Fans of this blog and my brain will remember that I am the proud owner of what appears to be a cyst in my right sinus cavity. (It’s not actually in my brain, as some folks misunderstood.)

My appointment with the ENT doctor isn’t until Monday, but in the meantime I decided to get a second opinion from Andrew, who consulted his medical book:

The Tome of Corruption for the Warhammer Fantasy RPG.

He believes he has identified the object in the MRI. From page 41, in the descriptions of the Ruinous Powers:

Intelligent Cyst (Fear 2): A horrid cyst grows inside of you. Unlike Chaos Organs, this growth is intelligent.

The cyst has its own motives and goals, and it tries to take control of you from time to time. Each day, make a Will Power Test. If you fail the test, the Intelligent Cyst takes control of your body. On the following day, you may attempt a new Will Power Test to re-establish control, though if you fail, you lose another day. While the cyst is in control, you have no sense of what’s happening to your body, though the effects are sometimes later clear.

Should you be slain, the Intelligent Cyst explodes from your body, sprouts limbs and waddles around as a new Chaos Spawn.

So there’s a possibility that THAT’S what’s going on in my nose. What’s worse, a big wad of snot or a big wad of intelligent chaos? I suppose I’ll find out on Monday. If it’s the latter I really hope they remove it. Though, would the new Chaos Spawn be considered a dependent? Would I have to send it through college? Could I claim it on my taxes? I don’t know enough about Warhammer FRP to know for sure.

Yep, I’m unloading a bunch of my role-playing game stuff. I don’t see myself wanting to play D&D again, and if I do, someone else will have the books. So this stuff is all going, one way or t’other. If there’s something here you want, let me know and we’ll make a deal. Otherwise, it’s heading to my comics shop.

DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS (3.0 and 3.5):

• Player’s Handbook (3.5)
• Monster Manual (3.5)
• Monster Manual II
• Expanded Psionics Handbook
• Fiend Folio
• Savage Species
• Song and Silence (has some wear)
• Tome and Blood (has some wear)
• Defenders of the Faith (has some wear)
• Sword and Fist (has some wear)
• Unearthed Arcana
• Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
• Forgotten Realms: Magic of Faerun
• Forgotten Realms: Lords of Darkness
• Forgotten Realms: Monsters of Faerun

OTHER d20 STUFF:

• Everquest RPG: Monsters of Norrath (some spine damage, bought used)
• Legends and Lairs: Path of Shadow
• Legends and Lairs: Traps and Treachery
• Call of Cthulhu d20
• Star Wars RPG d20 (Second Edition)
• Monte Cook’s Arcana Unearthed

GURPS:

• GURPS Basic Set (3rd Edition, some cover wear)
• GURPS Compendium I
• GURPS Steampunk
• GURPS Steam-tech
• GURPS Atomic Horror
• Suppressed Transmission 2 (Non-system-specific RPG ideas)

OTHER:

• Shadowrun 3rd Edition (cover wear)
• In Nomine (not sure what edition this is)

You people are in for a treat, let me tell you. Dave Thiel, friend to children, recently picked up a gift for me at a gaming convention: my very own copy of The World of Synnibarr RPG. What is the World of Synnibarr? Just the most ridiculous RPG ever^*, is all!

I will have to thoroughly investigate the rulebook (and the ancillary volume that Dave also got for me, The Ultimate Adventurer’s Guide) before I can really show you all the madness within it. Until that, you’ll simply have to make do with this photo from the book of the game’s creator, Raven c.s. McCracken:

What can I tell you about Mr. c.s. McCracken? Well, according to the “About the Author” blurb:

Most of the concepts in The World of Synnibarr come from Raven’s real-life experiences, trying to make the gaming rules logical and as believable as possible. He has worn armor, fought with weapons, dodged arrows, rode horses, participated in live gaming, run races, acted, performed magic tricks, jumped off diving boards, flown airplanes, fought in life-and-death situations, and fired guns, all of which makes The World of Synnibarr ring with authenticity.

So if you’re thinking about cracking on McCracken, keep in mind that this man has jumped off diving boards. Not only that, the biography goes on to say that he is designing an electric vehicle.

I know you all can’t wait to visit The World of Synnibarr, so I’ll get to poring through this tome with all speed! Soon you too will know who would win in a fight between a Bio-Syntha Cyborg and this guy:

UPDATE!

Always Remember:

—

^* To be fair, many RPGs vie for this title, so I should probably call it “one of the most ridiculous”. That’s only counting, of course, RPGs that didn’t set out to be ridiculous.

Sure, the Serenity RPG has no index, no character sheet, and barely a table of contents, but it’s chock-full of secrets about the show/movie (even though you’ll have a hard time finding said secrets).

For example, just to whet your appetite: Jayne’s Crude temperament means he suffers a –2 step Skill penalty on Influence-based actions whenever refined social behavior is called for!

I’d always suspected there was some Skill penalty on Jayne’s actions that called for refined social behavior, but I never dreamed it was that high! But now I know for sure, it’s a -2. I’m gonna have to remember that when the movie comes to DVD.

Also, Kaylee would outrun a vehicle traveling at 60mph better than Simon would, but at 62mph, it’s anyone’s guess!

New idea from the labs:

Available here.

I am so looking forward to the new TV season! All kinds of exciting, creative new shows are debuting!

Oh, not on the television. Dear god, no. That’s all the usual faff: cops, lawyers, doctors, stupid husbands… I’m talking about in Primetime Adventures (PTA).

PTA is an RPG by Matt Wilson of Dog-Eared Designs. It’s “a game of television drama,” according to the front cover. In it, a team of players and a producer work to create a “season” of a fictional TV series.

PTA is best described as a role-playing game, but there’s a lot that sets it apart from most traditional RPGs (some of which may turn off many RPG fans.) Though each player has a character in the show, the characters are not developed the way RPG characters normally are. They have a minimum of stats; the show itself will define them more fully through their actions. These characters will develop as the plot does, but they won’t gain “levels” or “experience points”. There’s no numerical value to how much (or whether) your character knows about ancient Etruscan art, and there’s nothing that says how far she can jump or how much damage she does when she punches.

These characters are the main protagonists in a made-up TV show. One player, the Producer, will work with them to develop the show. He will introduce conflicts that will provide the drama, allow for player reactions, and drive the story and character development.

These conflicts aren’t your typical RPG fodder. It’s not always a case of punching or shooting the right person to solve the problem. The conflicts are decisions for the characters, the stuff of, well, primetime drama. There is a conflict-resolution system (involving playing cards) and other players (as well as non-playing “audience members”, an interesting novel feature) can throw in to affect the outcome of the conflict, but it’s all still very abstract. At the heart of PA the goal is simply to create good stories. The system itself gets out of the way to let the players control as much of the show as possible.

Which might be a problem. There comes a point where you kind of have to ask, “Why am I buying this game in the first place?” When it comes down to it, if me and my friends are this creative, do we really need this book? We can easily sit down on the sofa and make up episodes of Firefly or Buffy or Doctor Monkey without dropping fifteen bucks on a book to tell us how. At some point the rules become “lite” enough to dispose of them altogether without noticing much. My friends and I used to do this exact sort of thing all the time on BBSes and never bought a rulebook or used playing cards to do it. We just mapped out the story according to what was the most interesting plot. But I do recognize that creative people often aren’t organized people and vice-versa, and the rules may help move things along when self-motivation won’t.

Of course, I’m speaking from complete inexperience. I haven’t played the game, and not sure I have anyone around me who’d be interested in doing so, so I’m not sure how much of it works or doesn’t, whether the rules are too much or too few or whatever. My friend Matthew, though, is running a PTA game and has a website up to discuss his group’s experiences with it.

On paper, it sounds like a blast. It seems like a totally different (and not unwelcome) experience from the traditional RPGs. If you’re tired of kill the orc, grab the loot, spend the XP (and I can’t imagine not being tired of it) then this sounds like a way to cut through the weeds and get to the heart of RPGing, the shared storytelling. I think it would be a good introduction to RPGs for people who’ve never played them before; in fact, its differences from the traditional RPG model may make inexperienced RPG players more open to it than dungeon crawl veterans. And not only does it sound like a great alternative to RPGs-as-usual, it also sounds like a great alternative to actual television.

I wanted to bump this up because I’ve been working on it and the tiny elves who inhabit this site have been adding scores of words and phrases to it (especially one Mr. Thiel). Do check it out, won’t you?

The PCs are mystic cars in Victorian England who, with breakdancing, fight everyone else for experience points in the Dark Ages.

In This RPG…

I’ve been meaning to post about this for a week now, but I’ve been busy becoming a Perl God. It’s true! In only a few days I’ve become master of All Things Perl. Need a script? I’m your man. I rule the school. And to help you someday become as skilled as I am, I offer you this Perl tip:

But I’m not here to wow you with my programming skills, I’m here to talk about an RPG. I haven’t done that in a while because, frankly, I’ve kinda been down on RPGs lately. My group is still meeting semi-regularly and playing some things, but nothing has really excited me. I even canceled the final episode of my Star Wars d20 game because even I was bored and frustrated with it, and I was the GM. I’ve been thinking that it might be time to hang up my dice, at least for a while, but I’m fairly sure that if I do that, that might be it for me and RPGs forever, so I’m not sure I want to take that step yet.

Which is why it excites me to say that I played an RPG last Friday that did get me excited and in which I had a lot of fun. It’s an indy game called Dogs in the Vineyard which TJ was test-running. Here’s the description from the company’s website:

You stand between God’s law and the best intentions of the weak.

You stand between God’s people and their own demons.

Sometimes it’s better for one to die than for many to suffer. Sometimes, Dog, sometimes you have to cut off the arm to save the life.

Does the sinner deserve mercy?
Do the wicked deserve judgement?
They’re in your hands.

DOGS IN THE VINEYARD
roleplaying God’s Watchdogs
in a West that never quite was.

The setting is the old West (more or less) and the PCs are religious troubleshooters (Watchdogs, or just “Dogs”), going from town to town to root out sin and corruption. Towns are usually glad to see Dogs arrive, because they know they bring justice, but justice isn’t always pretty, especially higher justice.

Character creation is a snap. In a few minutes we each had a fleshed out Dog ready to serve the King of Life. My guy, Samuel Wells, was the son of a fiery preacher who had raised him to love the Book of Life and distrust women (”My daddy says a woman’s like a poison on the brain.”) Character has four defining objects: Attributes (four of them), Traits (as many as you can), Relationships (as many as you can), and Possessions (as many as you want). Dice are assigned to each of these objects.

Resolving conflicts uses a great mechanic that utilizes all of these categories. Let’s say I’m trying to convince some guy not to visit the town prostitute. We’re just talking, so that uses the attributes Acuity (3d6) and Heart (3d6) (Samuel’s worst stats.) Now, we’re discussion women, so I am also gonna use my “Women are a poison on the brain” trait (you make up your traits), which is worth 1d6. So I’m gonna roll 7d6 and he’s gonna roll whatever attributes and traits he thinks apply.

Whoever starts out (add your highest two dice, that person starts) puts up two of his dice. Let’s say the guy starts and puts up a five and a six, eleven. If I want to continue, I have to first “see” him — that is, put up enough to match his 11. Once that’s done, I can “raise” and continue the argument. He then has to see my raise, and can then raise himself. At every step you role-play what you’re doing. Now I start running out of dice, so I’m gonna call in more traits. I’ll mention that carnal love is against the Book of Love (trait: “Everything I need to know is in the Book of Love”, 2d6). He might call on a trait like, “Horny as hell.” Maybe I know his pa, (Relationship) and will bring that into the argument. Whatever applies, you add in.

If you run out of dice and still don’t like where things are headed, you can escalate. That is, we go from just talking to fisticuffs. And then maybe to guns. The higher things go the more chances you have to gain “fallout”: negative effects or traits that will harm you later on, and the more punishing that fallout will be.

The system isn’t perfect: it’s a home-brew game, and there were a number of rules questions we had, but the important thing is that we were up and running pretty quickly for a brand new game and system, and we all had a really good time.

I don’t know much about the GMing side of it other than what TJ told me and I skimmed from his book. Instead of adventures you create towns. Towns consist of relationships between people. There’s a progression of evil for towns that sounds like a speech from Yoda: pride leads to sin leads to false doctrine leads to etc. I don’t know the actual progression, but it’s a guide to how far along the path the town is and what might be setting it there. In addition, the book strongly counsels GMs not to have solutions to the town’s issues. That’s the PCs job, and let’s face it, how often do PCs come up with a solution you planned on anyway, other than an obvious one (kill the bad guy).

I really enjoyed Dogs in the Vineyard and am planning on getting my own copy soon. I liked the mechanics (and think they could easily be adapted for other games) and of course I liked that fact that at no point was I going to see an Elf. I liked the emphasis on role-playing. It’s a really nice game, and I can heartily recommend it to gamers looking for something fun and different.