lame mage productions

We’ve done a whole slew of Polaris setting hacks recently. Aztecs, Fall of the Roman Republic, 1920s Empire City cops and Battlestar Galactica (twice).

The key ingredients of a satisfying Polaris analog are pretty simple: 1) a grand society on the verge of collapse because of some doom it has brought upon itself (a Mistake-analog), and 2) some lucky order of individuals tasked with defending the sinking ship (a Knights-analog).

It’s critical the Mistaken (the antagonists that represent the seeds of destruction that will bring the whole thing down) can be anyone. Your brother, the king, your girlfriend from high school: they could be part of the problem. In stock Polaris, the Mistaken include demons that can possess or tempt (easy), and in BSG anyone can be a Cylon, but in other settings it’s been easier than we expected to single out issues or beliefs that work wonderfully. In the Roman Republic, the Mistake was a yearning for tyranny, betraying democracy. Anyone could start to feel that way. You’re in the middle of a chat with your girlfriend and she idly mentions how incompetent the Senate is and how one firm leader running things would be such an improvement… Doh!

For our latest Polaris setting hack, we decided to try out 1950′s America. The Mistake isn’t Communism (too easy), it’s self-righteous patriots trampling civil liberties to find The Enemy Within. McCarthyism, Un-American Activities witch-hunts, and all that post-911 stuff you hate so much.

Sweet. Anyone can succumb to The Fear and start thinking it’s their duty to rat out their neighbors, that freedom can only be protected by taking away freedom.

So who does that make our Knight analogs? Diligent FBI guys? Nope, that would only work if Communism really was the threat. Instead, our protagonists are that final line of defense against oppression:

Journalists.

It’s Polaris: Freedom of the Press.

I went to Game Storm last week and it was simply lovely.

I’d never been before, so I had no idea what to expect. You’ve got your big rah-rah-rah cons (GenCon, Pax), you’ve got your “playing among friends” cons (Go Play NW, I’m looking at you). Game Storm hit a sweet spot. A medium-sized event, but the story game folks has a cozy corner all to themselves (the fantastic Indie Hurricane) so we got the best of both worlds. Mix in a bunch of awesome gamers and good times ensue. Play some games, chat with some cool cats, drift down to the hotel bar and have a beer, sit by the fireplace, then repeat. So pleasant.

There was also a lot of Microscope love in the air, which I simply cannot object to. There were at least three games, but I was only in one. Technically I was in another one to start with, but we got so many other people that wanted in that we had to throw down with some gaming mitosis and split into two games. I’m still burning to know how the “secret societies steer the galactic empire” history turned out after I left…

next up: Fabricated Realities

“I start a campaign… a totally _fascist_ campaign.”
–brand new gamer, solving the problems of Mars

I love Mars Colony. It’s hands-down the best game I picked up at GenCon 2009. That’s not even considering that it’s technically only an ash can release, not the final version, which is coming out at GenCon this year.

The trick is that it’s not a game you would normally whip out and get your group to try, because it is for exactly two players, an entirely interesting and largely unexplored gaming niche (ask Ping). But I was determined to get more people to give it a try, and some of my fellow gamers were a) curious and b) tired of hearing me rant what a great game it was, so we bit the bullet and got a bunch of folks together — six as it turns out, but any even number works. I explained the rules and then we split into pairs and played.

Three simultaneous Mars Colony games, all in the same room at the same time.

The rules of Mars Colony, as written, are tremendously clear. Crystal clear. But this was me walking everyone through it verbally, explaining the concept and all the rules from scratch. The system isn’t complicated, but there are concrete mechanics that push the drama and must be understood for the game to work. Was I nervous? Was I braced for confusion and big disappointment? Oh yeah.

Keep in mind, one of our players had never gamed at all. One had played traditional games but no story games. Everyone else had a mix of game experience.

When you’re introducing people to a new game, you are usually in the game, so you can gauge how things are going, provide helpful hints if things are going off the rails, etc. In this case, not so much. I’m playing in my own game, but I’ve got one ear cocked to hear if the other players sound miserable, confused, or just plain bored.

So given all that, what was the verdict? The red planet is made of win, and the gamers in that room rocked. When you overhear brand new players launching fascist regimes an hour into their first roleplaying game ever… well that’s a success in my book.

After everyone hit their last progress scenes and were ready for the endgame, Susan (our fabulous hostess) had the bright idea of doing the epilogue sequences one group at a time, so the whole room could hear how Kelly Perkins had fared in her efforts to save the colony. We did quick summaries of what the different Kelly’s were like, what the issues confronting the colony were, and the roller coaster ride that ensued. There were some glorious victories and some bitter defeats. Some games had both.

Right when we were first setting up, one of the new players asked something along the lines of “could you really play this game more than once,” meaning, once you’d played out saving (or failing to save) the colony, would it be interesting to do it again? Just going by how different every game I’ve played has been so far, and by how extremely different the three games we had in that room were, I’d say the answer is an unreserved yes.

In addition to just being, y’know, super-fun, it was also a great test run of my plan to have a big group of people play parallel games of Mars Colony at Go Play NW. Lessons learned, refinements brewing.

* yeah, literally blew up, like with bombs. Nice one, Caroline.

With San Holo in mind, I’ve decided to offer The Chargen Circle in the last gaming slot of Go Play NW 2010.

The plan is to grab a bunch of random chargen systems, random being the salient part, and roll up characters. I’m thinking of systems like Classic Traveller, V&V, Reign, FASA Star Trek. I suspect people will make characters together which is more fun IMHO as one writes while the other researches and together you invent a story for the results, but whatever works.

Besides for the fun, I’m also doing this because I find myself pretty wiped out by Sunday night from three days straight of the most intense gaming. A certain amount of energy goes into running the show as an organizer, but I play nearly every slot from morning until night and half the time facilitate which takes even more energy. The Chargen Circle seemed like the perfect way to kick back, drink in hand, and close out the weekend before clean-up.

I know others will play ferociously until the end. I salute them from the bottom of my dice, and on Sunday I shall again while rolling apron colors for my Maids.

Great moments in Mouse Guard. The patrol is welcomed to Darkwater after an arduous journey. Tired mice are tired, and hungry mice are hungry.

Hearty meals are arranged by the happy hosts.

player: mimes picking up food with his paws and nibbling on it
city-mouse: “We have forks.”
player: “I have a high Nature.”

This has been a great moment in Mouse Guard.

Playing Shock with (nearly) total strangers. We’re doing it old-school, so we secretly pick issues and then brainstorm a Shock that fits, instead of the wussy Shock-first approach. We choose overpopulation, cultural extinction and plagiarism, and decide on a dystopian future where ideological groups struggle for dominance in society.

The Shock we come up with is a technique to implant value systems (culture, beliefs, ideology) in people. It’s extremely widespread, so most people in society have been indoctrinated with the value implant of their faction, known as a Root. People who don’t have one, or whose Root has started to fray are derisively called Weeds.

I’m loving it already, but then we add one more juicy bit: you can’t just make up the value templates, you have to copy them from people who have those beliefs (like we said, plagiarism). And when you do copy it, you brain damage the source. So if you want to make a thriving tribe of Communists, you first have to lobotomize Chairman Mao. Way to honor your leaders.

So part way along, one of the nicer characters is trying to unite all the warring factions (that’s her story goal: end the divide and unite all the value systems), and she’s trying to bond with her estranged brother who now leads one of the gangs with a different Root than hers. He lets his guard down after a tender moment and, wham!, she backstabs him with a new implant, wiping his value system and overwriting it with her own.

The rest of us are like, wow, you’d brainwash your own brother, that’s cold, and the player looks up calmly and says “Now he’s my real brother.” Snap!

many more details in the excellent Roots & Weeds game summary Susan wrote up

Panning for gold in the used bin at Gary’s Games, we found a tattered copy of Traveller Book 1 1977 for $2. I had always been curious about “classic” Traveller, especially since I had heard characters can die during creation. So, we whipped up a bunch characters and here are the final results: 5 of our 9 characters survived the service and mustered out to PC-dom leaving the other 4 dead in character creation. Of the 5 survivors, 4 were one tour wonders, not making their re-enlistment roll.

Of the dead, the most tragic was San Holo, the space rogue who wanted nothing more from life than to have his own ship. Enlisting in the Scouts as a pilot, he turned into a serious renaissance man (Jack of all Trades-4). After his 4th tour, he started to feel the effects of old age, but decided to re-enlist just one more time. Oh, San Holo, 5th time’s not the charm. You should have listened to your creaking bones and quit while you were ahead and gotten your ship. DEAD.

The most successful character was JTK, Captain Janelle T. Kinser, Queen of Space. Gifted and an ambitious social and professional climber who survived five tours in the Navy and mustered out with some serious skillz (Int-B, Edu-F, Soc-F). A highly trained physician (Medical-4) but with some serious military experience to boot, she retired with a nice little pension to rule the universe.

Basically, it felt like we were creating real characters, not ones that just popped straight out of Zeus’ head fully-formed and god-like.

We just launched the new Go Play NW web site, and it does look pretty nice if I do say so myself.

Go Play NW is about as dense as fun gets. Last year I played Microscope with a ton of people (which was awesome) and got to try my first jeepform game.

The only downside is that it only happens once a year (except in 2008, when we were so excited we got together for a reunion con a few weeks later). So, y’know, one more reason why it would be unwise to miss it.