actual play audio I've sampled on the Web suffers from various problems, primarily these three:

• The mic isn't good and it's really hard to hear everything that's going on
• There is a lack of focus and players are constantly making jokes
• The audio isn't edited down to the interesting bits, so you're forced to sit through all the tedium

What I love about Mel White's recordings is that he solves all three problems. His recording quality is good - you can hear all players. He keeps a lot of focus, so the adventure is always moving forward. (Part of this could be that I've been listening to sessions recorded at conventions. I can see where this kind of session would be conducive to game focus, in contrast to a group of buddies sitting around the basement table eating pizza, joking left and right.) While the audio isn't edited, as far as I can tell, it's really not an issue since there is negligible downtime.

But what makes these recordings really enjoyable to me is that Mel seems to really understand SotC. He knows how the game works, and he's good at guiding players to use the mechanics well. Listening to the situations in his adventures improves my own knowledge of the system, which will in turn improve my GMing.

If you want to hear SotC in action, download some of the files I linked to above and enjoy Mel's great work.

News: RPG Geek and PDQ#

This week, the Games on the Table News Dept has some topics of interest for you.

The new Geek in town

Don't you enjoy those times when your life is energized by the anticipation of something good? So do I. And right now, I'm really looking forward to a treat that's coming down the pipeline for roleplayers: RPG Geek.

When it comes to board gaming, BoardGameGeek is the ultimate one-stop website on the internet. They have everything you could want: community, a marketplace, a complex and comprehensive database of all the board games you can imagine, all synchronized through and through. You can track your personal collection, track plays, write reviews and articles, upload files and images - it does it all. The site is a masterpiece, meeting all the needs of people in the hobby.

Just this week, the code for BoardGameGeek was rewritten to improve functionality. Part of the upgrade to BGG 2.0 included the ability to more easily transpose the structure of BGG to other hobbies. This has been one of the constant requests from the BGG community, and now Scott Alden and his team have done it.

The first known transposition will be RPG Geek. I'm looking forward to this. Imagine one database where you can look at reviews, images, user-created files, and where you can track your own RPG collection, all the while communicating with other gamers. There are good RPG sites and communities out there, but none that do everything, especially not with the quality of the BGG interace. Get ready, my roleplaying friends. This will be a sweet site.

I'll have my eyes on the progress and release of RPG Geek. When the site is up, you know you'll hear about it here.

Swash your buckles with the new PDQ

Although I haven't yet had the opportunity to actually play or run a game using the PDQ system, I do follow the happenings of Chad Underkoffler's work on his PDQ system. The system interests me because it is rules-light, and seems to share some of the qualities I appreciate in Spirit of the Century (Fate 3.0 system). I do own Tim Gray's Questers of the Middle Realms which is built on the PDQ engine and look forward to playing it.

In late 2008, Mr. Underkoffler made available an updated version of the PDQ core rules called "PDQ#" (PDQ Sharp). This version is specifically tailored to a swashbuckling game. It is this set of rules that the upcoming Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies will be built upon.


When I first read about S7S last year, I was immediately intrigued. The idea of sky pirates and airships is just sweet to me. The airships in the Final Fantasy video game series were always fascinating, and while I didn't play Skies of Arcadia, it looked cool, and I bought the soundtrack. I love the idea of airships/sky pirates/sky sailors. (I also tried reading Paul Stewart's The Edge Chronicles, but the gritty style had me returning the book to the library before I finished the first half of the book. Still, the morsels about sky pirates were cool.)

So I was pretty excited about the concept of S7S, until I read this page in Mr. Underkoffler's blog. While the bit about "setting-heavy" isn't attractive to me, what really turns me off is this statement:

S7S has intriguing (to me) sexual politics. Each Island has a different take on gender relationships; this is intentional. I'm afraid that people won't notice it. The inclusion, here, is intended to spark intriguing thoughts: a female Viridese Warmaster interacting with a Colronan Musketeer SHOULD bring up culture-clash. I crave it.

But will other folks find it as interesting as I do?

This kind of thing would quickly spoil the good parts of an RPG for me. First of all, I work to keep "sexual" out of all my hobbies except for my marriage. But even worse is if sexuality is tied up in a world's politics. I just don't know what to think right now regarding S7S. I wonder if PDQ# would enable playing in my own world of airships and cloud islands? I have yet to read PDQ#, so I can't determine that just now. It's on my list of things to do when I get the time. Stay posted for my thoughts on PDQ and S7S in the future.

The taste of pulp

In another session or two, I'll finish the current adventure I've been GMing. It's in a fantasy setting, using the SotC rules. After that, one of the other guys is taking over as GM for a standard SotC game, by the book, with a few little mods.

In the past, I would have said, "I don't really want to play anything other than fantasy. That's part of the fun for me." I'm a big fantasy fan, hence my love for the fantasy setting in roleplaying. But now that I've been exposed to SotC, through reading the book and playing it, I've really come to appreciate the pulp genre. My tastes have adjusted to the point that I'm actually eager to play in the pulp setting now.

So, I'm psyched for the upcoming adventure, when I'll be sitting back into the player's seat. The guy who's GMing and I have been talking a lot about SotC, and how we can improve our use of it for the upcoming adventures. We've realized that we need to be much more active in our spending of Fate points and in performing maneuvers. We're also thinking of tweaking the skills system to use something other than the pyramid.

I also had a little burst of inspiration the other day and jotted down some neat ideas for the next SotC adventure I'll run. So much fun roleplaying, so little time. Drat!

So, thanks to the guys who created SotC, not only for a good system, but for writing a newbie's guide to the appreciation of pulp.

Brief overview series - what do you want to see?

This time around, I'm giving you the opportunity to send in feedback. I know a lot of people appreciate the brief overview video series I've been doing. What I want to know is - what games would you like to see in my brief overview format?

If you would like to request something, take a look at my stash over at BGG and comment on this post to make your request!

Because of other projects in my life, I've had less time to post here on GotT, but I'd like to know what to work on next, when I get time for another brief overview video. I had been planning on doing Treasures and Traps next, but I'd like to hear from you first!

Gaming maturity

Today we hear from the Games on the Table Psychology Dept once again.

The issue at hand: gaming maturity.

A human begins as a few cells. He grows into a fetus, then into an infant, then into a toddler, a preschooler, a school kid, a teen, an adult, a mature adult, an old timer.

Other things have a process of maturation as well, including gamers. Today, we'll look at some of the fascinating things that take place as a person develops from a board gaming infant (non-gamer, or NG) into a board gaming adult (gamer). (For the sake of this article, we won't delve into the topic of gaming seniors - the wargamers).

One feature of a gaming infant is the amount of information they are able to process. As an infant takes comfort in the familiarity of its mother, so do NGs take comfort in the one eurogame they've played. You're likely to hear a gaming infant say something like, "Can we play the bean trading game again?" or "I liked that train game. Let's play that." That first play of Ticket to Ride was a new challenge for the NG, who until recently had to invest very little mental energy on roll-and-move board games and party games. They were happy just to get through that first play of a light strategy game, and to see that they were able to compete, or even win. In this early stage of development, the gaming infant will either feel overwhelmed and continue to drink the milk they were familiar with (party games and such), or she will realize that some of those solids Mommy and Daddy have been testing on her are actually quite tasty. In fact, she'd like some more.

The gaming toddler/preschooler will be able to handle many more solids - maybe three or four gateway games. They're finding new flavors they enjoy all the time, and they may have even pinpointed a few flavors they don't like. "Well, it looks like she doesn't like auction mechanics. We'll save those for other people."

Some people will prefer to stay in this state for a long time. They just don't like the mental strain of any strategizing heavier than that required for Winner's Circle.

Soon, though, many players will become gaming children and teens, appreciating the knowledge and experience they've gained, eager for more. They are accepting of all types of new experiences, just taking them in with abandon. There's a big gaming world to discover, and nothing is holding them back as they make increasing sense of it.

Finally, we reach gaming adulthood. The gaming adult stands out in a couple of ways. First, the mature gamer has had enough time and experience to recognize the nuances and details of her tastes. She likes dice, but only as used in two certain games. She prefers blind bidding when bidding must be done. She finds that her mind functions best with elegant games like Carcassonne, as opposed to more rules-heavy theme-rich Fantasy Flight games. She's learned how to make sense of all the information available on Board Game Geek to help her make try and buy decisions.

And now we get to the most telling sign of gaming maturity: winning and losing. Gaming children have not yet learned how to deal with conflict and loss. It's personal, hits deep, and can put them in a long-term bad mood. The gaming infant, child, or teen may react in any number of ways. He may be passive aggressive, he may walk quietly away from the table, he may blow up and even yell, he may whine about unfairness and bad luck, and he may even plan for revenge. To the gaming youth, winning is a pride issue. "If I don't win, I'm a failure and the voices in my head will berate me. If I do win, I'm a success and people will love me."

Just as adults learn humility through relationships and a sense of perspective, so does the mature gamer. After a good amount of time and thought, the "adult" gamer realizes that his personal value is not dependent on winning or losing. He learns to appreciate the pleasure of the gameplay itself, the mental exercise, and to appreciate the victories of other players.

Having spent a good many hours surfing BGG, our Psychology Dept noticed that some gamers speak with a certain defining maturity. They will say things like, "For me, the play is the important thing. I don't care if I win or lose. Why should I? Games are about the recreational fun and the interaction with others." They also read horror stories of players flipping tables, throwing game components, and verbally abusing other humans. Additionally, immature gamers are reported to take winning as an opportunity to gloat or talk smack. These, dear reader, are telltale indicators of one's gaming maturity.

For good reason, many gamers have become fond of this famous statement from the board game world's most prolific designer, Reiner Knizia:

When playing a game, the goal is to win, but it is the goal that is important, not the winning.

"Knizia nailed it," says our Psych Dept chair. Mature gamers have learned that winning is the purpose of playing a game only because it's written into the rules as the goal for success. Nowhere do the rules state that one's value as a human person is determined by whether he wins or loses. Thank you, Dr. Knizia.

I will close by once again reiterating our long-time slogan here at GotT: The fun is in the playing, not just the winning.

Now go play like an adult.