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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.

Take 5, Star Wars

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.

WFRP2 and the Storm of Chaos

I did an interview earlier this week for the Open Design podcast and that’s up already at www.opendesignpodcast.com. One of the things we talked about was licensed games and the pitfalls of dealing with someone else’s property. Something that came up on an rpg.net thread is a case in point.

When I started designing the second edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, one of the biggest tasks was the presentation of the setting. The question was, what should the default era of the game be? My preference was for a period of time in between world changing events, so we could set a baseline of what the Empire and the Old World were like. However, Games Workshop was pushing one of their periodic big events for the miniatures game, Warhammer Fantasy Battle, at the time. It was called the Storm of Chaos and it was the story of a new Chaos incursion into the Empire. As far as GW was concerned, the Storm of Chaos was current events in the Warhammer world and it had to be reflected in the RPG.

So what would be the best way to use the Storm of Chaos in WFRP? What I wanted to do was set the game right before the incursion. Strange things are happening all over the Empire, there are grim portents of the future, etc. This would have allowed us to still establish the baseline of the setting. Nordland is like this, Averland is like this, and so on. We then could have provided material for playing through the Storm of the Chaos. Not in mass battles (that’s for the minis game) but certainly the disruptions of a major invasion and the sense that the End Times were here would have provided plenty of fodder for adventures. It would also have neatly separated that material out, so those not interested in using the Storm of Chaos in their campaign could build off the baseline their own way.

The snag was that by the time the RPG came out the Storm of Chaos was going to be over. GW thus wanted the RPG set in the post-invasion time period. I argued that doing so was like setting a WWII game in 1946 (by which I did not mean that WFRP was a war game, but that if such an event was to take place, you should give players a chance to experience it). That was the state of the property though so thus it had to be. So we forged ahead and I think the team did a good job and put out many excellent books. It just wasn’t an ideal starting point from my point of view. When we did the Empire sourcebook, Sigmar’s Heirs, for example, huge swathes of the northeast were described as being destroyed and depopulated. If you wanted to set your game in another period, the info provided about these areas wasn’t very useful.

Towards the end of our tenure on WFRP, Rob Schwalb and I spent some time kicking around ideas about a potential third edition of the game. We thought that a cool approach might be to present three different time periods in the core rulebook so GMs had options. I believe we suggested the Age of Three Emperors, the Enemy Within period, and then the post-Storm of Chaos era from second edition. With the end of our deal and then the dissolution of Black Industries though, that vision of third edition WFRP never moved ahead. The irony is that since then GW has stopped advancing their world timeline year to year, and now keeps the “official” year static. Such are the challenges of licensed games.

Secrets Revealed

As you likely have read already, we announced our mystery license today and it is Dragon Age: Origins, BioWare's upcoming fantasy CRPG. I will be talking more about the game over the coming months, but I thought I'd start by going through the clues I sent out over the past week via Twitter and Facebook. They certainly led to some lively discussion, but here's what I had in mind when I came up with them.

"Next week we herald the beginning of a new age."
The new age is the Dragon Age, of course. I even thought about adding a second sentence to this with the word dragon in it, but I didn't want to give the game away on the first clue. "New Age" is also a song by punk legends D.O.A. and both the band and BioWare are Canadian but that's just a coincidence.

"Something old, something new, something needed, something overdue."
Here I was getting at the nature of the game and what I'm trying to do with it. The pen & paper game shares some structure with the computer game, but uses its own system. "Something old" refers to the class and level nature of the game, which go back to the dawn of RPGs. "Something new" is the system I buit using it and other structural elements of the computer game. As for "something needed," I was talking about a really good intro game for new roleplayers. I don't think D&D has had that since the early 80s (hence "something overdue") and the tabletop roleplaying hobby needs new blood. It is not a coincidence that the first release is a boxed set.

"You'll find great adventure beyond the gate."
Here I was referring to BioWare's Baldur's Gate, one of the best CRPGs of all time. Dragon Age: Origins is the "spiritual successor" of Baldur's Gate, with all that implies. It is the next step, a journey beyond the gate.

"If you want to be a knight, you better be prepared to earn it."
You get two clues for the price of one here. First, knights in the realm of Ferelden (where Dragon Age: Origins takes place) can win the title through their deeds. In the tabletop game you will not start as a knight, but you can strive to become one. Second, this is an oblique reference to Knights of the Old Republic, another classic BioWare game for meatbags like you.

"No time for a day or rest when the world is imperiled."
Another reference to the Dragon Age setting. There are those who do not believe that the threat to Ferelden is so serious, and they of course are gravely mistaken. I posted this on a Sunday, and meant to type "day of rest." I realized later I had actually typed "day or rest" but I let it stand that way. Figured it couldn't hurt to be more mysterious!

"Few believe the threat is real. Will there be mass hysteria when the truth can no longer be denied?"
This is similar to the previous clue, but allowed me to use the phrase "mass hysteria." The pertinent reference is Mass Effect, yet another awesome BioWare game. "Mass Hysteria" is also a classic old punk rock song by Social Distortion, which has nothing to do with Dragon Age but it made me smile.

Now all the secrets have been revealed, I need to get back to finishing the game!

Countdown

I have mentioned a few times this year that I've been working on a new licensed game. Well, the clock is finally ticking down to when I can talk about, and I mean that literally. We have a countdown clock to the announcement going on www.greenronin.com. I've also been sending out some cryptic hints on Twitter (@GreenRoninPub) and Facebook. This has caused some interesting speculation on various forums. Some good guesses but also some that are far from the mark. To whit:

"Green Ronin is going 4e!" After all the long and ridiculous saga of the GSL, do you really think we'd suddenly reverse ourselves?

"Green Ronin is going to do the 4E version of True20." We don't even know what that means.

"He said gate. It must be Stargate." C'mon, I'm not that obvious.

Yes, I know, I'm teasing you, but not for much longer. Only a few days to go.

Gaming and Working

I was amused to see how many people responded to yesterday's post about a family RPG campaign with suggestions of games I had designed or published. Believe me, I am well-familiar with them! Here's the thing though. When I play a game I worked on professionally, I find it difficult to detach myself from the job and just enjoy it. WFRP2, Mutants & Masterminds, Blue Rose, Faery's Tale, and Dragon Fist are all great games I am proud of, but playing them makes me think about work and that's not what I want on my mind on family game night. That's why when I'm going to run a game for fun, I usually pick something from another publisher. Plus I just like trying out new games.

I know some designers are the same way, but others are the exact opposite. I've met folks who love their games so much they will play them anytime and anywhere. That's never been me though. There's work time and fun time and I've found it helps my sanity to keep them separate. This isn't to say I don't get some enjoyment out of running playtests or convention games, but such situations require me to be in an analytical frame of mind. It's different than just relaxing and having fun with your friends and/or family.

Thanks for all the suggestions though. It was interesting reading. If we get the campaign going, I'll blog about it.

Family Game

For the past couple of months I've been thinking about starting a family RPG campaign. Kate has long watched our roleplaying sessions and wanted to participate, but we rarely even got started before her bedtime when she was younger. She's had a few cameos, like her duck with the "quack attack" who was working towards an invisible bill, but hasn't really been part of a campaign. She's 13 now, a night owl like her step-dad, and clearly interested in doing some roleplaying. Not a surprise I suppose when it's our family business. And by her age I had been roleplaying for three years already.

The idea is that I'd run the game for Kate and Nicole. It'd be something we could do on off nights without having to worry about whether anyone else could show up. It'd be fun family bonding too. This, of course, led to the eternal question: what do I run? Nicole asked that we avoid any flavor of D&D and that was fine by me. I considered games like Big Eyes, Small Mouth, Faery's Tale, and Prince Valiant but decided they weren't quite what I was looking for. After digging around in my collection, I had three serious contenders.

Star Wars (West End Edition): This used to be my standard recommendation to people as a starter RPG, because it was fairly easy to pick up and featured a setting that everyone knew. Unfortunately, the whole prequel trilogy has really soured me on Star Wars. Those movies were ultimately so shitty that it takes something on the level of KOTOR to make me feel even a glimmer of the fondness I used to have for Star Wars. Nicole and Kate were both lukewarm to the idea, so this was a no go.

Savage Worlds: I've wanted to try Savage Worlds for awhile but haven''t had the opportunity. The flavor I'm most interested in is Solomon Kane, but adventuring like a Puritan witch hunter doesn't exactly scream 13 year old girl. No other setting leapt out at me so I put this on stand by. I could always make something up, of course, but I don't have a whole lot of time for prep.

Marvel Superheroes Adventure Game (Saga): This is the second Marvel RPG, the one WotC published in the 90s. Kate likes comics and loves the X-men, and I always liked the card-driven design of the game. I was working at WotC when it came out, so I have everything that was published for the game. And letting Kate and Nik play established Marvel characters means we don't have to deal with superhero character creation. The downside is they both asked about playing Wolverine! This is currently the leading contender.

I'm still considering options, but Saga is looking pretty good. If there's something you think I'm totally overlooking, make a suggestion. Just realize that if you tell me to run Exalted or to use Dogs in the Vineyard to run the Chronicles of Narnia, I will punch you through the internet.

BRP Freeport

About a month ago I talked about getting the new Basic Roleplaying core book from Chaosium and mused about doing a BRP Freeport Companion. It is an appealing idea, as Freeport is certainly influenced by Call of Cthulhu and doing a BRP companion would bring the setting closer to its roots in some sense. The question remains whether it makes business sense to do the book for Green Ronin?

Apparently, the BRP fan community discovered my blog post because all week I've had gamers posting comments on that entry telling me they'd love to see a BRP Freeport Companion. It's not exactly market research but it's nice to see some interest in the idea. Thanks for being pro-active, BRP fans! I can't commit to anything but I am considering ways to make this happen.

Stuff and Things

Just haven't found time to blog lately. Things I've wanted to talk about have either been too short, in which case I use Twitter, or too long, so I defer them until the mythical time when I can sit down and write a few essays. For now a smattering of stuff and things will have to do:

1) My NYC trip was quite fun. I caught up with old friends, played a lot of games, and had four days away from work and the internet. Manhattan has changed in a lot of ways, but walking around town still makes me smile. One excellent addition to the Lower East Side is authentic Japanese noodle shops. I had some outstanding ramen on Friday with my friend Chesley.

2) The Green Ronin summit is this weekend. This is an annual get-together that brings together all of our staff from various parts of the country. We talk about the previous year and plan for the coming one. Should be productive and enjoyable.

3) It's been pretty amazing to watch John McCain so effectively destroy his own brand in just a couple of months. His reputation as an honorable politician and a maverick were mostly bullshit to begin with, the product of a media so in love with his image that they never dwelled on his record or challenged his claims. That he is now reduced to aping the tactics of Karl Rove, who destroyed McCain's campaign in 2000, is a testimony to his desperation. I would almost feel bad for the guy if not for his tacit encouragement of the right's lunatic fringe that may yet end in tragedy.

4) I picked up Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying core rulebook recently and have been enjoying it. It's basically the distillation of 30 years of classic RPGs, from Runequest to Call of Cthulhu to Elric. It takes a toolkit approach, offering many options that let you customize the rules for the campaign you want to run. I wouldn't hand this book to a newb, as it requires you to make a lot of choices when setting up a game, but it's really nice for experienced gamers because it gives you a wealth of options in one source. I am now pondering a Basic Roleplaying Freeport Companion, but I'm not certain if there's enough of an audience for such a book.

5) Green Ronin is doing another d20 Apocalypse Sale this month, blowing out titles before the WotC-mandated deadline makes selling d20 logo products a license violation for publishers. If you are still playing D&D 3.X, there are many fine books to choose from for $2 to $5. You can find them at participating stores or get them online from Paizo:
http://paizo.com/store/sale/greenRoninApocalypseSale

Cool Stuff, Part 2: GenCon

It wouldn’t be GenCon if I wasn’t stuffing my suitcase full of games come Monday morning. This was actually a pretty light year all in all, as I didn’t have a whole lot of time out of the booth to look around the exhibit hall. One area I totally failed in was miniatures. I usually find something cool at GenCon but this year I only brought home two minis and they were for a friend who couldn’t be there.

3:16, Carnage Amongst the Stars: This is basically an Aliens/Space Hulk RPG. Looks easy to pick up and quick to run, which are plusses.

Battletech Technical Readouts 3039 and 3050: I could swear I used have some old Tech Readouts, but I can’t find them. These are the newest ones from Catalyst.

Cold City: It’s Berlin, 1950 and you are part of a multinational force hunting down the horrors unleashed by the Nazis during WWII. I love the premise and the game reads well, but I would have liked more discussion and examples of the core mechanic.

Dying Earth RPG: Saw this at Troll and Toad for $10 and couldn’t say no. Robin Laws designed this game based on Jack Vance’s classic fantasy series.

España 1936: Bill Bodden showed me this new boardgame and I picked it up on the last day of GenCon. It’s a two player game about the Spanish Civil War by Devir.

Houses of the Blooded: John Wick’s “anti-D&D” RPG that embraces tragedy in the classical sense.

Inquisitor’s Handbook: TS Luikart gave me this bigass supplement for the Dark Heresy RPG.

Legend of the Burning Sands: I had no idea this was even coming out, so when I heard it was at GenCon I made a point of tracking it down. Basically, it’s an Arabian-themed game tied into the Legend of the Five Rings setting. Al-Qadim fans take note.

Legend of the Five Rings, Third Edition: I never did pick up the latest edition of L5R, so I grabbed that along with LBS. Thank you, jim pinto.

Tour de Lovecraft: Ken Hite writes about many of Lovecraft’s classic stories.

War and Peace: This is an old Avalon Hill boardgame of Napoleononic conflict. I love AH games and make a point of buying them when I can find them for a reasonable price. Someday I’ll find Up Front and then there will be much rejoicing.

The Winter War DVD: Classic film from the early 90s about Finland’s fight against the Soviet Union in 1939 and 1940. How could I pass it up after my recent trip? If you thought Saving Private Ryan was too upbeat, the Winter War is for you.

Cool Stuff, Part 1: Finland

I brought home some cool stuff from my travels. I'll do the GenCon swag later, but for now it's Finland. This doesn't count the Finnish booze that Nicole bought.

Bilekuosi: This is a card game whose name translates to Dope Fiend. In the game you get to both deal and take drugs, while playing cards like "Crackwhore" and my favorite, "Damn fucking hippies." Something tells me the American market is not ready for Dope Fiend.

Dragonbane, the Legacy: Dragonbane was an ambitious LARP that took place in Sweden in 2006. Over 300 players trekked out to a fantasy village purpose built for the event. Oh yeah, there was also a fire breathing dragon! This book is a document and post mortem of the LARP, analyzing its successes and failures. Timo Multamäki, the executive producer, was also a volunteer and Ropecon and he gave me a copy of the book as we were leaving the afterparty. It is quite an interesting read, and it comes with a DVD of resources and pictures as well.

Finland at War, Defensive Battles of Summer 1944: I'm hoping I can play this DVD on an American machine. It's a documentary about the battles in 1944 that preserved Finland's independence. The country could have met the same fate as the Baltic States, but the defensive victories of that summer convinced Stalin to make a separate peace with Finland instead.

Isältä Pojalle, Suomipunk 1978-2001: This is a 60 song CD retrospective of Finnish punk rock. Ville, one of the many great folks at Ropecon, gave this to me after learning that I was an old punk. I had found a couple of CDs on a brief trip to a record store to score a metal record that Schwalb wanted, but I really appreciated getting this, so thanks, Ville.

Lama CD: Lama was a key Helsinki punk band from '77 to '82 and this is a CD of their one and only album. If you like bands like the Partisans and Anti-Pasti, you will dig it.

Playground Worlds, Creating and Evaluating Experiences of Role-Playing Games: There's a convention for Nordic roleplayers that happens each year in a different member country. The most recent one, Solmukohta, was in Finland and this is a book of essays that came out of that event. I met Markus Montola, one of the editors, at Ropecon and he gave me a copy of the book. It's an interesting collection of essays divided into three sections: Journalism & Community, Art & Design, and Research & Theory. Like the con the book focuses on LARPs but there is some tabletop RPG stuff as well. Timo wants us to come to the next one, which is in Oslo in February. I would love to go, but money and vacation time probably prohibit it.

Ratsia, 1979-1981: A retrospective of another old Finnish punk band. I don't know much about them but I thought I'd give the CD a shot. They remind a bit of the Undertones, which is not a bad thing in my book.

Roolipelaaja, Issues 15 and 16: I was interviewed for this Finnish RPG magazine and editor Juhana gave me two sample copies. It looks great, with crisp layout and excellent photographs. The text is all Finnish though, so I can't speak to the content. I can tell Fred that Spirit of the Century gets a 5 star review though.

Star Wreck Collection: I was on a panel with Mike Pohjola and he was nice enough to give me a full set of Star Wreck goodies: movie DVD, soundtrack, and the RPG he designed. Star Wreck is a Finnish scifi parody that basically posits what would happen if the Star Trek and Babylon 5 universes clashed. Several years ago Nicole got me a Star Wreck t-shirt for Xmas and I said, "What the hell is Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning?" Now I am well informed!

System Danmarc: In 2005 there was a three day live action roleplaying game in Copenhagen that took place in a shanty town built out of 40 shipping containers. Peter Andreasen, one of the other guests at Ropecon, was an organizer for this event and he gave me this documentary DVD of the event. It's got interviews with participants, footage from the game, and thousands of photos.

The Unknown Soldier by Väinö Linna: Katri recommended this novel to me and I'm glad she did. Väinö Linna was a soldier in a Finnish machinegun company in WWII and he based the Unknown Soldier on his experiences. It is not a happy story, but Linna really captures the feel of soldiers at war.