I used some (actually most) of the money I got for Christmas to buy a copy of Windows 7 to replace the version I had accidentally wiped from my hard drive trying to set up a Linux dual boot. I did this so I would be able to run Windows-only software without worrying about the quirks of Wine. Since the firmware for my Belkin router only runs on Windows, this move also gives me the ability to modify the router's settings, which would really come in handy!
Tonight, when I tried to install Windows on my laptop, thinking to set up a dual boot, I found out that the Windows installer won't format a drive or partition that is already set up in a non-NFTS format. Just one more annoyance from dealing with Microsoft products. I was going to put in a Linux live CD (any live CD) just to use Gparted to format the hard drive, but something I read in the Windows 7 EULA gave me another idea. In the middle of all the ridiculous terms and conditions defining your ability to install only each copy of Windows on only one computer, on pain of having Paul Allen send a goon squad to your door to break your kneecaps, there was a provision spelling out your right to install the OS on one virtual machine.
"Aha!" I thought. "Virtualbox is in the Ubuntu repositories, right?" Sure enough, I was able to track down that program through the Ubuntu Software Center--no need to use Synaptic. After downloading the manual and reading about what the various settings mean, I was able to create a virtual machine and install Windows on it in a relatively short time. The quickness of the install probably came from my decision to use a dynamic hard-drive allocation so the initial virtual disk size is only 20 gigs. So far, everything's working well. In fact, I'm typing this post on Internet Explorer 9 on my virtualized Windows 7.
Only one minor thing annoys me. Apparently, Virtualbox can only display guest OS's in a "square" (4:3 aspect ratio) resolution, no matter what shape your monitor is. So I'm stuck with a 1024x768 block of Windows, with wide vertical stripes on either side. It's like a vertical version of the "letterbox" effect you get when viewing a widescreen movie on a square TV. Unfortunately, I can't get a screenshot because the Windows 7 screenshot tool only grabs the screen area covered by the OS. However, this is a minor annoyance, and so far all the software works, and I've successfully downloaded two programs.
All in all, this looks like a great way to keep all the good features of Linux while still having Windows at my fingertips.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Steven Erikson's Deadhouse Gates
I've read Steven Erikson's fantasy series The Malazan Book of the Fallen out of sequence. Or rather, I've read parts of it out of sequence. I first stumbled onto the sixth book, The Bonehunters a couple of years ago and fell in love with Erikson's world for several reasons which I will detail below. After that, I read Books 5 and 7 before finally tracking down the first two books, Gardens of the Moon and Deadhouse Gates.
This out-of-sequence approach has yielded an interesting experience. I initially missed all the explanations of the world's politics, religion, and magic system that is always painstakingly reveled in the exposition of the early novels of a series. Fortunately, I've read enough fantasy with different approaches to magic to reverse-engineer some basic ideas about these things in the later volumes. It turns out that I was largely right about the way warrens work but missed the boat about the relationship between the fortune-telling Deck of Dragons and the gods.
The World of the Malazan Empire
Erikson does several things in his fictional world which make it distinct from many others.
Magic. One of the complaints about Dungeons & Dragons is that the world would look nothing like the conventional quasi-medieval setting portrayed if the magic users actually used the powers at their disposal. Erikson handles this problem in two ways. First, he makes mages in his world specialized. The source of magic in this world is warrens, other planes of existence whose energies can be drawn upon to create particular kinds of magical effects. Each wizard can only draw on one warren, and thus only cast one kind of magic. However, since wizards can also travel through their warren and take other people with them, every magic user has the ability to travel fast (but not to teleport).
Erikson does a much better job of integrating magic into his world than some fantasy authors. The role magic plays in the lives of the people of the world--from military campaigns to everyday life--is shown in a coherent way.
Time Scale. While Tolkien's Middle Earth has a detailed history of several millenia divided into three ages, the world of the Malazan Empire has a history stretching back for hundreds of millenia. Much like the real world, humans are latecomers to an astonishingly ancient biosphere in which many life forms preceded them. Imagine that the dinosaurs had also built civilizations and that a few of them are still around, and you have an idea of the history of this world.
Races. There are no elves or dwarves in the world of the Malazan Empire. Instead, Erikson makes up several unique fantasy races, both living and extinct. Each of these races also has its own distinct culture. For example, the reptilian Jaghut, though magically sophisticated, prefer a life of solitude and live in small family units rather than towns or cities. While I tend to use some version of the Tolkien/D&D list of fantasy races a lot, the existence of fantasy worlds with different paradigms is a good thing for the genre.
There is also an ethnic diversity within the human race that doesn't often exist in fantasy fiction, with its Eurocentric roots. Erikson's world features several regions dominated by dark-skinned people with fully developed and sophisticated cultures. Unlike Tolkien, in which all the important movers and shakers are white, black people hold positions of authority in Erikson's Malazan Empire.
The Book
Deadhouse Gates was the toughest read of the series for me so far. For some reason, it seemed ponderous to read at times, unlike any of the other books. I suspect part of that may be that the book carried the weight of a lot of exposition, being only the second in the series and the first to take place on the continent of Seven Cities. However, the first book, Gardens of the Moon, had even more expository duties and it was an incredibly engaging read. I think part of the problem might have been that much of the plot involves detailed descriptions of military logistics and complicated geographical formations, subjects which struggle to hold my attention.
Though it was slow in spots, the book was ultimately rewarding, with its gritty depiction of life in a war zone as rebellion against the Empire breaks out. This part of the overall story takes place in the continent of Seven Cities, as mentioned before. While some parts of Erikson's world don't remind me of any place in the real world (e.g. Genabackis, the continent on which Gardens of the Moon is set), Seven Cities is clearly the Fantasy Middle East. It's a desert land whose culture is dominated by a somewhat fanatical religion which serves as a basis for resistance against an occupying power. In this case, the religion also carries a whiff of Christian-style millenarianism to make it an even more potent incitement to violence.
We mostly see the rebellion through the eyes of soldiers and government officials of the occupying Malazan Empire. Fortunately, this practice is not too limiting, since many Seven Cities natives serve in the Malzan army. Our window into the perspective of the native culture is Kalam, a native who at one time had worked his way into a high position in the Claw, the Empire's elite band of assassins. In the process of pursuing a personal agenda shared with some of his friends, he plays a key role in helping the rebellion get under way.
Once the rebellion starts, it interrupts the status quo for several high-profile prisoners on a nearby island, who use the opportunity to escape. It also forces the Imperial Historian Duiker to join a train of soldiers and refugees desperately trying to make their way to the last city on the continent still held by Imperial forces. While Gardens of the Moon dealt mostly with setting up static military engagements, Deadhouse Gates is all about travel. Every major character is on their way somewhere for most of the book. In fact, one of the themes of the book seems to be that the journey reveals a person's character, while the destination often disappoints. Along the way, Erikson explores the social divisions both between Malazans and the "foreign" inhabitants of their empire, and within the class structure of Malazan society. He also takes an unflinching look at the realities of war and occupation and how people treat each other under stress. Thus, the book contains frank references to sex and violence. None of Erikson's works are pornographic, but they're definitely written for an adult audience.
The strength of this book is the characters. Deadhouse Gates features several returning characters (notably Kalam) from the first volume while also introducing new compelling people into the reader's world. My personal favorite of the newbies is Duiker, a historian and ex-soldier who ends up being the combination of scholar and bad-ass that every nerd wishes to be. Then again, all of Erikson's characters, from the elites to the masses, think a lot about what's going on in their world. That may be the most fantastic thing about this world, possibly more unrealistic than the magic, dragons, undead, and shapeshifters. However, it makes for a thought-provoking work even while telling a story full of action.
Deadhouse Gates has very few weaknesses. One of those may be a tendency for some of the refugee scenes to lag as Erikson captures the tedium of the marches between battles far too well. Strangely enough, the other major weakness in the book's pacing also involves the refugee train. Toward the end of the book, the final stretches of their march toward the holy city of Aren feel summarized rather than told, as if Erikson suddenly realized his page count was way up and he had to wrap things up. For all those problems, the refugee march is still one of the best parts of the book because of its dynamic conclusion.
Another weakness is that when Erikson decides to use literary allusions, he runs them into the ground. For example, when he writes about a certain character's death, he beats the reader over the head with the fact that he's trying to symbolize him as a Christ figure. It actually takes the reader out of the feeling of being in a fantasy world and reminds them of the real world too much.
Still, despite these weaknesses, Deadhouse Gates, like the rest of The Malazan Book of the Fallen, is well worth reading.
This out-of-sequence approach has yielded an interesting experience. I initially missed all the explanations of the world's politics, religion, and magic system that is always painstakingly reveled in the exposition of the early novels of a series. Fortunately, I've read enough fantasy with different approaches to magic to reverse-engineer some basic ideas about these things in the later volumes. It turns out that I was largely right about the way warrens work but missed the boat about the relationship between the fortune-telling Deck of Dragons and the gods.
The World of the Malazan Empire
Erikson does several things in his fictional world which make it distinct from many others.
Magic. One of the complaints about Dungeons & Dragons is that the world would look nothing like the conventional quasi-medieval setting portrayed if the magic users actually used the powers at their disposal. Erikson handles this problem in two ways. First, he makes mages in his world specialized. The source of magic in this world is warrens, other planes of existence whose energies can be drawn upon to create particular kinds of magical effects. Each wizard can only draw on one warren, and thus only cast one kind of magic. However, since wizards can also travel through their warren and take other people with them, every magic user has the ability to travel fast (but not to teleport).
Erikson does a much better job of integrating magic into his world than some fantasy authors. The role magic plays in the lives of the people of the world--from military campaigns to everyday life--is shown in a coherent way.
Time Scale. While Tolkien's Middle Earth has a detailed history of several millenia divided into three ages, the world of the Malazan Empire has a history stretching back for hundreds of millenia. Much like the real world, humans are latecomers to an astonishingly ancient biosphere in which many life forms preceded them. Imagine that the dinosaurs had also built civilizations and that a few of them are still around, and you have an idea of the history of this world.
Races. There are no elves or dwarves in the world of the Malazan Empire. Instead, Erikson makes up several unique fantasy races, both living and extinct. Each of these races also has its own distinct culture. For example, the reptilian Jaghut, though magically sophisticated, prefer a life of solitude and live in small family units rather than towns or cities. While I tend to use some version of the Tolkien/D&D list of fantasy races a lot, the existence of fantasy worlds with different paradigms is a good thing for the genre.
There is also an ethnic diversity within the human race that doesn't often exist in fantasy fiction, with its Eurocentric roots. Erikson's world features several regions dominated by dark-skinned people with fully developed and sophisticated cultures. Unlike Tolkien, in which all the important movers and shakers are white, black people hold positions of authority in Erikson's Malazan Empire.
The Book
Deadhouse Gates was the toughest read of the series for me so far. For some reason, it seemed ponderous to read at times, unlike any of the other books. I suspect part of that may be that the book carried the weight of a lot of exposition, being only the second in the series and the first to take place on the continent of Seven Cities. However, the first book, Gardens of the Moon, had even more expository duties and it was an incredibly engaging read. I think part of the problem might have been that much of the plot involves detailed descriptions of military logistics and complicated geographical formations, subjects which struggle to hold my attention.
Though it was slow in spots, the book was ultimately rewarding, with its gritty depiction of life in a war zone as rebellion against the Empire breaks out. This part of the overall story takes place in the continent of Seven Cities, as mentioned before. While some parts of Erikson's world don't remind me of any place in the real world (e.g. Genabackis, the continent on which Gardens of the Moon is set), Seven Cities is clearly the Fantasy Middle East. It's a desert land whose culture is dominated by a somewhat fanatical religion which serves as a basis for resistance against an occupying power. In this case, the religion also carries a whiff of Christian-style millenarianism to make it an even more potent incitement to violence.
We mostly see the rebellion through the eyes of soldiers and government officials of the occupying Malazan Empire. Fortunately, this practice is not too limiting, since many Seven Cities natives serve in the Malzan army. Our window into the perspective of the native culture is Kalam, a native who at one time had worked his way into a high position in the Claw, the Empire's elite band of assassins. In the process of pursuing a personal agenda shared with some of his friends, he plays a key role in helping the rebellion get under way.
Once the rebellion starts, it interrupts the status quo for several high-profile prisoners on a nearby island, who use the opportunity to escape. It also forces the Imperial Historian Duiker to join a train of soldiers and refugees desperately trying to make their way to the last city on the continent still held by Imperial forces. While Gardens of the Moon dealt mostly with setting up static military engagements, Deadhouse Gates is all about travel. Every major character is on their way somewhere for most of the book. In fact, one of the themes of the book seems to be that the journey reveals a person's character, while the destination often disappoints. Along the way, Erikson explores the social divisions both between Malazans and the "foreign" inhabitants of their empire, and within the class structure of Malazan society. He also takes an unflinching look at the realities of war and occupation and how people treat each other under stress. Thus, the book contains frank references to sex and violence. None of Erikson's works are pornographic, but they're definitely written for an adult audience.
The strength of this book is the characters. Deadhouse Gates features several returning characters (notably Kalam) from the first volume while also introducing new compelling people into the reader's world. My personal favorite of the newbies is Duiker, a historian and ex-soldier who ends up being the combination of scholar and bad-ass that every nerd wishes to be. Then again, all of Erikson's characters, from the elites to the masses, think a lot about what's going on in their world. That may be the most fantastic thing about this world, possibly more unrealistic than the magic, dragons, undead, and shapeshifters. However, it makes for a thought-provoking work even while telling a story full of action.
Deadhouse Gates has very few weaknesses. One of those may be a tendency for some of the refugee scenes to lag as Erikson captures the tedium of the marches between battles far too well. Strangely enough, the other major weakness in the book's pacing also involves the refugee train. Toward the end of the book, the final stretches of their march toward the holy city of Aren feel summarized rather than told, as if Erikson suddenly realized his page count was way up and he had to wrap things up. For all those problems, the refugee march is still one of the best parts of the book because of its dynamic conclusion.
Another weakness is that when Erikson decides to use literary allusions, he runs them into the ground. For example, when he writes about a certain character's death, he beats the reader over the head with the fact that he's trying to symbolize him as a Christ figure. It actually takes the reader out of the feeling of being in a fantasy world and reminds them of the real world too much.
Still, despite these weaknesses, Deadhouse Gates, like the rest of The Malazan Book of the Fallen, is well worth reading.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Why Is There No CSI: The Roleplaying Game?
The post title says it all. It's a serious question. It came back to me while I was inputting a bunch of notes I made a couple years ago about adapting a nascent homebrew system to the police procedural genre. To me, this idea seems like such a no-brainer that I wonder why nobody in the industry ever thought of it. There are two major advantages to being the company that brings out that game.
Popularity
One of the weaknesses of the RPG industry is that most of its fans (and thus, presumably, its designers and bean-counters) are geeks who enamored of the relatively esoteric genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Thus, the industry has remained viable, though not spectacularly healthy, even in down times, due to the devotion of its fan base. However, it's never really been mainstream. Well, there were probably a couple of periods when it was on the cusp: the early 80s before the Dallas Egbert incident and the early 2000s when D&D 3e first came out.
I wonder if part of the problem is that nobody ever makes a tabletop RPG out of something that has mainstream popularity. It's not like there's no precedent for a non-sf roleplaying-type game to enjoy some success. For example, murder mystery dinner party games, which appear to still have a following due to the magic of internet downloads, were actually somewhat fashionable in the mid to late 80s. Crime and mystery (along with action-adventure) are genres with some crossover appeal to both geeks and everybody else. This has been even more the case in the last decade, with shows like the Law and Order and CSI franchises dominating fictional network TV. If mainstream culture is ever going to be convinced that roleplaying isn't something only done by the terminally weird, this is the genre to do it in. And the potential for actual profit in exploiting a popular genre is also a factor for an industry that's always short on money.
One Shots
One of the biggest hassles of roleplaying is the idea of the ongoing campaign. It's amazing how many ambitious campaigns are derailed by schedules and life changes. Something that was supposed to last for a year or more of weekly sessions often ends up lasting maybe a month. And that's with a bunch of dedicated sf/roleplaying geeks. Imagine how hard it is to get through a planned campaign with more casual players. The idea that roleplaying must be done in long, interconnected arcs covering many sessions is probably one of the biggest psychological barriers to entering the hobby.
Fortunately, using TV crime shows as source material directly addresses this concern. Every show is a one-shot, so duplicating the feel of the genre dictates one-shot scenarios. That means there are no continuity issues if a player can't make it one week. The availability of a more casual kind of tabletop gaming makes the hobby accessible to a large number of casual players, possibly increasing the customer base.
So why hasn't anyone thought of this idea before? Is the industry really that bad at marketing?
Popularity
One of the weaknesses of the RPG industry is that most of its fans (and thus, presumably, its designers and bean-counters) are geeks who enamored of the relatively esoteric genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Thus, the industry has remained viable, though not spectacularly healthy, even in down times, due to the devotion of its fan base. However, it's never really been mainstream. Well, there were probably a couple of periods when it was on the cusp: the early 80s before the Dallas Egbert incident and the early 2000s when D&D 3e first came out.
I wonder if part of the problem is that nobody ever makes a tabletop RPG out of something that has mainstream popularity. It's not like there's no precedent for a non-sf roleplaying-type game to enjoy some success. For example, murder mystery dinner party games, which appear to still have a following due to the magic of internet downloads, were actually somewhat fashionable in the mid to late 80s. Crime and mystery (along with action-adventure) are genres with some crossover appeal to both geeks and everybody else. This has been even more the case in the last decade, with shows like the Law and Order and CSI franchises dominating fictional network TV. If mainstream culture is ever going to be convinced that roleplaying isn't something only done by the terminally weird, this is the genre to do it in. And the potential for actual profit in exploiting a popular genre is also a factor for an industry that's always short on money.
One Shots
One of the biggest hassles of roleplaying is the idea of the ongoing campaign. It's amazing how many ambitious campaigns are derailed by schedules and life changes. Something that was supposed to last for a year or more of weekly sessions often ends up lasting maybe a month. And that's with a bunch of dedicated sf/roleplaying geeks. Imagine how hard it is to get through a planned campaign with more casual players. The idea that roleplaying must be done in long, interconnected arcs covering many sessions is probably one of the biggest psychological barriers to entering the hobby.
Fortunately, using TV crime shows as source material directly addresses this concern. Every show is a one-shot, so duplicating the feel of the genre dictates one-shot scenarios. That means there are no continuity issues if a player can't make it one week. The availability of a more casual kind of tabletop gaming makes the hobby accessible to a large number of casual players, possibly increasing the customer base.
So why hasn't anyone thought of this idea before? Is the industry really that bad at marketing?
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Linux Mint 10 (Julia)
Last week, Linux Mint 10, codenamed Julia, was released. I'd been using the release candidate on my laptop for a while, but waited for the official release to post my thoughts. The new release continues Mint's tradition of pushing the envelope in terms of visual theming. Further, given the direction of Ubuntu's look and feel in the last couple of releases, Mint looks more and more like the best intro to Linux for Windows users.
Look and Feel
The most notable change from previous versions of Mint is the new default theme, Mint-X-Metal. This theme takes advantage of a new feature of MintMenu, Mint's Windows-like start menu. In the new release, the menu can be themed differently from the rest of the GNOME desktop. Mint-X-Metal applies a metallic texture to the menu.
The overall theme has changed radically from the last few versions of Mint. Instead of the bright greens of previous Shiki-Wise (green version of Shiki-Colors) themed desktops, Mint-X features a metallic gray look in both the theme and the default wallpaper. There's also a new icon set heavily based on Faenza, the Linux community's favorite square icons. Here's a screenshot of my laptop screen with all windows minimized.
My desktop isn't the default setup. For one thing, the default setup has the panel on the bottom. There's also no dock out of the box; that's a program called Docky, which is available in the Linux Mint reposotories. One of the reasons I prefer Mint over Ubuntu is that it's easier in Mint to get this one-panel setup I've preferred since fairly soon after I started using Ubuntu.
Other Things
As usual, Mint comes with a more familiar set of default applications than Ubuntu (Thunderbird instead of Evolution for e-mail, Pidgin instead of Empathy for IM). In another advance for user friendliness, the Linux Mint Welcome Screen gives you a convenient set of links to helpful resources, including a downloadable user manual in .pdf format and tutorials and forums on the Linux Mint site. Overall, it's much easier to jump in and find out about Mint than about Ubuntu.
So far, the only drawback I've noticed is that Pidgin logs me out of Facebook chat a lot. Other than that, everything runs smoothly, making this the first Mint release that I didn't have some kind of major issue with.
Look and Feel
The most notable change from previous versions of Mint is the new default theme, Mint-X-Metal. This theme takes advantage of a new feature of MintMenu, Mint's Windows-like start menu. In the new release, the menu can be themed differently from the rest of the GNOME desktop. Mint-X-Metal applies a metallic texture to the menu.
The overall theme has changed radically from the last few versions of Mint. Instead of the bright greens of previous Shiki-Wise (green version of Shiki-Colors) themed desktops, Mint-X features a metallic gray look in both the theme and the default wallpaper. There's also a new icon set heavily based on Faenza, the Linux community's favorite square icons. Here's a screenshot of my laptop screen with all windows minimized.
 | |||||||
| Modified Linux Mint Desktop |
My desktop isn't the default setup. For one thing, the default setup has the panel on the bottom. There's also no dock out of the box; that's a program called Docky, which is available in the Linux Mint reposotories. One of the reasons I prefer Mint over Ubuntu is that it's easier in Mint to get this one-panel setup I've preferred since fairly soon after I started using Ubuntu.
Other Things
As usual, Mint comes with a more familiar set of default applications than Ubuntu (Thunderbird instead of Evolution for e-mail, Pidgin instead of Empathy for IM). In another advance for user friendliness, the Linux Mint Welcome Screen gives you a convenient set of links to helpful resources, including a downloadable user manual in .pdf format and tutorials and forums on the Linux Mint site. Overall, it's much easier to jump in and find out about Mint than about Ubuntu.
So far, the only drawback I've noticed is that Pidgin logs me out of Facebook chat a lot. Other than that, everything runs smoothly, making this the first Mint release that I didn't have some kind of major issue with.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Pitchapalooza?
So I went to the Books & Co. at the Greene to attend an author event promoted in the store's newsletter. The book was a guide to how to pitch a book to a publisher and start collecting those royalty checks (if you're lucky). Now, I'm nowhere near finishing a novel, but I figured this is stuff I need to know, so I decided to show up anyway.
Unfortunately, the e-mail didn't mention that this event was something called "Pitchapalooza." Now, I'd read the name in a couple of places, but I hadn't connected it to this particular night at Books & Co. The concept is that these two authors listen to people pitch their book ideas and critique them, crowning a winner at the end of the night who gets a free consultation with them.
I left even though I could probably have come up with a pitch for one of my embryonic long-form fiction ideas. I can imagine something like this:
The mainstream publishing industry is apparently so timid these days that this pitch wouldn't work for literary or popular fiction, but sf geeks love their violence, so it could have worked for the genre. In any case, now I think I should have stayed to see just how far I could have played this up and freaked out a room full of innocent people.
Unfortunately, the e-mail didn't mention that this event was something called "Pitchapalooza." Now, I'd read the name in a couple of places, but I hadn't connected it to this particular night at Books & Co. The concept is that these two authors listen to people pitch their book ideas and critique them, crowning a winner at the end of the night who gets a free consultation with them.
I left even though I could probably have come up with a pitch for one of my embryonic long-form fiction ideas. I can imagine something like this:
It's a fantasy novel, but instead of telling the story of how the farmhand becomes a great hero, it's the story of how the farmland becomes the dark overlord. We pervert every trope of the genre. For example, our protagonist meets a wizard who befriends and mentors him. Eventually, the protagonist kills him. The reader starts out routing for the kid then spends most of the book saying, "Oh no he didnt!" They'll be traumatized, but they won't be able to put it down!
The mainstream publishing industry is apparently so timid these days that this pitch wouldn't work for literary or popular fiction, but sf geeks love their violence, so it could have worked for the genre. In any case, now I think I should have stayed to see just how far I could have played this up and freaked out a room full of innocent people.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Writing and Work Routine
So I've decided that, if I ever want to get all the stuff I have scattered in legal pads around the house digitized, I should get back to a work routine similar to what I was doing when I had that brief freelance assignment. There's so much material that it would take forever to get it all done during my occasional nights at a bookstore cafe. So I've decided, five days a week, to make sure I spend at least a little time typing up and saving all those stories and RPG ideas. I can also spend some of this time working on things like my resume (which at this point is only hypothetical). I could also stand to work on the portfolio for my tech writing certificate. That way, I'll have plenty of time to improve things before I finally get that last class over with. I can also use some time to get some more of my classic raw cursive writing done for my newer story ideas. If I can get some kind of routine or system worked out, I could start flooding fiction magazines with material.
Anyway, today I got some work done on an original RPG system that I'd discarded a couple years ago. I also got a little more of a short story written. This story is particularly interesting to me because it lives in a sort of middle ground. The idea is that the main character hears the voices of what he believes to be "ice demons." However, even though the setting is clearly a made-up place that has nothing to do with the real world, I want the reader to wonder whether what the character experiences is real.
The question is whether I can pull that off. And whether any market would be interested in such an ambiguous story. My guess is that, since I'm going to drop enough "fantasy setting" buzzwords early, I should be able to avoid the curse of the mistaken genre.
Anyway, today I got some work done on an original RPG system that I'd discarded a couple years ago. I also got a little more of a short story written. This story is particularly interesting to me because it lives in a sort of middle ground. The idea is that the main character hears the voices of what he believes to be "ice demons." However, even though the setting is clearly a made-up place that has nothing to do with the real world, I want the reader to wonder whether what the character experiences is real.
The question is whether I can pull that off. And whether any market would be interested in such an ambiguous story. My guess is that, since I'm going to drop enough "fantasy setting" buzzwords early, I should be able to avoid the curse of the mistaken genre.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
DC Adventures RPG
So I picked up Green Ronin's new DC Adventures Hero's Handbook. I haven't read comic books on a regular basis in ages, and some of the Silver-Ageish conventions that DC mostly adheres to even today put me off. However, this book is the first rollout of the new Mutants & Masterminds 3rd edition rules, and I was really curious about those, based on what I've heard. Once I saw that the new DC Adventures book included rules for creating new characters, not just for playing existing DC heroes, I decided to check it out. From what I've seen so far, I like the new rules, and my (minor) complaints are about the presentation and explanations rather than the mechanics themselves.
(Note: This entry uses a lot of tabletop gamer terminology and assumes the reader knows the meaning of these basic terms).
The biggest change in the M&M 3e rules is the change from D&D-based ability scores to a system more like Green Ronin's other flagship system, True 20. While D&D sets 10 as the average human score in each ability and adds +1 to the die roll modifier for every two points over 10, True20 and M&M 3e/DC Adventures use the ability score itself as the die roll modifier. Thus, the average adult human has a score of 0 in all abilities and every increase in an ability score also increases the modifier. A character can also "sell down" an ability, taking a penalty of up to -5 to die rolls involving that ability in order to gain more points for other abilities (and in M&M/DCA for other character traits).
As much as I love and respect D&D and its place in RPG history (4e aside), I much prefer a system in which your ability score is your modifier. It simplifies things and makes point-based character creation much easier. A bonus with applying this system to a superhero game is that hardly any character will need to sell down an ability, making the system psychologically more palatable.
M&M has always valued all ability scores the same in their point-based character creation system. This has been problematic because, using the traditional six d20 abilities, Strength and Dexterity have always been the most useful abilities in a combat-oriented supers game (with Strength influencing melee damage and a host of other things, while Dexterity affected the accuracy and damage of ranged attacks and the Reflex save).
Green Ronin solved this problem in the new rules by dividing Strength and Dex into two abilities. The new Strength attribute only affects the hero's ability to lift things and perform other impressive feats; the melee attack bonuses now belong to a new ability called Fighting. Similarly, Dexterity now only affects ranged attacks, while the Reflex defense bonus goes to the newly-minted Agility. This change also solves a problem inherent in most d20-based systems: ranged fighters are inherently better than melee fighters because a high Dex improves a character both offensively and defensively.
Power Design
The new M&M/DCA super power design rules move more in the direction of traditional supers games like Champions, separating flavor and mechanics completely. The Powers chapter mostly lists a series of "effects" that characters can generate, while leaving it to the player to decide what the effect is called or looks like in game.
For example, one effect is called Damage. It allows a character to make a melee attack and force the target to make a Toughness check to avoid gaining an injury. It's up to the player to decide whether this damage happens because the hero's fist turns to stone or because the hero uses special kung fu moves or for some other exotic reason.
This approach to power design can be overwhelming to the novice player, who might not have any idea how effects translate into the kinds of iconic superpowers they see in comic books. Fortunately, the game provides many prefabricated powers as examples of how the process works.
Inconsistencies
The biggest problem with the book is the way that iconic characters are used inconsistently in examples vs. their stats. For example, Captain Marvel is used as an example of the Activation flaw (which lowers the cost of normally always-on powers in exchange for a requirement that the character take an action to turn the power on). The idea is that, since Billy Batson must say the magic word "Shazam" to turn into Captain Marvel, all of Captain Marvel's powers actually have the Activation flaw. It makes sense and fits with the way Captain Marvel is presented in the comics, but it's not consistent with the way Captain Marvel's stats are presented in the back of the book. There, the requirement to say the magic word is presented as part of Cap's Secret Identity complication and a Power Loss complication that kicks in if Cap ever says the magic word and turns back to Billy Batson.
For the record, I think the way they handled Captain Marvel's powers in the back of the book is the correct way. However, this dual approach also highlights the fact that there's no real guidance about when to use an Alternate Form (heroic) power vs. when to make a transformation to heroic form a mere complication. I think I can figure out a pretty good guideline, but this issue might be really confusing to others.
Overall Impression
Despite the minor issues raised in the last section, I still like the system overall. The mechanics are flexible and consistent with the source material (though the power spread of the DC characters may have been compressed a little bit, especially at the upper end). My issues with consistency of presentation are only the difference between an A+ and an A-.
(Note: This entry uses a lot of tabletop gamer terminology and assumes the reader knows the meaning of these basic terms).
True20fication
The biggest change in the M&M 3e rules is the change from D&D-based ability scores to a system more like Green Ronin's other flagship system, True 20. While D&D sets 10 as the average human score in each ability and adds +1 to the die roll modifier for every two points over 10, True20 and M&M 3e/DC Adventures use the ability score itself as the die roll modifier. Thus, the average adult human has a score of 0 in all abilities and every increase in an ability score also increases the modifier. A character can also "sell down" an ability, taking a penalty of up to -5 to die rolls involving that ability in order to gain more points for other abilities (and in M&M/DCA for other character traits).
As much as I love and respect D&D and its place in RPG history (4e aside), I much prefer a system in which your ability score is your modifier. It simplifies things and makes point-based character creation much easier. A bonus with applying this system to a superhero game is that hardly any character will need to sell down an ability, making the system psychologically more palatable.
M&M has always valued all ability scores the same in their point-based character creation system. This has been problematic because, using the traditional six d20 abilities, Strength and Dexterity have always been the most useful abilities in a combat-oriented supers game (with Strength influencing melee damage and a host of other things, while Dexterity affected the accuracy and damage of ranged attacks and the Reflex save).
Green Ronin solved this problem in the new rules by dividing Strength and Dex into two abilities. The new Strength attribute only affects the hero's ability to lift things and perform other impressive feats; the melee attack bonuses now belong to a new ability called Fighting. Similarly, Dexterity now only affects ranged attacks, while the Reflex defense bonus goes to the newly-minted Agility. This change also solves a problem inherent in most d20-based systems: ranged fighters are inherently better than melee fighters because a high Dex improves a character both offensively and defensively.
Power Design
The new M&M/DCA super power design rules move more in the direction of traditional supers games like Champions, separating flavor and mechanics completely. The Powers chapter mostly lists a series of "effects" that characters can generate, while leaving it to the player to decide what the effect is called or looks like in game.
For example, one effect is called Damage. It allows a character to make a melee attack and force the target to make a Toughness check to avoid gaining an injury. It's up to the player to decide whether this damage happens because the hero's fist turns to stone or because the hero uses special kung fu moves or for some other exotic reason.
This approach to power design can be overwhelming to the novice player, who might not have any idea how effects translate into the kinds of iconic superpowers they see in comic books. Fortunately, the game provides many prefabricated powers as examples of how the process works.
Inconsistencies
The biggest problem with the book is the way that iconic characters are used inconsistently in examples vs. their stats. For example, Captain Marvel is used as an example of the Activation flaw (which lowers the cost of normally always-on powers in exchange for a requirement that the character take an action to turn the power on). The idea is that, since Billy Batson must say the magic word "Shazam" to turn into Captain Marvel, all of Captain Marvel's powers actually have the Activation flaw. It makes sense and fits with the way Captain Marvel is presented in the comics, but it's not consistent with the way Captain Marvel's stats are presented in the back of the book. There, the requirement to say the magic word is presented as part of Cap's Secret Identity complication and a Power Loss complication that kicks in if Cap ever says the magic word and turns back to Billy Batson.
For the record, I think the way they handled Captain Marvel's powers in the back of the book is the correct way. However, this dual approach also highlights the fact that there's no real guidance about when to use an Alternate Form (heroic) power vs. when to make a transformation to heroic form a mere complication. I think I can figure out a pretty good guideline, but this issue might be really confusing to others.
Overall Impression
Despite the minor issues raised in the last section, I still like the system overall. The mechanics are flexible and consistent with the source material (though the power spread of the DC characters may have been compressed a little bit, especially at the upper end). My issues with consistency of presentation are only the difference between an A+ and an A-.
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