Differences

Just a short post about a random thought I had after class, yesterday. Pardon the ramble. I'm trying to understand something, here.

As I peruse my Google+ feed, I am struck, quite often, by how differently the people in my circles pursue gaming than how I do. Part of what I find remarkable is that there are a lot of games that just don't grab my interests in the ways they seem to interest others. For some folks, it seems like the best part of gaming is having a deep and complex character, and a system that allows for exploration of that character's identity, relationships other PCs and NPCs, and the like. Some players like to have a lot of narrative control, and enjoy games that allow shared responsibility for how the game narrative unfolds. They really dig working with (not against) the referee, or having no referee at all. Some people enjoy things like LARPing. Some dig card-based deck-building games. Some are boardgame fanatics. The list goes on. Sometimes it's differences in mechanics and sometimes in setting. Sometimes it's about the rewards they get, and how they are received. In short, there are a lot of people who really have a great time with things that I don't really find particularly interesting. That is their Awesome.

There was a time when I might have thought of those differences as reasons to hate or mock those people, or to despise those games and the people who play them. I'm long past that point in my life. I'm glad that people enjoy their games, and I'm happy they've found friends and companions to join them on their journey in life. I watch them from a distance, with abstracted joy for their happiness, but no real connection to it. I revel (intellectually) in the fact of its existence, but care little for the substance, and remain disengaged from their lives and pursuits. I have my own things, and I like them, because they are my Awesome. The existence of these differences, though, causes me to question why I like what I do.

Even with people I game with and am close to, this is a thing. I care little, anymore, for much of the Warhammer ethos. It bores me. I could list a bunch of things I don't really care about, but the only real reason I have for not digging it is that it doesn't have the Awesome, anymore, that speaks to my inner being. Likewise, I am weary of weirdness for the sake of weirdness. I understand that it's easy to get bored for the same old tropes and stories, and to want to push the envelope into new territory. I get that. Nonetheless, it seems more reactionary than revolutionary when the result seems more a commentary on standard fantasy tropes than a departure from them. I'm sure others could look at what I like, and suggest why they don't like it. That's cool. That's right.

Me? I'm pretty boring, I think. My approach to gaming is probably pretty unremarkable, because I'm not bored with old mechanics (though I like to play with new variations on them). I don't mind the old GM-driven RPGs, and am not particularly interested in a lot of the things that newer styles of games pursue. FATE, for example, seems like too much work. I don't care for it, though I understand how others could like it, and I appreciate how it does what it does. I saw someone trashing on steampunk the other day, and I could see where he was coming from, but I hate the idea of doing that instead of, for example, simply driving on by without honking if you don't like it. Nobody cares what you hate, and particularly the people who like that thing. It just seems like picking a fight with some kid you don't know, just to be a dick. I'm not interested in being like that, not anymore.

Here's where I think I may depart from some people. I like the grand scope, the epic tale. I like to see what the same-old-same-old looks like if you take it seriously. Not grimly. Not weirdly. Seriously. I don't mind standard fantasy, but I'd like it to be more... real. More human. I want conflict. I want characters and peoples with motivations that are complex and contradictory. I want war. I want death. I want to kill things and take their stuff, but I also want hope, and life, and to build things worth having. I want every adventure to have an impact on the world, however small. I want my characters to be invested in things, not simply viewing them with ironic detachment, or treating them as disposable. My vision of the Awesome is beautiful and flawed, always in the process of becoming, always breaking and falling into ruin. Death in this world is permanent, and irrevocable, but the world itself goes on and on, and life persists. There is always hope for tomorrow to be better, even if it probably won't be.

How I'd like to get there, though, is not to have my character figured out from the start. I want to be surprised. I want events to define my character. This is true, also, of my world, as GM. I want the divine randomness of the dice to drive those events. At the same time, I'd like to have a world that, even if I don't know everything about it, has a human(ish) logic. The NPCs and factions have their reasons, and pursue their own interests, even if they seem irrational from the outside. Shit happens as a result of those NPCs and factions bumping up against each other (and the PCs). I like (as a GM) to see the ripples of cause and effect spreading out from what (if static) would be really elegant and simple statements of places, and statuses, and motivations (e.g., standard tropes and narratives). But they are not static. The cause and effect becomes chaos and new orders, and the PCs find themselves trying to impose their feeble wills on things they cannot control, though sometimes they are able, for a while, to find a place of peace and security, and to feel a sense of accomplishment. More than anything, I want to play in a game where what happens, matters. Here's the difference though: It matters because that's how things ended up, where they are now, temporarily, and just not how it all was conceived from the start.

Example: In a class I teach, we are using a fantasy/colonial simulation as the basis of an advanced public speaking course. The students are colonial leaders split into three factions, and have recently been approached by a tribe who wishes their alliance against a hated foe. They investigated the situation. Yesterday, as I stepped to the lectern, I needed a story. So I told them this, making it up as I went.

The tribe to the south lives in an area of foothills and mountains. Though they farm, they are mainly herders. Recent droughts have made them desperate, and their numbers are dwindling (but still formidable). They have a priest-king, and worship death. There is a lot of iconography featuring ravens. They put their dead on exposure platforms, because they believe that otherwise they would become skin-walkers. They believe that the purpose of life is a glorious death, and part of their worship is in killing and conquering. They wish to annihilate utterly their foes to the north. They also believe the colonists are prophesied to make that possible, and desire an alliance to make war on their enemies to the north. [Note: the colony lies between the southern and northern tribe]

The tribe to the north are farmers and fishers. They worship the sun. Their society is peaceful and fecund. They engage in human sacrifice. The sacrifices are chosen through an elaborate set of activities including games, merit calculations, quotas, and other things. The colonists find them all but indecipherable and utterly alien. They believe that their task is to preserve the natural cycle, and that the tribe to the south (which they associate with the sun's foe, the moon) is part of that cycle. They recognize that the rain is sent by the witchcraft of the moon-tribe to blot out the sun. However, the rain also allows for the sun to bring new life to the land, so it is both necessary and desirable that their enemies be allowed to persist. They will only fight a defensive war, and will not ally to take on the southern tribe.

Caught in the middle, the colonists have the choice either to pick a tribe, or to stay out of the conflict. Any choice they make will have consequences, and those will have further consequences. I have no idea what will happen, but I will be sure that  the consequences remain consistent with the beliefs and motivations of those involves. New facets of each tribe will emerge in the unfolding of the story, usually logically but sometimes in ways that create new tensions.

I have no idea what will happen next. The class factions will have a series of debates and then they will vote to pursue some course of action. I don't care who wins. I don't care who loses. The world will go on. The choices they make, the choices I make, and the choices ordained by their choices, and the dice, and they all will combine to tell us what happens.

Note: The outcome will also influence what happens in my Lacuna Locurae campaign setting, which is maybe 100 years in the future of the classroom-based scenario/simulation.

My love of this dynamic of randomness and order, and waiting to see what happens next, is why I don't think I could ever abandon the use of dice in gaming. It's also why I LOVE the DCC funnel conception (rather than the more recent "character-concept" or "character-build" conception) of character generation. I don't want special characters. I want special stories and special worlds to help me find characters worth knowing. This is part of the reason I'm so fascinated with +Adam Muszkiewicz's recent brushes with emergent character generation. +Doug Kovacs also does this to some extent. It's also why I think I've grown away from setting that assume happy (or grim) endings as inevitable, and that good and evil (or law and chaos) are somehow mutually exclusive, or easy to differentiate. It's also why I don't feel fettered by resort to standard fantasy (or sci-fi, or horror, or... whatever) tropes and situations. They are only starting points, and they are Made to Be Broken.

Poison Idea--Made to Be Broken

What I like in my games is not what everyone else wants, and I'm cool with that (as if it matters what I think about somebody else's fun). I just want it to be Awesome. Individual results may vary. 

Alternative Zero-level Character Generator for DCC: Updated and updated again

I have updated the Alternative Zero-level Character Generator. I had a chance, last night, to test it out with the Metal Gods crew (Adam, Gabriel, Jason, Phil, and Wayne), and we discovered that it needed a bit of tweaking and just a little more explanation of some parts of the process. This is the result.

To begin character generation:

• Start with by rolling your character attributes, using 3d6, in order.
• Your starting age is 13.
• You may be of either sex.
• Roll on the Occupation Table of your choice, or use Purple Sorcerer's excellent character generator. This roll represents your parent's (mother's or father's) profession.

 After that, you're going to go through a process of determining what has happened so far in your life, before you decided to become an adventurer. Much of this material is left to your discretion. It's there to give you some ideas about what you might have been or might have done in your life, going beyond the notion of "occupation" and getting into "biography." The idea here is that you are shaped by your past, and not merely by whatever single occupation you might have pursued before becoming an adventurer.

Along the way, you will have a change to change your attributes (by rolling for them according to the circumstances you encounter). Sometimes the results might seem counter-intuitive. For example, you might find that your character has had formal schooling, but the resulting roll against the Intelligence attribute gives you a negative modifier. How can going to school make you dumber? Think about it: How many young people go off to college only to spend their first year (or more) carousing and more or less going crazy once they are out of their parents' supervision? As a professor myself, I can only say that the answer is "not a few." It's your job as a player to determine what the results of your rolls actually mean, as they are not elaborated in the tables. They are intentionally left vague so that you have that ability.

Here is the table you'll use later, when you are told to make a roll against one or more attributes. Roll 1d7-4 for swingy rolls) or 3d6 (for stronger central tendency) each time you are asked to make a roll. The resulting modifiers should be added or subtracted from your relevant current attribute scores. None of your attributes can go below 3 or above 18. Ignore any rolls that would achieve either of those results.

Modifiers for 3d6 Roll
3 (-3)

4-5 (-2)

6-8 (-1)

9-12 (+0)

13-15 (+1)

16-17 (+2)

18 (+3)

You will roll on the following tables, using the results as inspiration for your life's story prior to becoming an adventurer. Note that some results will ask you to enter the zero-level funnel or become an adventurer. This means that your character generation process is complete:

First, you should determine your origins. From what sort of place do you come?

Where are you from? (d16)

1-5 A farm

6-8 A village

9-10 A town

11-12 A city

13-14 A wilderness area

15 A war zone

16 Nomadic (land or sea)

Then, figure out what shaped your early development.

What did you do for the first part of your life? (roll a d24)

1-8 Just like Mom/Dad: You carry on the family tradition, following in the footsteps of your mother/father. Keep your original occupation and roll once against each attribute. Hereafter, ignore any result that makes you change your occupation. Add 1d10 years to your age.

9-10 A soldier shall ye be: You are press-ganged by a high noble for a war. Change your occupation to "person-at-arms." Make rolls against Strength, Agility, Stamina. Add 1d5 years to your age.

11-12 Runaway: You run away from your home to pursue a personal ambition (pick an occupation associated with that ambition). Make rolls against Stamina, Personality, and Luck. Add 1d5 years to your age.

13-14 Black Sheep: You are driven in shame from your home because of something terrible that you did (or are reputed to have done). Make rolls against Stamina and Intelligence. Add 1d5 years to your age.

15-16 Fall in with a Bad Crowd: You become a juvenile delinquent. Choose an appropriate occupation (e.g., Urchin, Pickpocket, Burglar). Make rolls against Agility and Luck. Add 1d5 years to your age.

17-18 Student: You receive formal schooling. Make rolls against Intelligence and Luck. Add 1d5 years to your age.

19-20 Acolyte: You get religion, becoming an acolyte in a temple. Make rolls against Intelligence and Personality. Add 1d5 years to your age.

21-22 Apprentice: You are apprenticed to a master. Change your occupation to reflect your apprenticeship (e.g., blacksmith, jeweler, apothecary, etc.). Make rolls against either Intelligence and Personality/Strength and Agility/Stamina and Luck, depending on the apprenticeship. Add 1d5 years to your age.

23 Brush with destiny: You are blessed or corrupted in some manner. Roll against all attributes, modifying each as warranted, and using the results to determine what might have happened. Add 1d5 years to your age.

24 Roll twice on this table.

Then, you determine what happened after the developmental years of your life.

What happened next? (roll a d24)

1-12 Adventure awaits! You decided to become an adventurer. Make a roll against one Attribute (as determined by 1d6: Strength, Agility, Stamina, Personality, Intelligence, or Luck). Character generation is done, and you enter the zero-level funnel.

13-16 Continue on: You carry on what you were doing last time. Make the same rolls as before and add 1d10 to your age. Character generation is done, and you enter the zero-level funnel.

17-18 Curveball: You encounter a crisis event. Make rolls against Luck and one other attribute (as determined by 1d6: Strength, Agility, Stamina, Personality, Intelligence, or Luck). Add 1d5 years to your age.

19-20 A new path: You change the course of your life. Roll on the previous table, ignoring repeated results, and add 1d10 to your age.

21 Marriage: You are wed to another. Make rolls against two of Personality, Intelligence, or Luck. Add 1d10 to your age.

22 Advanced learning: You study with a master. Roll twice against two attributes of your choice. Take the higher result of each roll. Add 1d20 to your age.

23 Junkie: You become an addict. Roll twice against two attributes (as determined by 1d6). Take the less lower result of each roll. Add 1d20 to your age.

24 Turbulent life: Roll d12+12 twice on this table.

Finally, provided that you haven't already become an adventurer and entered the zero-level funnel, you should roll on this table to determine what sort of precipitating event caused you to leave your old life behind to seek a life of adventuring. Some choose it and some are forced into it by circumstance. Use your life story so far, and the result of your roll to determine the particulars. For example, prior results may have told you that your character had married. Perhaps you roll 4 on this table—Death. In that case, your spouse might have died. Alternately, you might have had a brush with death that somehow changed you and made you want to leave your comfortable life behind.

What caused you to become an adventurer? (roll a d10)

1 Famine: Make a roll against either Intelligence or Stamina. Add 1d5 to your age.

2 War: Make a roll against either Strength or Agility. Add 1d5 to your age.

3 Pestilence: Make a roll against either Stamina or Luck. Add 1d5 to your age.

4 Death: Make a roll against either Strength or Luck. Add 1d5 to your age.

5 Epiphany: Make a roll against either Intelligence or Personality. Add 1d5 to your age.

6 Dream: Make a roll against either Stamina or Personality. Add 1d5 to your age.

7 Avarice: Make a roll against either Personality or Agility. Add 1d5 to your age.

8 Boredom: Make a roll against either Intelligence or Luck. Add 1d5 to your age.

9 Serendipity: Make a roll against two attributes of your choice. Add 1d5 to your age.

10 Roll twice on this table.

Now it's time to do some adventuring. Take these characters out into the world. Most of them will die, certainly, but those who survive may make names for themselves, or get stinking rich, or become insanely powerful. But that's another story. It's up to you to tell that story.