I was in Las Vegas last week for GTS, the main trade show for the hobby game industry. This was the first time I’ve been able to go in 3-4 years, since it never seemed worth burning vacation days for when I was working at Flying Lab. We did the show lean and mean this year, with just Hal and I there to rep for Green Ronin. I wish Nicole could have come, but Kate isn’t quite old enough to be left at home for four days alone.

GTS was handy for meetings and I had many throughout the week. Some of these may bear fruit and become interesting projects. The floor traffic was a little light. We actually brought too much stuff to give away to the retailers for once. The upside to that was the quality of conversion was better. In the years when GTS was overrun with swag hounds due to the Wizkids promo items, some retailers would only stop at our booth long enough to find out what was free and then drag their almost bursting bags to the next booth. The folks we talked to this year were actually interested in what we were up to and in letting us know what was working and not working for them. As you might imagine, that’s a lot more useful. I was pleased to hear so much positive feedback about Dragon Age, particularly the stories about new gamers seeking it out in stores. Several folks told me about running Dragon Age for 8-10 year olds and that is awesome.

Overall, we did some good business and I’m glad we went. What really made the trip worthwhile was seeing old friends though. I got to touch base with many people I see but rarely and that’s always nice. We were delighted to see Nabil, Simon, and Lisa from the Travelling Man stores in England for the first time in 6-7 years. Hal and I went out to dinner with them at Lotus of Siam, which served the best Thai food I’ve had. The next night we had dinner with John Kovalic at Bouchon and that was also terrific. Since John got off the convention express, I don’t get to see him that often so it was great to catch up. The next day we walked down to Circus Circus for a 70s time warp, and then stopped in at the Peppermill for giant cocktails. The only thing that would have made it better was if John and I could have thrown down with a miniatures game. I guess I’m going to have to go to Madison for that.

Vegas remains equal parts amazing and horrifying. You’ve got billion dollar casinos where the rich go to play connected by bridges on which immigrants sell bottles of water out of coolers and homeless people beg for change. One guy had a sign that said, “Need money for beer.” A group of drunken frat guys thought that was hilarious, so they start taking pictures and video. The sign holder’s friends said, “Hey, you’re going to be on YouTube.” One of the frat guys replied, “I’m not giving you any money but you’ll totally be on YouTube!” Viva Las Vegas?

Since leaving Flying Lab I find that the thing I want to do most is travel. During the three years I was working two jobs, I had to plan my travel carefully and husband vacation days. I spent some every year on GenCon and then of course there was our epic trip to Finland for Ropecon. For the time being at least my schedule is more free, and I just want to go all over.

I will be at GAMA Trade Show in Vegas in a couple of weeks. This will be the first time I’ve been in years, so that should be fun.

In July I hope to be out of the country at another convention. I’ve received the invite and plan to go but visas must sorted and all that. I’ll announce plans when I’m sure everything is a go. It’s a country I’ve never been to before, so that’s exciting.

That’s all good but I want more. I want to visit my friend Jess in Shanghai. I want to finally take Nicole to Belize. I want to go to Salute in London one of these years. I want see Australia and New Zealand (I was invited to GenCon Australia last year, but after I said yes they stopped answering my e-mails, which was weird). I want to walk the beaches of Normandy. I want to visit Istanbul and see the city my grandmother got booted out of. I want to visit friends in LA, Boston, Montreal, and DC. I want to go to a punk rock festival in Chicago. I want to head east again and see Poland. And I always want to spend more time in my home away from home, NYC.

I want to, but reality intrudes. This year it’s probably Vegas, the mystery trip, GenCon, and maybe some business up in Edmonton.

We got back a few days ago from our first official family road trip. We decided to go on short notice because Kate’s mid-winter break, Dundracon, and Nicole’s mom’s surgery all coincided in a workable way. So we spent a couple of days in Portland, the weekend in San Ramon for Dundracon, and then the final few days in San Francisco. Overall, the trip worked out well and we had a good time.

The Portland leg was potentially dicey. We were there to support Nik’s mom and if her surgery did not go well, there was a chance we’d have to stay longer than we planned. As it turned out, the surgery went surprisingly well, they did less than they thought they’d have to, and she was released a couple of days early. While there we had a chance to hang out with Nik’s brother Chad and his girlfriend Megan and it’s always nice to see them. Alas for Kate, no Voodoo Doughnuts this trip.

We made it down to San Ramon on Friday night, but not before a thoroughly unpleasant cop pulled us over and gave us a speeding ticket. Everyone else on the freeway was also speeding but we had out of state plates and that made us a target. Fucking cops. It was all I could do to keep my mouth shut. We still don’t know how much this is going to cost, but it’s likely to be over $250 and we really can’t afford that right now.

Dundracon was good fun though. We haven’t been able to attend in something like 7 years, so it was nice to make it back. Dundracon is a convention that still puts roleplaying front and center and that’s a rarity these days. The downside for me was that most RPG sessions were 6-8 hours long and I could not find a game I wanted to play that fit between the seminars I was doing. The only scheduled game I played was actually a minis game, a re-fight of Rorke’s Drift using (heavily) modified Sword and the Flame rules. Also played four pick up games of Dominion with Bruce Harlick and a rotating cast of opponents. That is a damn fine game.

The seminars seemed to go well. Ken Hite was my co-panelist on many of them. Get Ken and I chatting about history and an hour goes by quickly. We got to be the youngsters on a seminar about the early days of gaming, but we had a support role there, as the focus was rightly on Steve Perrin and Ken St. Andre. I had never heard Steve talk about the creation and impact of the Perrin Conventions (an early set of house rules for OD&D; popular on the West Coast), so that was quite interesting. We take the internet for granted now but it’s fascinating how differently D&D; was played in various regions back in the 70s.

One feature of Dundracon I have always loved is their flea market. Gamers can rent a table there by the hour and sell whatever they want. I’ve found some great deals there over the years and this year was exception. This year’s score was two old Avalon Hill games. I got an unpunched copy of Napoleon at Bay and a beat up but complete copy of Midway. Total price: $5. Also found some interesting old stuff in the dealers room proper. I picked up Heart of Oak, the minis game companion to the Privateers and Gentlemen RPG. Also got an AD&D; adventure that I totally missed when it came out: I8 Ravager of Time. It caught my eye because it came out of TSR UK and many of those guys went on to work on WFRP.

The rest of the con was spent catching up with old friends (some of whom, like Tim, came out because we were going to be there). Endgame was nice enough to sell our wares so we didn’t have to man our own booth (which is really how I prefer to do smaller cons these days). Sunday night we went out for a nice steak dinner at Izzy’s and then Bruce, Ken, Nicole, and I joined Chris and Brian to record the 50th episode of their 2d6 Feet in a Random Direction podcast. We recorded for nearly two hours but I imagine the final episode will edit out many of the boxed wine jokes and off color comments.

After DDC it was off to San Francisco proper. We had a chance to meet up with Derek Pearcy, who we hadn’t seen in person in 10 years or so. It was great to catch up and meet his family. We had lunch in the Ferry Building and I got to make my pilgrimage to Boccalone. Then he showed us around North Beach/Russian Hill. Very nice. The next day Bruce picked us up and we jaunted off to Sonoma. We had a terrific lunch at Restaurant Charcuterie, did three wine tastings, and picked up a couple of bottles to take home. Kate enjoyed an old time candy store (Powells Sweet Shoppe), which had a cool collection of vintage candy boxes and boardgames on display. That night we went down to Fisherman’s Wharf at Kate’s request. It’s normally the sort of tourist beacon I avoid, but it was much less crowded at night.

The drive back to Seattle was thankfully uneventful. We spent almost all of it listening to an audio book, Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith. The book brilliantly evokes what it’s like to live in a Stalinist state. The ending was a little too tidy but it’s definitely worth a read (or a listen).

Now it’s back to too much e-mail and work. Hooray?

A few quick notes before I get back to packing.

1. The most exciting news is that the game I spent the last year plus working on, the Dragon Age RPG, is out in stores this week. It’s a classic style boxed set and it looks like it’s going to do really well for us. Look for it in a game store near you.

I must also tip my hat to our partners at BioWare, whose Dragon Age: Origins computer game has sold over 3.2 million copies to date. There’s a company that knows how to launch a property and make a great game.

2. I will be at Dundracon in San Ramon, CA this weekend. We won’t have a booth (Endgame, one of my favorite game stores in the world, will be selling our stuff there), but I’ll be around doing some seminars and playing games. I believe I’ll be on the panel at the following seminars: Alternate Histories for Gaming, What’s Cool, and Where Is the Hobby Going. I may also be on one in which old timers reminisce about coloring our dice with crayons and the like, but I’m not sure if I’m old enough to qualify at 40. Maybe Ken St. Andre will call me a whippersnapper.

3. I had thought I might head home to the Boston area for PAX East. After I left Flying Lab, I had to reconsider in light of new financial realities. Now it turns out that Wil Wheaton is doing the keynote, so I wish I had kept to my original plan. I still hope Wil has a wicked pissah time.

4. The forecast says chilly with a high chance of feijoada, churrasco, caipirinha.

5. Winter is almost over. And yet, it’s still coming.

6. A note for readers of chrispramas.com. I was recently informed by Blogger that they are disabling the ftp option for blog updates, which is what I use. It is unclear if I can continue using Blogger with this URL, and I’m not keen on having one of theirs. I mirror this blog on Livejournal and Facebook though. If this site seems moribund to you, look over at http://freeport-pirate.livejournal.com or find me on Facebook. If that’s not enough, I’m also on Twitter as @Pramas.

Back in the 90s, when people asked me to recommend a good starter roleplaying game, I’d always give the same answer: West End’s Star Wars. I said that because the game had a premise that new players could instantly understand and a setting they knew from the movies. “You are part of the Rebel Alliance.” And you’re off. The rules also featured simple character creation and were easy to pick up. Later West End even did a nice introductory boxed set, and you know how much I like those.

With today’s announcement that the current license holder, Wizards of the Coast, is not going to renew, you’d think I might have some interest in who might pick up the rights. There’s already speculation about which companies might have the desire and money to do so. I’ve got to say though that best thing Star Wars could do is go away for awhile. Say three to five years.

The interesting thing about the West End RPG is that it came out when basically nothing else was going on with Star Wars. There were no novels, no prequels, no cartoons–none of that. One of the cool things about it was that it was one of the few Star Wars things you could even get in 1987. Today the brand is just tired. Lucasfilm is just flogging it and flogging it and they show no signs of stopping. Star Wars is still everywhere and most of what passes for it is just crap (starting with the dreadful sequels).

So I think the RPG at least but really the brand as a whole needs a fallow period and then a reboot. Look at Star Trek. It had its time away and it came roaring back with the recent J.J. Abrams movie. Right now the only Star Wars thing that looks cool is the upcoming BioWare MMO, and that’s because BioWare seems to understand the spirit of the original Star Wars movies better than George Lucas these days, as evinced by their excellent Knights of the Old Republic game from a few years ago.

It seems that Star Wars won’t be going away anytime soon though. There’s the upcoming TV show, which might have had promise if someone other than George Lucas was in charge. More toys, games, and novels get cranked out every year. What’s funny is that the niche nature of the RPG business may actually turn out to be a boon in this situation. There are only a handful of companies that could hope to afford the license and launching a new game with all that WotC product on the shelf would be a challenge. So the RPG at least may have that fallow period but for the rest of the brand the flogging will continue until morale improves.

I read a review today of a movie called Until the Light Takes Us. It’s a documentary about black metal. I did some internet searches to find out more about it and so ran across a British documentary called Murder Music: A History of Black Metal. I ended up watching most of it on YouTube and it was interesting. It occurred to me midway through that I’ve watched several documentaries about the history of heavy metal. I’ve enjoyed them in an academic sense but here’s the funny bit: I hate heavy metal.

I mean, sure, I dabbled a bit when I was a teenager. I used to like Iron Maiden and some bands who are sometimes (incorrectly, in my opinion) lumped into metal, like Blue Oyster Cult and Rush. Come on, BOC had a song about Elric, I had to check that out. There is that place where fantasy fiction, gaming, and metal meet and I could have gone there, but no. I would look at albums by bands like Cirith Ungol and Celtic Frost in the record store, but they were not for me.

My dislike of metal has two components: attitude and music. Regarding the former, I hated the machismo, the misogyny, and the idiots these things attracted. Nor did the music itself have any appeal. The endless songs, the wanky guitar solos, the high-pitched shrieking–not my thing. Kind of ironic when you consider I went through a brief progressive rock phase when I was 13 and 14 but that thankfully passed.

Then I found punk rock and it was exactly what I needed. It was angry, rebellious, and high-velocity. It was a music that spoke to my alienation and it was made by misfits like me. And as far as I was concerned, punk and metal were like oil and water. When punk bands starting “crossing over,” I was appalled. I liked the FUs but not the Straw Dogs, dug early DRI but loathed their later material (in fact, I sold my copy of the first DRI album, which is worth a mint now). I laughed when the metal guys discovered thrash. Slayer? Anthrax? Fuck that shit. A pale imitation of the great hardcore bands of the early 80s (but too long and with the aforementioned wanky guitar solos). Hell, even stuff like Corrosion of Conformity and Amebix was too metal for me.

These days I’m not quite as dogmatic. I think that’s why I can watch these documentaries. And I can even appreciate some aspects of sub-genres like black metal. One could argue that it’s just a different form of rebel music, albeit one tied to nonsense like Satanism. But the worst part of these documentaries for me? Yep, still the music. When the interviews stop and the music swells, I check out until someone starts talking again. You bang your head; I’ll flex mine.

We’ve had a weekly game night going at our place for a decade now. It started when Nik and I were living in an apartment in the Madrona neighborhood of Seattle and has been at our house since we moved here in 2000. The three Ronins (Nicole, Evan, and I) have been constants and many other friends have cycled in and out. Those who leave inevitably do so because they move away for a new job. We have ex-members now living as far away as Shanghai.

When we started, it was specifically for RPG campaigns and that remained the case for a good 8 years. Keeping momentum going on a particular campaign got harder, as several members do a lot of business travel. Then Bruce Harlick moved back to California, earning the sobriquet “Bruce the Traitor.” Jess and Tim followed him about a year later. Since then it’s been the three Ronins plus Ray Winninger.

The four of us attempted to keep a campaign going but with me working two jobs and Ray flying all over the place for Microsoft, it just didn’t work. For almost two years now we’ve been playing board games instead. And some nights we don’t even do that. Nicole cooks and we drink and bitch about the world. I had a playtest game of Dragon Age going on the side, but that ended when I left Flying Lab.

This is why I find myself hankering to be part of a regular RPG campaign once again. I would like to play but the reality is that I’ll need to GM if it’s going to happen, so I’ve been pondering options. I need something I’m interested in and I can sell the group on. I’ve commented to Nicole several times that the Fables comic by Bill Willingham would make a great backdrop for a campaign. Last week when I mentioned again how I thought Fables was awesome, Nicole said, “You should run a Fables campaign on game night.”

The question, of course, is what game would be suitable for Fables? I asked this of my Facebook friends yesterday and got a variety of responses. I didn’t quantify what I was looking for, so let me do that now. Basically, I am looking for a more story oriented game. I’m not interested in anything rules heavy or featuring tactical combat. It should be able to handle a wide variety of character types easily, as Fables throws a very wide net. Creating NPCs should not be a bear.

Here’s what’s been suggested, as well as various games I’ve pulled from my collection for consideration.

Castle Falkenstein: I always admired this game but sadly never got to play it. The engine is looks workable but I think if I was going to run CF, I’d like to do it full on with the setting intact.

GURPS, Hero, M&M;: These sorts of point based systems are great for many types of campaign, but not this one.

New World of Darkness: The core book doesn’t feature vampires, werewolves, etc, but is more of a generic supernatural game. I have no play experience at all with NWoD, so it’d be interesting from that angle but it didn’t seem well suited to making fairytale characters come to life.

Over the Edge: I played this a lot in college and it could work. Possible but I’d rather try something newer.

Prince Valiant: This game was really ahead of its time and there’s a lot to admire about its design and approach. I’d need to mod it heavily for it to work for Fables though, as it really is designed for a medieval setting.

Savage Worlds: This is a game I want to try sometime anyway and I could probably make it do what I want, but the feel of the rules is not quite right. I’ll save it for Solomon Kane.

Seven Leagues, Primetime Adventures, and HeroQuest: Interesting suggestions but I have none of these. If not for the final entry, I might have sought out one or more of them.

Spirit of the Century: I played in a SotC campaign for about a year and it was fun. It is more crunchy than you’d think though and that’s not really what I’m looking for. I also found that in a longer campaign the whole aspect thing went from fun to humdrum, so I’d use SotC for one shots or short arcs but not a full on campaign.

True20, Faery’s Tale, M&M; again: I am always amused when people suggest games to me that Green Ronin publishes. I appreciate the sentiment, but game night is my time to be a hobbyist, so I try to play other people’s games.

The Zorcerer of Zo: I had this on the shelf but it took Sophie’s suggestion to remind me. After a re-read, I’d say this is the clear front runner. Character creation feels right for Fables and the rules seem substantial enough to be interesting but easy enough that I won’t have to sink a lot of time into prep work. I also have Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies, another PDQ game which I could pull extra material from if needed.

If I can sell the group on the idea, the next step would be picking a time frame to set it. I think I might want to stay away from the modern day so the PCs can shine without being overshadowed by the plots of the comic. The early 60s might be a fun period to roll with. Rat Pack fables and Cold War spy stuff could be an interesting mix. We’ll see how it goes.

Excalibur was the first R rated movie I saw in the theater. I guess I was 11 at the time. I think my father took pity on my brother and I because there were so few decent fantasy movies movies in that era. Sure, Hawk the Slayer was fun, but I wouldn’t call it good. Anyway, I went on to see Excalibur dozens and dozens of times. When I was in college, we often would run movies in the background as we played Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Excalibur was a favorite.

One day I actually paid attention during the credits and noticed that the actress who played Igraine was named Katrine Boorman. As John Boorman directed the movie we thought it was probably his wife or daughter. She was young enough that daughter seemed the most likely and indeed that was the case.

As you may recall the siring of Arthur is graphically depicted in Excalibur, with Uther tearing off Igraine’s dress and then mounting her while still wearing his armor (now that is a horny knight). So in that long ago college dorm, I joked to my friends about what that casting conversation must have been like for the Boormans. “Honey, would you like to have your tit sucked?”

So the other night I watched Excalibur for the first time in at least a decade. I had picked up the DVD cheap at some point but never watched it. When it was over, I noticed there was a commentary track by John Boorman, so I turned that on. I was curious what he would say during the infamous Uther/Igraine tryst.

I’m paraphrasing but his is more or less what he said. “People often ask me if it was difficult filming my daughter getting raped. First of all, Igraine doesn’t think she’s being raped because Merlin put a glamour on Uther. In any case, my daughter and I discussed it beforehand, we were both fine with it, so we did it and it was not a big deal. The bigger problem for Katrine was being so close to the fire in the background.” He then spends the rest of the scene talking about the great job the set designer did on Tintagel castle!

I guess that means both Boormans are either incredibly professional or incredibly fucked up.

As near as I can figure, the books below are what I read in 2009. This list does not include graphic novels, game books, Osprey titles, or magazines. Looking it over, you’d never guess I’m a raging leftist. I guess I was in a bellicose mood in 2009.

11th Month, 11th Day, 11th Hour: Armistice Day 1918, World War I and Its Violent Climax by Joseph E. Persico

1453 and Empires of the Sea by Roger Crowley

Blackbeard: America’s Most Notorious Pirate by Angus Konstam

Camouflage by Joe Haldeman

The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume 1 by Shelby Foote

The Clash by the Clash

The Crimean War by Clive Ponting

A Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman

Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne by David Gaider

The Family Trade, The Hidden Family, The Clan Corporate, The Merchant’s War, and The Revolution Business by Charles Stross

Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany 1942-1945

The Food of a Younger Land by Mark Kurlansky

Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman

Gods and Heroes: Myths and Epics of Ancient Greece by Gustav Schwab

Greene, Revolutionary General by Steven E. Siry

Halting State by Charles Stross

Lives of Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers by Bryan Mark Rigg

Mechanicum by Graham McNeill

The Napoleonic Wars by Gunther Rothenberg

Old Man’s War, The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony, and Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi

Passage at Arms by Glen Cook

Paths of Glory, The French Army 1914-1918 by Anthony Clayton

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Russian Sideshow: America’s Undeclared War 1918-1920 by Robert L. Willett

A Separate War & Other Stories by Joe Haldeman

Soldier of the Mist and Soldier of Arete by Gene Wolfe

Toy Wars: The Epic Struggle Between G.I. Joe, Barbie, and the Companies That Make Them by G. Wayne Miller

Last week Dragon Age, the game I’ve been working on for the last year, had its electronic debut. It’s at print now (just got the printer proofs today, in fact) and will be in stores in January but you can buy the PDF version right now. This has naturally led to a lot of commentary on the usual gaming message boards.

So my biggest goal for this first Dragon Age release was to create an intro product like the industry hasn’t seen since D&D;’s famed red box from the 80s. I was thus quite careful about what went into Set 1 and what didn’t. I wanted this to be as attractive as possible to people who had never roleplayed. Thus it looks like a game (it comes in a box), it comes with the dice you need, and it includes two modest, 64 page books. I was simply not going to put a 300 page hardback in front of newbs and hope they’d read it. Nor did I want to create an intro product that was disposable. I didn’t want to say, “Spend $30 on this and then you can spend $100 on the real game.” So Set 1 is Dragon Age. It’s the core of the game we’ll be building on and it’s designed to be approachable and easy to learn.

Some long time gamers have expressed surprise at seeing that there are a couple of random elements in the character creation process. Surely we’ve moved past such antiquity methods, they argue. The randomness largely shows up in two places: generating your abilities and gaining some background benefits. The latter is trivial so I’m going to concentrate my comments on abilities. So why is that I decided to go with a random method for generating abilities? Four reasons.

First, I wanted to make this process easy for new players. Generating abilities is the second step of the process. If you are a newb making your first character, your understanding of the game is shaky at best. I didn’t want to ask them to assign stats at this stage. It is much faster and much easier to have them roll some dice.

Second, getting those dice out early in the process serves to engage people. You are making a character and rolling dice makes it feel like you are really doing something. Rolling 3d6 and adding the results together is the key mechanism of the game. This method begins drilling the importance of the 3d6 roll right at the start.

Third, when BioWare approached us about doing a pen & paper RPG for Dragon Age, one of their goals was to play up the old school nature of the Dragon Age property. It’s no secret that the roots of Dragon Age: Origins lay in the earliest days of tabletop roleplaying. While I was not looking to design a retro clone, I did want Dragon Age to have a certain old school feel. To me rolling for abilities strikes the right chord. This is why many people still refer to “rolling up” new characters, even when playing systems that don’t use random stat generation.

Fourth, rolling random abilities can actually lead to interesting characters in a way that other methods do not. You may not have planned for your warrior to be particularly smart, but if you roll a high Cunning, it may suggest a different and fun way to play the character.

Now all of that is fair enough, some folks say, but why not include an optional rule for non-random ability generation? Here’s why. Early on I decided that I did not want Set 1 to include a bunch of optional rules. Every optional rule is another choice that has to be made, and again I did not feel this was friendly to the new players. I’m comfortable putting optional rules in follow-up products because anyone who buys them will have enough experience with the system to make more informed decisions.

Set 2 will include a non-random option, but to prove I’m not a big meanie who is going to make you have badwrongfun, here’s a simple method you can use in the interim. Your abilities start at 0 and you get 10 points to buy them up. No ability can be greater than 3. Why not 4, you may ask, when the random table goes to 4? Well, on the table it’s a rare result. You have a less than 1% chance to rolling an 18 on 3d6. If you could simply buy a 4, that would become the standard not the exception.

I hope that answers everyone’s questions. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got proofs to get back to.