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3/17 Talking Game

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Talking Game

 

 

 

 

Used Books

March 16, 2011 at 5:05 AM

 

I have a deep and abiding fondness for a good used book store. Not least because they often don't know what they have when it comes to RPG books.

One of my favorites is Half Price Books. They're everywhere, and where we live, I get to see a continual stream of good gaming books - I keep finding obscure indie games there. Of course, there are three locations that I drive within a few blocks of daily because of my commute.

If I lived in Portland, I would go to Powell's more often - but their RPG section has been dwindling of late. The best find I saw there last time was a copy of Amber

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 at a very reasonable price (especially given its $105 used price tag on Amazon at the moment).

Amazon often has used copies of books available, as well - usually through third-party sellers.

It's how I got my copy of Burning Empires

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, which was my introduction to the Burning Wheel
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 system (which now includes the award-winning Mouse Guard
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 game, as well).

A few weeks ago, my friend Wade took Stephanie and I to his local Half Price, and they had Weapons of the Gods

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 in stock, as well as a lot of Earthdawn, 2nd Edition
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- two games I'd never picked up for a variety of reasons.

I'm always both glad and a little sad to find awesome things like this in used book stores.

Glad because it allows me to fill in gaps in my collection or buy that game I wanted but never saw in stores. And it's usually relatively cheap, too!

Sad because it means that someone put that book down. Whether it was because they moved to a new edition, or just walked away from the game (or the hobby), there is one less person enjoying that book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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8/16 Talking Game

From: Feed My Inbox [mailto:updates@feedmyinbox.com]
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 12:21 AM
To: eric.franklin@comcast.net
Subject: 8/16 Talking Game

 

 

 

 

 

Talking Game

 

 

 

 

Timing Expansions

August 11, 2010 at 5:05 AM

 

I think I've mentioned several times that it's a good thing I don't run a publishing company.

This week, I discovered another reason why that is: Timing expansions.

Over the last decade or so, expansions have become a more and more common an expected aspect of gaming, but each one comes with questions unrelated to game balance.

Claustrophobia

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is an excellent game. I have a hunch CROC has one or more expansions ready to go, but they wanted to make sure sales justified the expense of an expansion before they started work on it. Here in the US, it was a slow starter sales-wise, but those sales have started to pick up. Has it earned an expansion, yet? At what point has it earned that expansion? Is it too late to publish one? Too early?

Keep in mind: I don't have inside information on sales here. All I have is what CROC and others have said on BoardGameGeek and elsewhere.

If you release an expansion too soon, you run the risk of publishing an expansion for an unpopular game. You also run the risk of repulsing late buyers - "Am I going to have to buy expansions to play this, too?" Or of alienating completists who see it as just a money grab.

On the other hand, if you wait too long you run the risk of people moving on to other games. Three Dragon Ante

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went five years before its standalone expansion
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made it to market. I have personally seen people pick it up, see the word 'expansion,' and then put it down because they can't find the base game anywhere (it's out of print). Wizards of the Coast cost themselves sales by doing that - I had to find my copy of the base game before I was willing to spend money on the expansion (even though I could see that it was a standalone).

The best counter-example to this is, Nuclear War has been around since 1965. Nuclear Escalation hit nearly twenty years later, and did well enough that Nuclear Proliferation hit a decade after that ...

Dungeon Twister

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had a lot of expansions in a short time - and it was good at first, but sales apparently trailed off over time. Because putting out more and more expansions means people will start to get pickier about which expansion(s) they pick up and you'll start to see "recommend an expansion" threads on Boardgamegeek (and elsewhere).

You also need to keep in mind the designer's timing - Christophe Boelinger put out Dungeon Twister: Prison

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, and then moved on to other projects with Ludically (including the upcoming Earth Reborn). Has he abandoned Dungeon Twister? Has he forgotton about us? No. He'll get there.

While I'm briefly on the subject of DT, there is a poll on BoardGameGeek that I'd like you to take (if you haven't already).

It's a tricky juggling act, publishing games. It's a bit like running a store - you need to be passionate about gaming. You need to love games and gamers. But you can't lose sight of the fact that it's a business. You need to make money.

And that, my friends, is where I would fail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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7/26 Talking Game

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Sent: Monday, July 26, 2010 12:09 AM
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Subject: 7/26 Talking Game

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Talking Game

Wrd000

Character Generation Project: Fvlminata
July 21, 2010 at 5:05 AM

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To the right, you can see the first character Stephanie created for our character generation project.  I'm not entirely sure why, but she chose Fvlminata
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as her first public foray into character-making.  Okay.  That's a lie.  Check the questionnaire below and she'll tell you why this was her first choice.

The scan you see is actually a second scan - the first one was done in pencil, and didn't scan very well so she recopied it in pen.  For the record: I think that recopying in pen made both of us a bit twitchy.

I don't think I've ever done a character in pen - it's generally not a good idea - I can see writing new skill names in pen, but ratings do change with time and experience, so I would never put any numbers on a character sheet in pen. And I don't think I'm alone in that.

If you can't read the sheet, by the way, clicking it will take you to the image's page on my Flickr photo stream.  We will likely refine a few things which are project-related as we go along.

As promised, here are her answers to the questionnaire:

Which game is this for?

Fvlminata

How long did it take you to make the character?

About 90 minutes.

What was your character concept going into generation?

A merchant who is able to defend herself, but does not actively look for trouble.

Did you feel like character generation captured the flavor of the setting? Did this influence your decision-making process during character generation?

Yes and no - I didn't feel that this was particularly different from historical Rome, other than giving me a bit more freedom as a female character than I would have had in a strictly historical setting.

How much control did you feel like you had during character generation?

Quite a bit

Did the game help you make the character you wanted, or did it feel like you were fighting the game?

The game helped guide my character in a way I didn't expect, but I don't feel like it wouldn't let me do what I wanted to do.

Do you like the character you ended up with?

I do - it wasn't entirely what I started out with, but I liked what it turned into.

Do you think your character fits your initial concept?

Yes

Do you feel like your character would be effective and/or useful in a game?

I think she would probably be good for reconnaissance and information-gathering, but would not be the best in a fight unless she was cornered.

Was there anything in particular that you struggled with mechanically?

It took a little while to wrap my head around the humors and the temperaments were a bit difficult to understand. I also wasn't sure, with the skills, whether it would preferable to be reasonably good at a lot of things or to be really good at only a few things.

Did anything run more smoothly than you had expected?

There was a little bit of a stumble with the humors, but otherwise it went smoothly.

What changes would you have made to the character generation process?

I think the combination of occupation and rank could be better explained, but other that, it seemed to fit the system.

Did anything leap out at you as obviously broken or unbalanced?

It would be easy to make an overpowered fighter, with the skills and attribute point-buys, but I think it would end up coming down to GM discretion to prevent that.

What led you to choose this game as the next one to make a character for?

The concept caught my attention, and I was curious about how it was implemented.

How would you compare your experience with this game to your experience with other games?

It struck me as odd that I could theoretically create a character who would have no ability in combat or magic, and would be basically useless - other games I've played have made it pretty near impossible to create a truly useless character.

[Eric's Note: Prior to this, Stephanie's experience consists of D&D and pre-generated characters for one-shot games]

Is this a character you would be willing to play in a campaign?

Yes.

Does this character make you want to play this game?

Yes.

Do you have any other questions, comments, etc.?

I would have appreciated a better overview of the system before going straight into the character generation portion of the book - while I appreciated the charts that indicated what was average, above-average and extraordinary in terms of the skills and attributes, a brief intro into what one would be rolling before setting those numbers down would have been nice. The book goes straight into character generation, however, and I didn't really delve into the mechanics of the game much as I would going through "by the book", as it were, and working my way through based on what came next in the book.

Did you consider creating a magic-using character?

Not really, no.  I didn't even look too much at the magic system.


Were you afraid that a magic-user would be too complex for someone new to the game?


For some reason, the idea of magic and Ancient Rome just didn't click.

Did the availability of gunpowder in an otherwise mostly historical setting impact your character generation at all?


Nope.  It just didn't seem to come up, other than as a possible skill choice that didn't fit the kind of character I was creating.

 

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7/18 Talking Game

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Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2010 10:02 PM
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Talking Game

Wrd000

Making Characters: The Procedure
July 14, 2010 at 5:05 AM

So a few weeks ago, I mentioned that my wife and I were starting a character generation project in part as an experiment and in part because it may be useful to me if and when I get my own game off the ground.

Over the last few weeks, I have assembled a long list of games that I own that I'd like to include in the project. I also put the games into a number of groups based on the theme, including a "miscellaneous" group for games that like anything else. I also picked games that Stephanie has not played (which really only eliminated d20 games, 4E, and a small handful of one-shot games we've played)

I won't share the list of games with you, as it's pretty long. And it keeps growing:

"Oh! Mutant City Blues

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! I'd forgotten I owned this one!"

 "Hey, sweetie, I just found World Action and Adventure

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at the used book store."

(Both true stories, BTW)

Either way, Stephanie will create a character using only the core book(s) for the game (with one or two exceptions, which I'll highlight in the appropriate post).

I also went through and created a questionnaire for her to fill in as she makes the characters. The questionnaire is pretty well set:

Which game is this for?

What was your character concept going into generation?

Did you feel like character generation captured the flavor of the setting? Did this influence your decision-making process during character generation?

How much control did you feel like you had during character generation?

Did the game help you make the character you wanted, or did it feel like you were fighting the game?

Do you like the character you ended up with?

Do you think your character fits your concept?

Do you feel like your character would be effective and/or useful in a game?

Was there anything in particular that you struggled with mechanically?

Did anything run more smoothly than you had expected?

What changes would you have made to the character generation process?

Did anything leap out at you as obviously broken or unbalanced?

What led you to choose this game as the next one to make a character for?

How would you compare your experience with this game to your experience with other games?

Would you be willing to play this character in a campaign?

Does this character make you want to play this game?

Do you have any other questions, comments, etc.?

Once she's done with a character, I'll scan the sheet and upload it to Flickr. I'll then go through the questionnaire, and will cut-and-paste her answers. I'll also ask any follow-up questions which occur to me at that time.

And then I'll post it here.

I hope it's a sufficiently interesting project for you. I'm really looking forward to this.

If you have any games you'd like to add to the list or questions you think I missed in the questionaire, please feel free to leave a comment here (or e-mail me).

By the way, she's chosen her first two games: Fvlminata

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and All Flesh Must Be Eaten
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. I'll let you know when she's done and will try to let you know what games are coming up.

 

All Games Considered e-Book Roundtable Discussion
July 13, 2010 at 5:05 AM

A quick Tuesday post with an even quicker link:

Recently, I had a chance to speak with my good friend Mark Kinney and his friend Mark Dykstra about eBook readers for the ENnie award-winning Podcast All Games Considered.

The final discussion is here. Listening to it, you can tell I'm not a podcaster - my microphone is noticeably of worse quality than that of the other participants, and it kept making noises while the other two were talking.

Thank you for the opportunity, Mark. I enjoyed our conversation a great deal.

All Games Considered, by the way, is an ENnie nominee once again for 2010 - congrats to Mark and Mags and Chris and Carol. The nomination is well-deserved.

And I would be remiss if I didn't remind you that my blog is available on Kindle.

 

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RSS to Posterous

I think I may have found a workaround – we’ll know on Wednesday if it works or not.

What I did was use FeedMyInbox to forward the RSS feed from gamethyme.com (the primary source of this blog) to my e-mail address.

I then used my e-mail program to set up a special filter forwarding all e-mail from FeedMyInbox to Posterous.

We’ll see (as I said) on Wednesday how well it works.

Pardon My Dust

It's been ... really busy, lately. I have finished a couple of rush revision projects and my (non-gaming) day job has been in process of blowing up in my face for several weeks, now. Enough that I've burned through my advance post cushion, and am writing this a day or two in advance of its going live. Thankfully, it looks like things are about to stabilize. Well, as much as things stabilize at my office.

Of course, they are stabilizing just in time for me to start gearing up for GenCon. Go figure. (As an aside: We have our flight reservations already. This just serves to make it more real.)

Those of you who actually visit my blog via visiting the site as opposed to via RSS feed will notice some changes since last week. I've changed my layout, and I'm not done, yet - I'm working on the background image (I want to use a photo of my own, for starters).

I've also purchased a domain - gamethyme.com, so the blog will now redirect there. Over time, I may put more there than just a blog. Time will tell.

Further, I'm considering making my blog available to Kindle

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users, which means I need to up my game a bit.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to talk about:
Iconica - The only game I've ever purchased from Etsy.
The Kobold Guide to Game Design, Volume III (which I like a great deal)
Dungeon Twister

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(Shock. Surprise. Amazement. I know.) - There are things brewing in the LIDT that may make membership more attractive.
I also hope to have our first Character Generation post up by GenCon. But that may be stretching a bit.

Making Characters

I spent a part of my afternoon today tracking down character sheets for some of my games for a project I'm starting to work on, and it reminded me of how much I love character generation.

One of my greatest joys was always taking a pencil, some scratch paper, a character sheet, and the necessary books and creating something out of nothing.

Did I say something? I'm sorry. I meant someone.

It was always fascinating to me how many different ways there were to create characters, too. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd Edition

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was strict die-rolling. FASA's Star Trek
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was a free-choice lifepath. Cyberpunk
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had a lifepath, too, but you had to roll on it - and it was more of an add-on to provide post-generation flavor to your character.

Over time, I grew to appreciate systems that gave me more control over my character. At the same time, it's easy to see why those systems were the most frustrating to GMs (I was young enough that the concept of a GM limiting our character generation in some way was an alien concept).

The first time I saw GURPS

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, my head about exploded. It was the first point-buy system I'd seen where everything came out of the same pool of points. And there were so many options! I spent close to 60 points on skills for my first character. I could have achieved the same results by spending more points on my attributes and fewer of those points on my attributes - and long-term, it would have been a more powerful character.

In fact, looking back, I see a lot of "mistakes" on my older characters. Optimizations that experienced players would have taken that a beginner to the game could easily miss. Character options that are more important than they appear to be - or that are worth more points than you spend on them.

And I'm curious in some cases: How will a total beginner to a given system handle character generation? Can I catch some of these "mistakes" on my own? How about my readers?

Thankfully, I live with someone who is a fairly inexperienced roleplayer. My beautiful wife, Stephanie. While she is a boardgamer, her roleplaying experience is limited (another reason I keep doing the one-shots). When I asked her if she'd be willing to participate, she was excited. And I'm excited to have her involved.

Don't look for this to be a regular series - we have a lot of games we're going to work through, but we need to schedule character generation into our (severely limited) free time, and then I need to write about the results (and scan the sheet, and so on and so forth).

I hope you enjoy reading about our experiences.