Laughing Jack Wilton

I have been quite busy with servile work of an accountant working inbound and taking payments while I have finished my very first game.

Yes, I have submitted it to the Simian Circle game contest. It is an odd RPG/parlor game from beyond. Santa uses naughty children as betting chips. Did George not do an amazing cover?

I’ve decided to mostly take the summer off of the website, but the podcast is semi-regularly updating. I had a problem with my FTP uploader from back when my computer died that was fixed today. Huzzah.

I have recently taken a fancy to Dime Novels and Victorian plays. I have decided that my next project will be writing a series of Dime Novels. I’m in the research stage. I am quite excited. I plan for it to go about four novels, most likely five. Secret Service and The Steam Man are my favorite so far. In the same topic I have become engrossed in Steampunk. I am reading anthologies, essays, and novels galore in hopes that I will eventually tackle writing a short story or twenty. With that, I bid you good day.

Jack

Post Script. Does anyone know where I could find a good pair of goggles?

I have not been posting recently because of a wild job hunt and the adverse reaction to a needle to stop various strains of meningitis. However, I did suffer aches in my shoulders and a headache from this miraculous cure. It hurt to type.

Bungie Studios recently announced that they have signed a ten year contract with Activision. This is upsetting because Activision is currently suing and being counter sued by the old heads of one of their studios Infinity Ward. It has to do with unpaid royalties. Does this worry the fans of Bungie? Yes it does, however Bungie will still be its own private studio and all Activision will be doing is publishing Bungie’s next ten year action universe. It sounds pretty cool.

Stars. They create energy. Scientists have decided to build one to power Earth. It will be a very small star, but capturing its energy would be wonderful for humans. Think about this: most people believe that we are in a ‘global warming’ crisis. Sol, our sun, produces a significant amount of heat. If we were to capture the heat of a small star and were able to make more stars we would not need a sun. And since these stars are very small and not very dense, when it died, it would just shrink on itself. No super nova, no black hole. The next logical step would be to find some way to move Earth once we had the power to make our own stars. We would not need a solar system and could move to a safer place in the galaxy farther away from the galactic core. I guess we could take Venus and Mars with us, because we would be able to easily terraform them when we had the proper solar energy at our finger tips. The only issue is that the scientists think that they will be ready in 2012. Way to drop a bomb on the easily panicked masses of Earth. 2012 is not the end of the world. Neither is 2060 and I don’t care what Newton said. However, people think that it will be, which is terrible in ways that I do not care to imagine.

I am finishing Ωmega Carnival. I’ll post the art work here once I have moved farther along. My artist is the very talented George Cotronis. I’ve posted his blog in the roll.

-Wil

Robert Ebert is an infamous critic of movies, literature, or whatever else he fancies. Now he has taken a shot at video games. I assure you his opinion is valid, yet close minded, uneducated, and old fashion. He has never felt the gut wrenching loss of your horse in  Shadow of the Colossus or your dog in Fable II. How does one critique an entire art form when he has never experienced a wide range of its works? He has watched videos of video games. That is much like critiquing an entire movie from only watching the trailer. That would be insulting to the movie, the actors, and everyone who worked to create it.

The first point I would like to comment on is this: “One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome.” This, indeed is very true, and through this you work your way through the game. The single player experience in the traditional campaign or ’story’ mode is working your way through a series of objectives to reach an outcome. A novel works in this way as well. The reader must read through chapters to experience the work, and at the end of the novel, there is an outcome. Much like video games, novels have chapters, characters, a story, plot structure, a beginning and an ending which are all predetermined by the authors of the game. Objectives along the narrative of a game succors that the players know what they are supposed to do to continue the narrative forward. This is not an issue in a novel or movie, for it is not influenced personally by the audience.

Robert’s next monumental point is “Santiago might cite a immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them.” There are rules in art and those rules are imposed by the artist onto the work. Ebert’s own novel Behind the Phantom’s Mask has rules imposed upon it. These can be layout, but are deeper inside the vision of the work that directs were the work goes as a creative piece. Why is the protagonist bestowed with a Hollywood ending? Because Ebert wanted him to be. However, in a game, characters are controlled by the audience, so their must be boundaries and limits.
The idea of winning is for competitive multiplayer, much like sports. There is very little art in those sections, besides the visual, audio, and the imitation of the natural world. The experience shared in those environments are much more personal than those of watching a movie. Robert has never had the excitement of protecting a flag bearer from the assault of the enemy team. However, back to the artistic campaign, you win the single player campaign in the same way you win when you are done reading the last page of a book or shouting “I win!” when the credits roll after a movie has finished. It is a childish conception, as Robert would know.

Rob has not been presented a list of games to be compared to great works of art. My question is this: how do you compare the artistic integrity of Waiting For Godot to The Waste Land? They are different mediums. We have a new generation of video gamers, with critics and artists among them.

As Dave Cook said, “I propose that a game alone cannot be art. You do not place a game upon a mantle or in a picture frame to display as a static piece. It is an experience, a journey rich in narrative, grandiose orchestral scores, beautifully crafted worlds and visual art.” Then, can anything be art without the experience? No. There must be an experience for there to be art.

I am convinced by this quotation, “Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.” that we are one of three things: zombies, liches, or spirits refusing to leave our bodies while we still grip our controllers. Video Games are art. Robert cannot see it, but they are.
Somewhere, Durandal is laughing.

Era of the Fallen is a game in the works, and I shall digest is accordingly.

Era of the Fallen is another fantasy RPG that has to stand out from the rest. There are the standard races (elves, dwarves, halflings, humans, et cetra) in a fantasy world. It is not in the fluff that Era of the Fallen stands out, but in its crunch. A detailed rule system for combat that I was surprised to find with a simple almost diceless system. However, first I shall start with the all important layout.

Layout, for a playtester beta, is very well done. For starters this is the first playtest beta that has my name on the cover, but I would not get too excited for this in the final version. Both my name and the well done layout is immediately overlooked by players I show the game to by the amount of pages. 369 pages is a lot to read, or think about reading when you want to play a game. I’ll remind you that there is no art in the book to break up the text. Although, I do applaud the page count being a magic constant. The page count is manageable because of the detailed table of content that is split between chapters and sections. It is very easy to find were details would be defined in the manual. The contents is well organized, with a few exceptions. There is some problem with chapters beginning at the bottom of a page after the end of a previous chapter that could easily start its own page and split up the text. This goes for the sections as well. The proficiencies chapter should be earlier because of its use in the game and how games are generally organized. I like skills, feats, and like abilities before my combat. Most players are used to this layout. At the end of the manual is a quick summary of what the players need to know on short hand such as weapon stats, armour, and character advancement.

A really great note is the 60 page magic section, which is very well organized and includes a short history of magic for the game world. Magic in 60 pages in a fantasy setting is amazing. Endless lists of spells replaced with a well balanced build your own spell system and a short list of sample spells. Segue! Magic is based on a set system that ranks wizards on a scale of 1 to 5, even 6 if you are an extremely powerful being who oozes power. Easier sets have weaker spells and shorter recuperating times. Better sets have stronger spells and longer recuperating times. Spells are learnt by increasing your Spell skill. Once you advance your Spell skill to a certain point, you may learn spells of a higher set. Once you learn a higher set spell you instantly become a mage of that set. You could stay a 1st set wizard for ever. It would be a fun character to roleplay.

Character creation is simple. Roll 6d6, choose the best 4, and assign them to your four stats (Strength, Speed, Will, and Intelligence). There are a few secondary attributes like Endurance, but they are derived from the primary stats. There are two classes to choose from, Warrior and Wizard. Wizards cast magic, warriors do not. I’m quite happy with character generation. Now, what is odd that I only mentioned in passing was the lack of dice. There is a way to play this game as a diceless system, or a system that uses minimal dice (one use is Instant Death rolls for some spells). On page 4, “Dice are evil!”. They may be malevolent at times, but not evil.

I have tried to play Nobilis. Without proper instruction, things go south. The lack of dice does not slow down the system and the combat is surprisingly realistic. I am able to appreciate the work that was done to simulate actual combat. In the game I played, one character died, most characters were hit. The combat starts with choosing stances and attitudes which gives you bonuses to actions. The combat system uses dice. You roll a d20 and a dx, which depends on your total combat total, in addition to adding any modifiers or bonuses to your rolls. If you have a Combat Total of 30, you would roll a d20 and a d10. No dice are higher than the twenty, or lower than a d4. Both the attacker and defender roll their two dice and add the bonuses separately. If I want to attack and I have a d20 and a d10 with a +2 and roll a 14 and a 5, I would add 2 to each, giving me 16 and 7, with a margin of 9. The margin would be compared with the defender’s roll. This system effectively creates its own boundaries for your success on its own, which I think is really cool.

Higher wins, and the margin of success determines who wins. The combat system becomes more detailed and more specific and includes basic and advance maneuvers as well as specific combat styles. It is the largest section of the manual that I cannot paraphrase in my word count. I may do a separate article about it. The diceless section describes using the numbers as abstract values that help weave the story. From my personal experience, we began to incorporate the bare numbers without rolls and made more of a mechanic. I would like more time to be spent in the area of creating a diceless game that uses the stats of the characters instead of dice in an interesting way.

I enjoyed reading and playing the game, however this is not a pick up and play game that is popular nowadays. Like Artesia and other larger tomes it will take time to fully comprehend breadth of the options presented to you. It is not confusing, just expansive. If you would like a new game to learn and master with detailed combat and magic, then Era of the Fallen is for you.

-Wil

This is the beta that I have been reading from. Please visit http://www.eraofthefallen.com/ for more information.

I am drinking
I am drinking beer with yellow flowers
in underground sunlight
and you can see that I am a sensitive man
And I notice that the bartender is a sensitive man too
so I tell him about his beer
I tell him the beer he draws
is half fart and half horse piss
and all wonderful yellow flowers
But the bartender is not quite
so sensitive as I supposed he was
the way he looks at me now
and does not appreciate my exquisite analogy
Over in one corner two guys
are quietly making love
in the brief prelude to infinity
Opposite them a peculiar fight
enable the drinkers to lay aside
their comic books and watch with interest
as I watch with interest
A wiry little man slugs another guy
then tracks him bleeding into the toilet
and slugs him to the floor again
with ugly red flowers on the tile
three minutes later he roosters over
to the table where his drunk friend sits
with another friend and slugs both
of em ass-over-electric-kettle
so I have to walk around
on my way for a piss
Now I am a sensitive man
so I say to him mildly as hell
‘You shouldn’ta knocked over that good beer
with them beautiful flowers in it’
So he says to me ‘Come on’
so I Come On
like a rabbit with weak kidneys I guess
like a yellow streak charging
with flower power I suppose
& knock the shit outa him & sit on him
(he is just a little guy)
and say reprovingly
‘Violence will get nowhere this time chum
Now you take me
I am a sensitive man
and would you believe I write poems?’
But I could see the doubt in his upside down face
in fact in all the faces
‘What kinda poems?’
‘Flower poems’
‘So tell us a poem’
I got off the little guy but reluctantly
for he was comfortable
and told them this poem
They crowded around me with tears
in their eyes and I wrung my hands feeling
for my pockets for
it was a heart-warming moment for Literature
and moved by the demonstrable effect
of great Art and brotherhood of people I remarked
‘ – the poem oughta be worth some beer’
It was a mistake of terminology
for silence came
and it was brought home to me in the tavern
that poems will not really buy beer or flowers
or a goddam thing
and I was sad
for I am a sensitive man.

By Al Purdy

Check out more at Machine Age Productions. You know you want to.

March 26th-28th is Toronto’s Comic Con. I will be there on the Saturday and Sunday. If you are interested in saying a quick hi or to talk about alternative literature (comics, movies, video games, RPGs) I will happily indulge myself in conversation; I will be wearing a black fedora, black long coat, and a This Modern Death t-shirt. You may spot me at the Wild Hunt screening, Kick Ass screening, Anime screening, harping Microsoft for information about 343 Studios, and scouring the hall

Hope to see you there.

In other news, George Cotronis will be creating the cover art for my submission to Simian Circle’s Design Contest, Ωmega Carnival, and will be arting with me for my upcoming game only known as ‘Sons of Scaeva’ or ‘Jerusalem Horror’. This year looks promising, but I may need a real job, which is quite intolerable.

-Wil

The second game from Bedrock Games is Crime Network. Using the same system as Terror Network jolted with new mechanics and tweaked tighter. The characters are still made of skills as before, accept there are differences in points spent upon Primary Skills. It uses the same cap of six d10 for any one roll and keeps with the lethal and semi-heroic feel of game play.

The layout and art selection of Crime Network has improved greatly. There is a consistent banner that runs along the top of the pages of a dinner table just after a meal. This is inspiring for scenes, however it is a little large and takes up most of the top chunk of the page. It does help the eye move along the pages, but a thinner border will not distract from the game and become less repetitive.
I would have liked to see the Character Creation Overview and Character Sheet at the end of the Chapter so that the chapter is not split in half. It flows better and makes more sense for the descriptions to be described before the Overview is there. The side bars at the bottom of the page is an interesting take.
The art in the book is all in the same style and is very well placed. There is a picture of a family of criminals under the section on criminal families, and a picture of a man being punch in the stomach in the combat skills section.* The style of art captures the wild and hard gritty life of a criminal.

The Character Creation chapter has seen some new additions. The Family has become an integrated part of your character sheet. In character creation the players choose a Family to be a part of. The lack of character input for the Family from the rules may cause lack of investment if the GM does go ahead and create a bunch of Families without the players. After the Family there are Ranks. This outlines your position in the Family.
Respectability is the next big hitter in Character Creation. ‘If you loose your Respectability, you risk getting whacked.‘ sums it up fairly nicely. The reason I like this mechanic is that it follows the rules of skills, but it is exterior to them. Respectibility both shows your standing in your family and your influence over Connections of yours and your Family’s. This mechanic, since being outside the skill system, can go up or down depending on character actions. All players should know the consequences of their actions and should be forewarned about a loss of Respectability.
The coolest skill is Arson. I like that it was included as a skill, nothing more.
Shortcomings are a fairly common mechanic. The improvement over most games is that Shortcomings have a mechanical effect. If you pick the Greedy Shortcoming and do not role-play as a greedy person, there is still a chance that the character will still steal from his own. The addition of mechanical effects takes it.

There are additions in the main rules section. A character with the Assassination skill can whack an NPC (or PC) by informing the GM and planning on how they are going to assassinate their target. An Assassin vs Wits roll in then rolled. If the assassin wins, it was quick and quiet, if not combat begins. There may be retaliation if the identity of the assassin is known, or fake retaliation if the assassin is not known.

Like Terror Network, Crime Network has a lot of research and love put into it. The language used in the book is gangster language. The narrator uses whacked instead of killed. There is a chapter dedicated to information on the Mafia, the life of crime, and suggested viewing. The research done adds to the game.

The game personally gets me excited for a Crime Game and would run a mirror of Sons of Anarchy easily by changing Ranks and a few other Mafia styled terms.

-Wil

For more information about Crime Network, Terror Network, and upcoming games visit Bedrock Games.

Post Script. Sorry for the lack of GotW last week, my computer lapsed for no reason. Next week will be Brian Milliron’s Era of the Fallen.

*Rob Justice Style (See the BearSwarm! Podcast)

My computer died yesterday before I could fully compose my Game of the Week (Crime Network). I apologize. The hard disk has developed invalid nodes and it has been in the operating room for almost a day now. The doctors believe that it will be up and running in a day or two, but it will not remember anything of what it once was. I will have to learn to love my computer as I once loved it. Remember Sammy Jenkins.

-Wil

SPUC Update #14
2010 Constest: Ωmega Carnival is being typed. It Name is Lucky McHatchet’s Swords & Spades. I have found an artist. Success.
Crusaders: The Long Road has been tweaked and changed. I have I new idea about where I want the game to go.
Excuse: Essays, reports, and presentations.

I’ve cut down what I am working on. I will have one project ready to finish, and one to look forward to. I realized my old style of ‘throw everything together and work on what is fun’ was not working because of my short attention span. Besides that I’ve been busy, but I have received a grant from the university, so this summer I will have extra money to spend on ISBNs, artists, publishing, and the website, as long as I get jobs. Next year will be a good year. I’m hoping to start to freelance as well. The next Monday Review will be on Crime Network, Bedrock Game’s second RPG.

-Wil