On October 31, 2011 Google Reader effectively died. By stripping away the social features, google reader is little more than an average RSS feed aggregation. To read the full blasphemous press release check out the following:

http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2011/10/new-in-reader-fresh-design-and-google.html

My argument is that traditional roleplaying games all offer a very similar experience, at least in the rules as written. So, regardless of whether you are playing D&D, Pathfinder, Star Wars Saga Edition, it will have the same general feel. It is certainly true that the games are different, and there are differences of abstraction, and genre. But they tend to have a heavy crunch factor focusing on combat, and task resolution. I am an advocate of “play everything,” so if you haven’t played these games you certainly should. Ultimately, my perspective is that while these games are different they not different enough to get the best bang for your buck.

Rather than switching to another traditional roleplaying game (which would represent a significant time investment for learning an extensive rule system, and the financial cost of purchasing all the required texts) it may be better to look into an story game that offers a novel play experience at a reasonable cost. For the sake of discussion I am going to break these experiences into six categories: transitioning from traditional games, resolution scales, mixed success, alternative perspectives, GMless play, and alternatives to dice. There are a number of different aspects and minutiae, but I feel these are the larger categories.

Transitioning from traditional games is an exercise in trying to find a middle ground between traditional games, and story games. The two primary systems I recommend here are FATE and Solar System. But, since SS features conflict resolution I am going to recommend FATE for this category. There are a number of fantastic fate games available, for venues demoing this month I am recommending Bulldogs! or Diaspora as they both represent good, concise FATE implementations. Many people still recommend Spirit of the Century, but I think it is starting to show its age as FATE 3 has developed significantly since that initial release. For home groups willing to spend several sessions can definitely take a look at the large works, Dresden Files is a particularly good game.

Resolution scales demonstrate alternatives to traditional task resolution systems used in most roleplaying games. For venues running one shots I strongly recommend Lady Blackbird. Its free, light, and always a good time. The only drawback is that the GM should be familiar with the source games: The Shadow of Yesterday, and Mouse Guard. For home groups, the later two options are excellent. The Shadow of Yesterday runs on the Solar System, which features a conflict resolution scale with a special task resolution scale called “bringing down the pain.” Mouse Guard is basically Burning Wheel light bringing in character motivations GM vs. Player turns, and all kinds of good stuff beyond conflict resolution scale and definitely worth the effort.

Mixed success is a novel design feature made popular by Vincent Baker. Focusing on achieving a gray area between success and failure, yes you succeed, but with consequences. The Otherkind dice are great for demonstrating this, but I have found that Otherkind doesn’t always click with people. As a venue, if you have a good GM you might want to look at Ghost/ECHO, which uses Otherkind dice in a cool setting. Otherwise I would look at running Apocalypse World, or Dungeon World (a drift of Apocalypse World and original D&D). Mouse Guard could also be used here, as failure is what makes the game interesting, because it introduces conflicts into the game.

Alternative perspectives is about playing from a uniquely different perspective. Most games traditionally portray the players as paragons of heroism to varying degrees. While it is true that numerous games offer other options, I am recommending My Life with Master for play this month. There is just something that seems to resonate with people playing henchmen for an evil master. This game also demonstrates concepts like predetermined outcomes, shared collaboration, etc…

GMless play holds a special place in my heart. I believe there is something fundamentally dysfunctional about the traditional GM v. Players relationship. There is something about playing gang up no one person, and in exchange you grant them what amounts to Godlike power in the game. Hurray for mechanically enforced artificial social structures! But, I digress. For venues focusing on one shots I strongly recommend Fiasco. Fiasco is dramatically different than traditional roleplaying games, as are many GMless games to varying degrees. Fiasco is a great game though, and can easily be a blast, even with people that have never roleplayed before. For groups, I would recommend something that will last longer, such as Love in the Time of Seid. There are so many good games in this category it shouldn’t be to difficult to find a topic local players are interested in.

Dice are used in nearly all tabletop roleplaying games; they are a bit of a fixture. That does not mean that dice are needed for a game to be good. In fact, the lack of dice is what makes some games great. My pick for the one shot in this category is a no brainer: Dread. Dread is a roleplaying game where the players act out horror films. Each player is given a questionnaire that they fill out, and the GM leads them through the story. Whenever there is a question as to the success of an action in the game players resolve that task by pulling from a Jenga tower. Its a horror game with a built-in tension mechanism, brilliant. Knock over the tower and you’re out. This is one of my first recommendations for people looking to get into roleplaying games, because the rules are simple and accessible for almost everyone. There are many other diceless games out there (many of which use playing cards or a sort of karma system) feel free to dig around and explore new options.

In conclusion, I am advocating that you not only play a new RPG this month, but you play a game that offers a novel play experience for your group. So get out there, grab some texts and learn some rules, its gaming time!

Here is a small list of games I usually recommend grouped in the above categories:

Transitioning

• Bulldogs!
• Diaspora
• Dresden Files
• Strands of Fate
• Starblazer Adventures
• Spirit of the Century

Resolution Scale

• Lady Blackbird
• The Shadow of Yesterday / World of Near + Solar System
• Mouse Guard
• Trollbabe

Mixed Success

• Otherkind
• Ghost/ECHO
• Apocalypse World
• Dungeon World
• Mouse Guard / Burning Wheel / Burning Empries

Alternative Perspectives / Player Agency

• My Life with Master
• Montsegur 1244
• Dogs in the Vineyard
• Breaking the Ice

GMless

• Fiasco
• Love in the Time of Seid
• Polaris
• Shock: Social Science Fiction
• A Penny for My Thoughts

Diceless

• Dread
• Mortal Coil
• Amber Diceless

Other Great Games I Didn’t Spotlight

• Primetime Adventures
• In a Wicked Age
• Lacuna
• Annalaise
• Dust Devils Revised
• InSpectres
• The Mountain Witch
• Don’t Rest Your Head
• 3:16
• Zombie Cinema
• Kagematsu
• Freemarket

In the Goblin Hole adventure the paladin slew the thief. Granted this was an accident since he one shot her. And the decision was not made lightly as it was the result of a considerable amount of griefing (the thief did not like the precepts of the paladin’s order). In the second adventure the effort was more intentional. As the paladin went charging into a room the ranger attempted to trip him. This lead to a rapid series of events that resulted in the paladin beating the ranger to death. The odd thing in the second game was that no one tried to stop the paladin. They either stood their in shock, or healed the ranger between blows. It was a very strange occurrence.

Aside from this oddity things seemed to run pretty well. Character creation was a breeze, and there were no problems with the “no duplicate classes” rule. We had a good round table Q&A to establish bonds.

None of the players were familiar with either Apocalypse World, or Dungeon World, but this was not a limiting factor because of the focus on character activity rather than rules guiding activity. In fact the more rules the players learned the worse it got, because they stopped focusing as much on what their characters were doing, and starting reading moves as menus.

Really the only major issue I ran into was with the larger group. Players felt combats required “rounds” where everyone was afforded an opportunity for action. This felt most natural from them being primarily traditional gamers. The issue that I had with it was that it was forcing disengaged player to participate in scenes they had no interest in. To me, one of the benefits of conversation actions is that it allows players with investment in the current activity to fully engage the system, while allowing those who don’t to get a breather. I would have much rather the group broken up by their focus so we could have flipped spotlights around, but the notion of “don’t split the party” was too ingrained for the one shot.

Generally speaking I am pretty happy with the system, but I think I would like to run and play in some more games before making a final assessment of it.

I went back over to Culvers, and got that melt. I removed one of the slices of grease soaked bread, and placed the two halves of the burger into the sub. This stroke of genius resulted in an amazingly tasty sandwich. I had the nice, crisp vegetables from Jimmy Johns, and the crunchy, greasy, cheesy mess of the melt.

Needless to say I had to take a photo of this piece of heaven to share with the world. However, anyone thinking of trying this at home, be warned. I am pretty sure that sourdough melt from Culvers covers about your daily intake of calories!

What a difference a few months make. This travesty started back in May, and a mere four months later the price of “Plus $10″ games has plummeted. Is it because the games suck, or is there less demand for games that bend you over? I have no idea. But, what I do know, is that it isn’t very hard to get a new copy of Mass Effect 2 for around $20, 33% of the original retail price.

I cannot even imagine how badly this hurt the aftermarket for this games. Would you pay $10 to play a used game online? I know that I wouldn’t, especially if that is 50% or more of the price I paid to get the game in the first place.

And now, with the rising price of Xbox Live, it is becoming increasingly expensive to game online, and I continually find myself asking, “is it worth it?” Sure, it is great to hammer some enemies and wax some fools with your friends, but how often are they online? Are you spending hand over fist to play with people you’ll never meet in person? What’s that worth?

Crackdown is an open world game with RPG lite elements. Basically you play the role of an elite law enforcement agent withing a corrupt corporation. Your mission is to take out various organized crime syndicates throughout the region.

The strength of this game is the multiplayer, its great fun to jump around the city waxing criminals with a buddy. Whereas, the solo game play is the definition of grind. The game play is repetitive, and the pokemon style leveling system is rather taxing. So, I whole heartily recommend only playing this as a team.

While the game was not extremely long, it was probably too long, by the time I finished the third region (of four) I was ready to be done, but I powered through and finished it anyway.

And, since I am sure everyone has already heard all they ever wanted to hear about this title two years ago I’ll finish up here.

On the undecim scale, I give this game a 1.

As per vanlandw’s request I am posting the details of this event. Jason and I are planning on going. We’ll probably get there after I roll out of bed and shower. Wes will probably claim to be exhausted from his fun run and not show up.

I should also note that something called “Weekend in the Realms” will be going on as well, and I have no idea what that is. I suspect it is what they call their weekly RPGA event, however I do not know if they will be running a module, or a my realms adventure.

Anyone who is interested is encountered to come. the Game Day adventure will run 1-2 hours, and you shouldn’t need to bring anything if you’re new. Players will be provided with PHB3 pregenerated characters (I assumed level 1 characters made with DDI character builder will also be valid). No experience is required, but you might want to pick up a set of dice if for no other reason that its cool to have a d4.

We ran the events on low, since it was our first game. Luckily for me that meant that there were minions a plenty. It worked out pretty well, because I played as a wizard that was specifically built to deal with minions. The character was built by Jason based on his struggles with kobold minions in our early combat encounter tests at home. Therefore, I was able to sweep the field quickly, or at the very least bottle neck minions so they effectively were non-factors in the game.

Of course not all battles were heavy with minions so I did get an opportunity to use wizard’s fury and just unleash a storm of magic missiles, which was rather amusing. The idea of kicking ass as a wizard just felt wrong. But, I guess I did something right, because we finished the entire adventure in two hours, and the group awarded me the player award, which was ironically a DM screen.

Now that I’ve cut my teeth, I’m looking forward to the first D&D Encounters adventure this Wednesday. Wish me luck!

For every one that reads this, please join me in writing my congressman asking for the elimination of daylight savings time.