Spione

I didn't realize Spione was even out, but Emily's review of it here makes me realize I will want to buy it. I was not much of a spy geek but the first edition of Top Secret fascinated my twelve-year-old self, with its glossary of espionage terms and agencies and stuff. It sounds like Spione has that kind of loving attention to historical and realistic detail, in a new generation of game. The cold war is generally remembered by kids today only in partisan and caricatured terms, but it was important. I might well enjoy a game about it.

When I think about the Cold War I always think about the musical "Chess."

Devils Rising From The Dust

Go Matt Snyder!

The new edition of Dust Devils includes 70 pages with new artwork, completely revised and re-written rules, and much additional content. (File size is 8.5 MB)

Dust Devils Revenged also includes three alternate setting supplements. Deathwish is espionage and covert action. RONIN (by Jason Blair) captures the samurai drama of feudal Japan. And, Concrete Angels (by Jared Sorensen) is a grim and gritty neo-noir crime romp.

Apparently John Harper Is Diversifying Into Restaurants

Thinkin' Sorcerer (Mystic Blood II: Demon Blood of the Sorcerer!)

I feel kinda silly being into hippie games and never playing the grandaddy, Sorcerer. I've wanted to run it for a while but to run it you have to make it your own first, and I haven't every done that in a way I like.

I really want to run or play Sorcerer and Sword -- but it feels wrong to me to try and run the heavily modded supplement without having run or played the pristine item. Joe thinks this is silly and I should just run Sword, but there you go.

So I've come up with something that's kind of hooked me into it a bit. I was thinking of trying to do something kinda like NightLife, Vampire, or NightSpawnBane, some "contemporary horror but the players are the monsters" game, but with Sorcerer.

In such a game, you do not become a vampire by getting bitten and just waking up vampy. You become a vampire by allowing the vampire blood -- a parasite demon -- into your body and bonding with it, agreeing to feed its need (for you to drink human blood). Likewise, with a werewolf -- but with wolf blood. I can also see there being "vampire rings" or whatever, an object demon which gives you the powers of dark blood, if a player preferred that. A "monster" is a character who is possessed, or in the case of player characters, voluntarily inhabited, by a particular kind of demon.

I don't think you even need to tweak the base rules to do that. Vampires would have (conferred by their blood demon) Special Damage (fangs), Boost Stamina, Cloak, probably Vitality... Add-ons could be Travel (flight) perhaps conditioned on a Shapeshift to bat form, Perception (night vision), Boost Will, Armor, Command (bats, rats?), Daze or Confuse, Fast... All of the above would be a bad-ass, Drac-level vamp, and the demon would be a force to be reckoned with on a global scale. Maybe if you wanted to go really nuts you could add in some kind of Spawn/Possessor deal which spawns possessors, to reflect the ability to create slave vampires, who knows. A "starter" vamp could just have the first few powers from the list.

A werewolf demon would have Boost (stamina), Special Damage (lethal -- fangs and claws), Perception (animal senses), Vitality, and Fast, some or all of which would be conditional on a Shapeshift to wolf form. Need would be to kill a living thing while in animal form.

I'm thinking maybe an Immortal demon -- something which made its user ageless, like the Highlander or the Comte de Saint-Germain. Such characters were part of a game Joe and I worked on on and off for years, called Mystic Blood, which was kind of a spinoff from the old Magus game that Jim Z began back in, what, the summer of 1988 I think.

For the base immortality you'd have Vitality, then... I don't know. If the demon itself carried ancient wisdom, maybe an abstruse Cover or three and a Boost Lore? I guess such a demon's powers could be tailored according to the players' whim. I don't know what its Need would be. Perhaps competition (if you make it martial competition you're starting to move into Highlander territory) or domination (Illuminati-type scheming)? The trouble with this kind of character though is if I remember correctly (I'll have to check), you're supposed to start off having newly bound your first demon, and that doesn't work well with centuries-old characters. Dunno. We'll see about that one.

Oh yeah... and Mystic Blood also followed Monsters! Monsters! by Ken St Andre in ripping off Roger Zelazny's Jack of Shadows to create the "Shadowjack" as a race. A Shadowjack demon might have Perception (hear anything said in a shadow while you're in a connecting shadow), Cloak (disappear into the shadows), Vitality, and such stuff. It'd be fun to include those as an option as well, in this "Mystic Blood II: Demon Blood of Sorcerer" idea.

Anyway, I'm writing this stuff down mostly to throw it open to the folks who are kind enough to read my blog and who might have played or run sorcerer, for advice on what else I need to figure out before I'm ready to run with this, and how workable the stuff I've got so far sounds.

Junonian Endgame -- Part 1

Junonian Endgame

I took notes, but this game sticks in my mind.

For reference:

• The last game, which I missed
• The Venerean Gambit, previous Max game (Jim/Cyrus's writeup )
• The Jovian Candidate -- original Max game

We left Maxwell having lost his would-be captor Ivy in a hospital on Venus. As the story begins, he has given up on her and decided to track down the origin of the Aegis agents he slew in the previous game. (Remarkably, Maxwell does not murder anyone in this game.) He goes to the beach where they fought and manages to find a tooth from one of them. Perhaps it has a little Jupiter symbol etched on it...

Anyway, he turns into his signature dark eagle form, grabs the tooth, and uses it as a psychometric homing device to find his way back to the Aegis unit's ship -- a big nautiloid (Randy had brought a sheaf of Spelljammer ship illustrations, including the nautiloid ), for visual reference.

He approaches the ship -- one light is on in one window. He flies up and alights on the window, and looks inside.

It's Ivy. She's going through the ship's papers, apparently trying to find out the same sorts of things Max wants to find out about.

He watches through the window as she appears to find nothing and heads out of the ship. As she walks back out on the beach, Max the eagle lands on her shoulder. She starts and he flaps to the ground and becomes himself. He hits her with a barrage of questions about what she knows about him and the people who brainwashed him. She says, "that's a lot of questions." He replies, "that's all I've got."

(Game system note: he was down to one single four point muse: "find the people who brainwashed him" or words to that effect. So this conversation was inspired by game system considerations.)

She takes him to a Turkish-ish coffeehouse. Sit on the floor on rugs, eat turkish delight with your coffee, hookah available on request. They talk, and he finds a lot out.

Her name, Ivy, is not a coincidence apparently; she's a Bacchante, a member of the secret society led by Dionysus. Specifically a Maenad, one of their leaders -- the Maenads are largely Archons. (Ivy adorned the Thyrsus, of course.)

Dionysus, as a son of Zeus, lived on Jupiter for some time. But with the ascendancy of Hera, he was driven out. (Hera has no use for her husband's bastards.) He now moves from place to place, spending a lot of time on Earth. The Bacchantes are minor but powerful players in the espionage and war games of the gods, holding special emnity for Hera and her Junonians.

Her Junonians? Hera drove Dionysus from Jupiter? None of this was familiar to Max, despite having the memories of an ordinary Jovian citizen. I guess Max never read the Jovian equivalent of Noam Chomsky. Pretty much watched the Jovian Fox News, if you will. Party line.

Anyway, they're interested in him as a probable pawn of, you guessed it, Hera. An angry pawn, and therefore a possible ally.

But why would Hera scheme to have him kill a major Aegis official, an act so offensive to her husband it required a brainwashed Archon as a sleeper agent assassin?

Well... She does hate her husband's bastards. Among them, Heracles. Who's still on Jupiter, enjoying great rank, power, and privilege as the head of the Aegis. She can't kill him (Jove knows she's tried..), but maybe she could assassinate a favorite?

If that were the case, these Aegis agents would have been straightforwardly pursuing him as a murderer, perhaps suspecting some intrigue but surely knowing nothing of its extent or origin.

And the Junonians would be off in the wings, smiling quietly to themselves.

That was the end of my first play segment -- no conflicts yet! But it's enough to post in one bite.

Pointer to the 20x20 room

If for some weird reason you're reading this blog and not the 20x20 room, check this out. Good entry with lots of interesting comments about race in RPGs -- in Shadowrun, to start with.

Road Movie to Hades

Another Nine Worlds game last night. Sadly, Ed was unable to make it. Here are some of the things that happened:

- Scopas (James) needed to find a way into Hades proper. He ran into Kester, the Thanatoi that had been on the Eclipse, and the two went to a pub in the Ninth Gate. He wanted Kester to help him get into Hades and find out what happened to the souls of his friends and decided to be upfront about it. Kester is moved by his story (and a few bottles of liquor) and agreed to take Scopas into the Underworld.

- Cohen (Randy) got to thinking while waiting for Scopas to return to the ship. The cyclopes, who created the original telluric weapons, were killed by Apollo's Archer agents. When things die, their souls go to Hades. He was sitting just outside the gates of Hades. Math was done, and he headed towards the Gate. He made his way past the guards and their cerberus dogs and found himself in Hades.

- Cyrus (Jim) under the guise of being an Aegis agent, infiltrated the Daedalian base with the intention of smuggling Milo Icarius out. Things were going good until the base commander got suspicious and wired back to Aegis HQ and found out Cyrus was not who he claimed to be. Cyrus kicked into "Matrix" mode, pulled out a few sub-machine guns and blasted his way out, Milo in tow. Something tells me that Max, Ed's character, is no longer number one on the "Aegis Most Wanted" list.

- Kester took Scopas to the Hall of Records in Hades, where he found out what had happened to the shades of his friends. Sahak had been sent to the Elysium Fields, but his wife, Anastasia, who had committed suicide after the death of Sahak, was slated to go to Tartarus. Scopas asked Kester to help him again, to find Anastasia, but Kester would only do it if Scopas agreed to help him get Cohen... Kester held Cohen responsible for his being beaten and interrogated by the Atlanteans, and nearly losing the soul he had been transporting. Scopas swore to help him. They found Anastasia just as guards were coming to take her away to the Black Pit. Scopas told her that he had destroyed the Kraken that had killed Sahak, and that she need to have hope, and tried to instill her with that hope. She glowed with a light never before seen in Hades. The guards told Scopos that it had been foreseen that he would come, and that he had tipped the scales for Anastasia. She would be reunited with her husband. They led her away to go to Paradise.

- Cohen made his way into the Hall of Records, into a secure area, and found out the fates of the cyclopes. Arges and Brontes were locked away in Tartarus, but Steropes was NOT in Hades. Cohen dug more and found that the cyclopes had been sent out of the Underworld by Hades himself, escorted by Briareus the hecatonchire. They had been sent to Earth. Curious. Cohen left the Hall, wondering how he was going to get out of Hades, when he ran into Kester and Scopas, who tried to capture him. Scopas, though, did not really try to the best of his ability. In fact he wanted to make it look like he was doing his best to incapacitate Cohen, while letting him escape. Kester saw through this ruse and tried to take both Archons into custody, angered by Scopas' betrayal. During the conflict, he used Chaos points to damage both of their primary virtues, then later, Stasis to lock them down. Things were looking grim until Scopas trumped in on the conflict and won, allowing both he and Cohen to escape.

- Cyrus and Milo made it back the the Benjamin Franklin and took to the air, just as a group of Aegis aetherships closed in on them. With some fancy flying and simple outclassing, Cyrus blasted out of Jupiter's atmosphere and into the aether, leaving the Aegis ships in the dust. He and Milo discussed what to do next, and Cyrus suggested that Milo go into hiding on Earth. Milo thought it was a good idea.

So, we have a convergence on Earth. What the hell is Steropes doing there for Hades? You can be sure that Kester is going to be gunning for Cohen and Scopas. Now Aegis is after half the players. Could it get any better?

SFWA has had it with WotC

Check this out: SFWA creates grievance committee "WOTC Desk">

Via Uncle Bear with a few words of his own.

Yikes.

somehow I missed this before

Vincent's post with two links (for different browsers) to the Dogs in the Vineyard flash animation.

Awesome.

The Forge Vision

Awesome post by Ron on the Forge Vision, and why there will never be a Forge brand applied to games.

This bit --

It's hard enough as it is for me to preserve my focus on that vision I'm talking about. As far as I'm concerned, the Forge is actually a bit in the red in that regard, relative to its first couple years of existence. Clinton and I do have work to do with what the Forge "is," culturally. We've discussed it. It doesn't prioritize actively building the cultural brand into an institutional one to benefit established companies further. That work has to turn more grass-roots, more punky, and more toward those folks like Doug Bolden, James V. West, Jeff Diamond, and others, as they were back then. (I name these guys because the Forge ultimately failed them, unforgivably on my part, which I see as a far greater indictment of it than Vincent Baker's success is a vindication. Clinton has his own list of casualties. We remember them even if others don't.)

made me wonder: in what way did the Forge fail James V West? (I mention him over Jeff and Doug because I'm more familiar with his work.) He certainly hasn't been making any more games after Questing Beast, I guess... I'm really curious what Ron was thinking there.

And this bit, which followed immediately --

That's why the First Thoughts forum is key. I wish more of you guys would spend time there, and use your pride and success in getting your companies off the ground as a fuel for outreach to these guys as they appear or are invited ... and rediscover the chance to learn from them. 'Cause that's where the great ideas really are, out among the wacky little guys who think they're alone in the brush. Not in the modern blogspace and not in the (thank th'Lord defunct) theory forums.

That made me all kinds of happy.

Nine Worlds: The Venerean Gambit

Just a few quick notes about the game.

This is my second game of Nine Worlds -- the first one was almost two years ago!.

I was originally going to make a new character, but Joe had a copy of Max, including a printout of the writeup linked above, and I was tempted into picking him up again. Which I'm glad I did.

The game had four players -- James and Randy had played before, quite recently, and Jim was new to the game. Being selfish, I'm just going to report my character's part of the game. They all have computers and can write up their own (like Jim did). James ("Scopas") and Randy ("Cohen") had their characters knowing each other, and mostly at the same places at the same time. Jim ("Cyrus") and I ("Max") didn't happen to meet any other PCs during the course of the game, though we often came across the effects of each other's play. For example, Scopas and Cohen travelled to Jupiter and were handed an illustrated "Ten Most Wanted" list, with Max's clueless mug in #1 position. (His character concept, as listed on the sheet in my two year old handwriting, was "Patsy".)

Max was on Venus, and was expected to be debriefed by the Graces about the whole thing. ("Debriefed by the Graces" sounds like a fun way to spend an evening, but.... ) Max wasn't interested in being in the hands, however dainty and skilled, of another planetary faction. He escaped and decided to use his Archon powers to build up a nice little war chest to let him comfortably continue his investigations.

Segue to a private, high-stakes card game (poker or some equivalent) to which a few days of excellent winnings had won him entry.

His main rival in the game was a hooded and cloaked woman named Ivy. Conflict -- the card game, of course. Max won the first round and narrated the following: Some of the hairs at the back of his head started lengthening, then burrowed into his collar and slid down his body underneath his clothes. They snaked across the table, unnoticed, and slid up Ivy's cloak, skirt, and blouse, up her back, to the back of her head (concealed behind her hood). There they inflicted sudden zaps of fear, confusion, and forgetfulness, which, while they didn't last for long, confused her enough for him to win.

He got some points and made a quick Muse out of them -- the Muse was to use this poker game to establish himself as a cool high-roller on Venus.

(It occurs to me now that if I'd wanted to, I could have just said that Max Hubrissed himself up a big bag of money. But what would be the fun in that?...)

Anyway, I let the conflict continue, and in the ensuing rounds was able to use Metamorphosis to steal some points from her Power for my Hubris (leaving me at 10 Hubris! Yowza!) and then the round after that I was able to stasis both of those changes in place with locks. She was down three points, I was up three, victory was in my grasp.

Then she and I tied and she pulled the high card to break it. She handed my ass to me on a silver platter, with a side orders of Extreme Fajitas.

My muse was resolved as a failure.

Maxwell went on a feel-good drinking binge, reducing him to a hollow, sweaty, stinking shell of a man, over the next 24 or 48 hours (he didn't remember). He was walking aimlessly down one of the zillion miles of Venus's beaches -- a beach full, unaccountably, of nasty fog and drizzly rain, when he ran into-- Ivy.

Ivy embraced him and started kissing him deeply, which can't have been much fun for her because he was a disgusting piece of humanity at that point. Soon she had him on the ground, and then -- wait, something wasn't right here -- legs hobbled and hands tied behind his back with a tight cord? Was Ivy that kinky, or -- no, he saw in her smile that he was in big trouble. His brain's Fear Lobe reacted, and he began a Hubris-ful conflict, to get out of her what she knew, who she was working for.

First, all the alcohol disappeared out of his system instantly. He was utterly sober, strong, and with it in seconds. Then he rose up in the sky about 100 feet, and one of his arms became a black tentacle winding around Ivy. He had a pointed conversation with her, and got her to start to spill her guts (he having threatened to spill her guts for her), when I undercut my own victory and narrated the squad of Aegis agents which was following Max into showing up at that second, and unleashing a hail of some kind of gunfire from the ground. Max's current state put him beyond vulnerability to bullets, but they did hit her fairly bad -- she needed medical attention very soon.

New conflict -- and a chance to resolve a muse about these dudes.

This was a very long conflict, but fun. What happened was that Max killed agents each round while he (with his super pumped Hubris of 10, locked in) won round after round of conflict and whittled down their Power. It was, "play cards, narrate agents' horrible supernatural deaths, repeat." I slew some with black lightning, I buried some of them 50 feet down in the beach sand; I created an unkindness of demonic ravens which tore some apart like pirhanas; and the last one, I just faced him, locked eyes, and he died of a heart attack. Oh, the killing killing killing. Taste the power of my Hubris!

At that point he took Ivy and checked her into the local hospital. Where she disappeared. She was triaged and taken into the emergency room, but when Max tried to follow through the door, she was gone. Everyone there denied they had seen her, and her paperwork, which he had just filled out as best he could and handed it to a nurse, had vanished. It was as if she had never been.

And that was the game. It doesn't sound like a ton happened, but this was 1/4 of a game. And it was really fun watching it play out.

The rules, which had been a bit much for me before (2 years ago), seemed easy and cool. I think that a big part of it was watching Randy and James do their stuff with the rules, and absorbing how it all worked from their example. Joe (GMing) introduced "bidding for Trump" halfway through the game, after everyone had had a conflict or two, and that was easily absorbed as well. Joe had the rules down _pat_, and that helped a lot. I would almost feel confident running a game of it, despite not having actually read the rules.

that's all I have the brainpower for writing right now. Hit me with any questions.

Review of the game as it exists/was played last night? Suh-weet. Would play more, wouldn't really mind running it if I got a chance to read more of the rulebook first.

Moorcock Down on Chaosium?

So it would seem, according to this post (via Uncle Bear:

They have done little to honour the spirit of an agreement which essentially was made many years ago before RPG was big business. Around the same time I was asked by D&D if they could also use my characters and concepts and, as with Chaosium, I said 'sure'. It was as simple as that. The next thing I know is that Chaosium is threatening to sue D&D, who backed off (which is why the Elric mythos is only in the first D&D book).

Now that's a version of events I hadn't heard before.