Gaming and horror, and Cthulhu, oh my!

One of my favorite game of all time is Call of Cthulhu.  Back when I first started gaming I started out with 2^nd edition Dungeons and Dragons.  That game will always have a special place in my heart, but after playing it for a year or so…I needed to play something different.  Then a friend of mine introduced me to two things that changed my life a bit. 

The first was Call of Cthulhu.  What a great game, where you get crazier the more you play it.  Not to mention it was set in the 1920’s, which made the setting that much more dark and gloomy.  That was always driven home by the artwork you have seen associated with the game (and others like it) since.  The second thing I was introduced to was H.P. Lovecraft.  Not every one of his stories were what you would consider “good”, but the imagination it took to write them was crazy to me. 

I have loved horror since I was a kid.  I remember being really young and I was at a drive-in to see the Exorcist.  I was a terrified child, and it scared me so much I could not even watch it.  Which is funny, because I am still too afraid to watch that movie.  But my love of horror took off after that.  Do you remember just how creepy the first Nightmare on Elm Street was?  It is easy to laugh at now, but it came out when I was around 14.  That movie gave me nightmares for weeks. 

Then you have horror novels, which I tend to not get into as much anymore.  I feel like everything has been so commercialized that it is hard to be afraid of them anymore.  I remember when vampires and zombies used to be scary.  Now you have Twilight and all those ridiculous mash up books with zombies.  The most recent I read for my book club was about The Beatles, whom were zombies.  This book made me so mad I wanted to find the author and smite him somewhat. 

So that brings us back to gaming.  I started playing CoC when I was around 22 or so.  I remember sessions of that game that were terrifying.  I kind of miss that.  Now I am 40 years old, and sadly I realize the older we get, the harder it is to be afraid.  Imagination gets replaced with pragmatism and logic.  Don’t get me wrong, my inner child is still running the show, but it much harder to be afraid now.  Maybe that is because life is scary and I have looked down the barrel of a gun before.  We have things like 9/11 to remind us of how frail we actually are. 

That is not to say that other people have any problem with this.  Roleplaying as rule means you have to step outside of yourself and buy into whatever setting the game you are playing uses.

I have not really played many new games that deal with fear.  I still plan on playing Don’t Rest Your Head with my gaming group at some point.  That game has the capability of being creepy if the right person runs it.  I also really like Trail of Cthulhu.  It just brings me back to when I was a 22 year kid learning how to game.  Not to mention, I am a big fan of the Gumshoe system Pelgrane Press came up with.  I have played that game 5 or 6 times and I love, love, love it.  I also still want to play Mutant City Blues, but that is a whole different type of game. 

Which brings me to the game they made last year that I REALLY want to play.  Fear Itself. http://www.pelgranepress.com/site/?page_id=420

I only found out about this recently, and boy does it look promising.  I want to have that feeling of walking down in to a basement and wondering if something is going to try to eat my face.  (Smile).  I miss the adrenaline rush of that type of feeling.

So, I guess the questions I am asking myself, is can I still be afraid of things in the dark?  I hope so.  I would love to find a game that can bring all of that feeling back.  That tension of knowing something dark and dangerous is around the corner. 

What are your thoughts on this?  What games out there has the kind of feeling I am looking for?  Suggestions? 

What is an Aspect

Before I go any farther on my DFPRG game I am running, two people sent me emails asking what Aspects are.  So, I wrote up a post about them. 


The main character attributes in DFRPG are called aspects. This is something that the Fate games do to create characters, such as Spirit of the Century.   Instead of having a strength, dexterity, or any other type of typical game attribute, you will have aspects.  Aspects basically help the player define everything that is important to your character and what makes them unique to each player.  Aspects can be anything from catchphrases, beliefs, items, descriptions, relationships, or anything else you can think of that helps describe the type of character you want to play.   

Examples.  I tried to use some from my game or previous SOTC games.

• Beliefs: Good shall overcome, United we stand
• Phrases: “I see magic”, “We can build it we have the technology”
• Descriptors: Thirst for knowledge, Eerily beautiful, Stubborn to a fault, Sometimes a little drunk
• Items: Sword of the Cross, my favorite gun Vera, Yoke of the tyrant
• Relationships:  Necromancer’s apprentice, Tyranthraxus' bitch, Unrequited love
• Others: Calling in a favor, Alone in the World, Strange world, Incompetent ally, Nick of time, Wrong place right time, Shoot first ask questions later, In over my head,
• Scene aspects. Crowded, Shadows abound, Compact, On fire

How this works in the games is that you use Aspects to gain or spend fate points for your character.  Fate points are used to give your character a bonus, and you earn them when the aspects make your life a living hell and cause complications for your character.  Here is how they are used:

Invocation. You can spend a fate point and then describe how one of your aspects is relevant to this situation, and either get to re-roll the dice, or get a +2 bones.  Example.  Your character was attacked by a Red Court Vampire and you are fighting for your life.  You make a defense roll, which you fail miserably.  You could then invoke your “In over my head” aspect and re-roll the dice.  It is relevant since you are fighting a freaking vampire.  

Invoking for effect.  You can spend a fate point to describe how one of your character’s aspects allow you to make a declaration.  Example.  Your character is in his office, and he can hear something monstrous breaking through the front door.  Alas, you are not armed.  You could spend a fate point and use the aspect “My favorite fun Vera”, to say that you always hid the gun in the closet in that room.  Since you spent the point, this is now true.  Now you at least have a gun and you turn to fight whatever is coming through the door.

Compel.  This is my favorite.  The Gm’s job is…well to make your characters life miserable, right?  The GM can (and should) use your aspects to put you at a disadvantage.  Well, when this happens in DFRPG, you can either receive a fate point (for accepting the complication), or you have to spend a fate point (to avoid the complication). Example.  Your group is searching Central Park for signs of a raging Lycanthrope that was spotted attacking mortals.  The GM then offers your character a compel on “Alone in the world” aspect, saying that you found the Lycanthrope, but you are all by yourself.  Oh and it is attacking you.  You accept the complication and you gain a fate point.  Or you could have said no, stating that you did not want to leave the group.  But if you do that, YOU lose one of your fate points.  

Another thing that is great about compels?  It allows the character to compel themselves.  I know this sounds funny at first, but let me tell you something…when players learn how to do this, it is golden.  It allows the characters to take the game in a direction they want it to go.  Example.  Your character just got back home after fighting an ogre.  You decide it is time for you to move the story to something you want.  You compel your “Slow-burn of vengeance” aspect and state that when you got home, there was an envelope taped to your door.  Inside the envelope was a picture of your sister and a tape piece of her hair.  Now, you have to rescue your sister and man does this complicate your life.  You get a fate point (in my own game, I may even give you two for something like this).  

Tag.  On any aspect you create or discover in a scene, you (or another player) get the first invocation for free (without spending any fate points). After that, it costs one fate point for every time you tag that particular aspect.  Example.  Your character is trying to break into a warehouse because your contacts told you there is a shipment of Third Eye located there.  You decide to make an assessment roll to see if you can find a weakness in the warehouse you can exploit.  You make the roll (using your burglary skill), and you find out there are “lazy security guards” on the premises.  This immediately becomes a scene aspect.  Then as your character attempts to break into the warehouse, you can tag the “lazy security guards” aspect once for free.  But every time after that, you have to pay the normal price of one fate point per tag.  As I said, the nice thing about this is anyone in the party can tag that aspect the first time for free.  This really gets helpful in combat.  

In DFPRG the two most important aspects are High Concept and Trouble.  High Concept is basically what your character is.  Example.  Taoist wizard of the Sun Family, Werewolf Curator of the American Museum of Natural History, and Dedicated Zengo  

Trouble is what will always be standing in your characters way.  It is always there and it will always bring your character conflict. Example.  Slow-burn of vengeance, Troubled vision, or Chosen Child.  

At the start of the game, each character has five aspects.  It is best to try to get as many different types of aspect as you can, especially those that you can both invoke and compel.

Some game designers are truly jackoff's....

I have been thinking about the game Chris, Henry and myself were making a lot lately.  Psyching myself up, in an attempt to get going again.  :)  I am not where I want to be in my life to do this all the time, but I am definitely thinking about it again.  I have already started the beginning stages of this, by going on my google docs page and started reading what we had created thus far. 

So, I got into a conversation today with someone (won't mention who) has actually created a few games and we have talked game design on off for a few years.  But for whatever reason today, they just did nothing but talk about how hard it is to be a game designer.  How no one can make money that way.  How it had been a few years since i did this, and if were really important to me, I would have already done it.  Plus other tidbits of negativity that I just ignored. 

I was stunned. 

I have talked to quite a few game designers over the last few years, and for the most part...they have been really cool people.  Always willing to shoot you an email, or give you a suggestions.  I remember Eloy Lasanta (as his company Third Eye Games was just starting out) going back and forth with me in email about mechanics and other things about my game.  That was an awesome thing.  I live in NYC, and have even got to sit across the table with some people to talk about designs (some awesome people from nerdnyc).  These kind of moments are golden and I truly appreciate them. 

I struggle enough with these type of projects as it is.  It is not as easy thing to do to write a novel.  Or create a game.  If it were, everyone would do it.  But I do believe it can and will be done, and for someone to come at with all that negativity.  Well, it just flat out pissed me off. 

I try to be an optimistic person (not always, but i do try), but when people start saying things to bring you down...it is hard.  Now this isn't going to keep me from anything, but it did stop me for a few minutes.  A few minutes of wondering if he was right.  Then I shook that nonsense off, told him I did not appreciate his negative viewpoint and went back to what I was doing. 

It is what it is.  I realize that.  Not everyone is going to tell you how amazing you are and that you will accomplish all of your goals in life.  That is fine, I can live with that. 

The only person I need to convince that I can finish what I started is me.

Games I want to play...

It has been a while.  Almost exactly a year since I ran a game, and a little over since I have actually played anything.  That is way too damn long and it is something that is going to change in the next month.

So, with that being said...what do I want to play?

The first group are games we are going to play soon.

• Dresden Files Rpg.  I am playing it, but I am running it. Although I am going to ask one of the other players if they could run it at some ponit (so I can play too).
• Don't Rest Your Head.  I have wanted to play this game for a few years now.  I love the thought behind it and how madness can really affect gameplay.
• The Dragon Age rpg.  I loved Dragon Age the video game so much, it was a little frightening.  I think I fiinished that game four times. 
• Misspent Youth.  I have played this, but a few of my players are bit sci-fi fans, so I think this would be a great game to play.

This group is one that I may have to go outside of my group to play.

• Trail of Cthulhu.  Call of Cthulhu is still my favorite game of all time, and I like what Gumshoe brought to this system.  This game is fun.
• Dogs in the Vineyard.  Played it once at a Nerdnyc event, and it was so much fun. 
• Spirit of the Century.  One of my favorite games of all time and yet I have only played it once.  I alwasy get suckered into running it.

Game designing: the delemna

I am not a game designer, but I want to be one.  It isn’t about making money, mostly due to the fact that a lot of people say you cannot make money in the industry as it is.  Maybe you can, maybe you can’t, that isn’t really the point.  The point is to do something that allows me to be creative.  I try to write, but I have the same problems with that, and it just isn’t as much fun. 

Me and a few  friends decided we were going to make our own game.  This actually came about around four years ago or so on the way back a Ren faire.  A lot of goofy things can happen on a two hour drive in the rain, and this one came from the idea of a script for a horror movie where people were killed playing a rpg.  J  I know.  But decided we wanted to make a game for the movie and sat down and started coming up with ideas.  The funny part of this was that we had been playing 2^nd edition Dungeons and Dragons for a while and began to burn out of it (mostly I was).  So we thought, hey let’s make a game we would want to play!  The result?  Our game Perdition (a work on progress)

This probably isn’t that original of a story (except the horror movie/ren faire part), but everything has to start somewhere, right? 

There have been a few problems.

Problem 1.  Lack of discipline.  It is something I am working on, but overall we aren’t great at it.  Too much time between us actually working on the game. 

Problem 2.  Trying to come up with something original.  There are so many people out there making games right now.   It is both great (from a gaming point of view), and annoying (from a designing point of view). 

Problem 3.  Being on the same page.  When you are making a game with someone else, you have to try to find a way to come to a common voice for the game.  Not always easy.

We have actually put a lot of work into it, but not so much in the last few years.  I have had life issues for a while (and still do), so gaming in general has taken a back seat.  Yeah there are all kinds of excuses, and I know I have made my own share.  So, here I am trying to get my mind set in doing this again. 

I miss the feeling of creation that came with making our game.  I miss feeling that it was important at one time and that we could not wait to get back to talking about it.  Also the camaraderie that came with it all.

I am still trying to figure other things out, but I definitely want to get back into the game.  I want to see this through, and that is something I have always struggled with.  But it will require me (well, us) to have to do the work to get this finished.  I know I am excited at the prospect of getting back to it.

So, I am trying to pump myself up for this.  I see so many people that are successful at making their own games and I cannot deny, I love the idea of seeing my name on a gaming book at some point.  J

Our Dresden Files Rpg game: New York City

So, last year my friends and I decided to start our own campaign of the Dresden Files Rpg.  This is a game based on the Dresden Files novels by Jim Butcher.   I refuse to get into an argument about how good these books are, cuz I happen to love them.  So deal with it!  J  Our group was lucky enough to get to playtest this game for Evil Hat and that was one of my most enjoyable experiences as a gamer.  Getting to help shape a game, especially with how much of a Dresden fanatic I am.

We actually did play a session, and then life kind of got complicated for me.  Well, it still is every complicated, but I want to get the game going again, and I have started working on it as well. 

We already did all of the city creation, character creation, and all that.  I am just fine tuning it, and possibly adding a few things I think the city needs.  Oh, the city we chose for the game is New York City (which is where we live). 

I will be talking about different parts of my game on here, but if you want a sneak peak at it, you can go to http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/the-dresden-file-new-york-city There you can check out the wiki (still under construction) to see locations that are important to the game, along with case files for the factions in the city.   You can also check out the characters/npc’s of the game as well.

But for now, I am interested if anyone else has played the game.   What are the cooler locations/characters you have created?

Welcome!

Good afternoon all.

I deciced to move my blog over from Livejournal to here, due to the fact that it seems like no one uses LJ anymore.  Also, just to get a fresh start in hopes to meeting new people out there that are as into gaming as I am.  .

What I will be doing.  Well, I want to get back into game design with my friend Henry.  I also am going to be talking about what games I am playing on here, which includes my planning for The Dresden Files Rpg I am running with friends of mine.  That game will not be starting until maybe next month, but I have done a lot of work on it lately. 

I also plan on talking about video games rpg's and how they have impacted my own playing and game design.

So, this is just a little hello to you out there.  :)