Dave Arneson has Left the Prime Material Plane

As is my wont of late, I am late in this post in observation of the late Dave Arneson, who failed his last saving throw versus Cancer earlier this week.
This means that the two main minds behind the origins of Fantasy Role Playing Games, have left us.
I know there were some issues about Dave not feeling he got his due credit for his role in the creation of Dungeons & Dragons, though for me personally, I always remember his name being right there on the front of my rule books.
Fare the well, Dave.

Now here's hoping Ken St. Andre will still be with us for awhile.

Virtual Vespas

Linux News is reporting that H.R. Block virtual offices within Second Life are giving away Vespas (you know, virtual Second Life Vespas)

As the tax deadline nears, H&R Block is serious about giving real-life advice to made-up characters.
Why?
Because those characters are controlled by real people, otherwise known as potential clients.
This is no digital dalliance. Last year Computer World magazine named H&R Block Island one of the eight most useful corporate sites within Second Life. The island, which has been up for more than two years, has eight tax offices, an auditorium, product pavilion and DJ playing pop songs in a nightclub, complete with lighted dance floor and disco ball.
Free Stuff
Since dancing is popular in Second Life, Block gives visitors a free computer script that allows their avatars to dance. (They also give them a virtual H&R Block T-shirt, hoodie and Vespa scooter.)

I haven't spent much time in Second Life. I downloaded the base application over a year ago, but I was playing a lot of World of Warcraft at that time, and well Second Life just seemed a little dry compared to WoW.
But you know, I have been procrastinating the taxes... And if I ever was to spend time back in Second Life, a Vespa would be aweful nice...

Steampunk Games

Brass Goggles (Which seems to share a posting schedule with the Dragon) has a couple of posts up recently about Steampunk computer games.

Dirk Valentine and the Fortress of Steam, is online game with old-school style controls and graphics. You can find it here.
It looks like the perfect thing for cubicle inmates looking to kill some down-time.

More interesting to me is Remnants of Skystone, an upcoming MMO which is Flash based. Tinkergirl writes:

Upcoming from the Flipline developer, and slated for release on the Kongregate site (known for free to play, Flash based games), Remnants of Skystone is a very Steampunk multiplayer game featuring character creation (look for gas masks, spats, goggles, brass cuffs and the most stunning facial hair I’ve yet seen in a game), socialising and co-operative side scrolling missions battling the bally alien invaders! There may even be the opportunity to have your own floating residence!

Apparently going to go live sometime this autumn (or fall, if you prefer) it looks like it has some potential indeed, and the blog has some nice backstory, art inspiration pages, and character screens. Several of the characters could do with smiling more, but I suppose with alien mimics denying the very ground you stand on, you might be a little disgruntled too!

The world definitely needs more games with stunning facial hair!

Yet Another Memorial for Gary Gygax

Sounds like it was a piece of guerrilla public art, erected on the MIT campus.

My favorite so far.

Origins of D&D, and other Legends

So it seems that Wired was actually working on a story about Gary Gygax to go with the upcoming release of 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. The whole of it is up, and it's pretty nice, they even talk to Dave Arneson some, who has been overlooked a lot lately for his contribution to the early development of the game.
And of course, the good natured jokes about missed saving throws have given way to snarkier commentaries about how lame D&D (any version) is compared to system X.

Here's the narrative arithmetic that Gygax came up with: You come across a family of sleeping orcs, huddled around their overflowing chest of gold coins and magical weapons. Why do orcs and other monsters horde gold when they can't buy anything from the local "shoppes," or share a jug of mead in the tavern, or do anything but gnash their teeth in the darkness and wait for someone to show up and fight them? Who knows, but there they are, and you now have a choice. You can let sleeping orcs lie and get on with the task at hand—saving a damsel, recovering some ancient scepter, whatever. Or you can start slitting throats—after all, mercy doesn't have an experience point value in D&D. It's the kind of atrocity that commits itself.

Yeah, maybe to a ten-year old who's watched Conan the Barbarian, and Red Dawn too many times on cable. But a good DM would quickly disavow them of that notion, as they did me. Frankly, a houserule which is just about as widespread as free-parking in Monopoly, or "around the world" in gin rummy, of rewarding good role-playing with extra experience points, and penalizing out of character actions with experience point deductions, is almost as old as D&D itself.

It is interesting to me, that it is the geeks who are whining about Gygax's posthumous laurels. But such is ever the nature of near-asperger's afflicted geeks to miss the forest for the trees. Indeed Uber-Geek that he was, Gygax frequently focused on minutia while just glossing over the larger scene.

I myself had been toying with the idea of posting some about role-playing games in the last year. Researching Steampunk lead me to some interesting Steampunk themed role-playing games, in particular Space 1889 and Forgotten Futures. I even purchased the original hardback rule book for Space 1889, and some of the Heliograph reprints. It's a fascinating setting, and I hope to be able to play it some day. If you are at all interested in gaming in a steampunk setting, I'd recommend checking out Marcus Rowland's Forgotten Futures site. His material is shareware/freeware, and he has an amazing collection of period source material to help you flesh out the setting.

Mr. Rowland's idea-heavy, but rules light approach to rpg's brings me to the main gist of this post. I mean if you dig deep enough, he has some suggestions for role-playing with younger kids which don't really involve dice at all. They are just based on refereed cooperative storytelling. Like if your favorite uncle made up "choose your own adventures." Which is really freaking cool, if you think about it.

Back in the day, I played a LOT of different systems. I owned and studied even more. I even designed and played tested a couple of my own game systems. Role-playing geeks talk a lot, or at least they used to, about the balance between realistic game mechanics and playability. It's a complicated subject, which I just want to scratch the surface of.

Some of the funnest games I ever had were with a game called Tunnels & Trolls (I was always attracted to the alliteration & ampersand games.) T&T is about as rules lite as you can get, I think it would be seen as ridiculously so by "modern" gamers, but I frequently found that this encouraged role-playing. The less players were concerned with the trivialities of game mechanics, the more they could unloose their imaginations and embrace their characters.

And that's kind of why I'm attracted to playing some 1e AD&D (First edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, to those of you not fully acquainted with the current web-accepted abbreviations.) Because as byzantine as some of the rules might be, it's like having English as your native tongue. It's complicated to explain, but it's also just second nature. It just comes naturally to me, as it is the geek lingua franca for geeks in their mid-thirties. And luckily, there is a thriving community of first edition AD&D afficiandoes online.

I'll post some more about the 1E AD&D community which is to be found online soon, but until then, enjoy this awesome documentary on D&D, courtesy of YouTube:

01: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPCn3KcuYYs&NR=1
02: http://youtube.com/watch?v=RD_t19PpgiA&feature=related
03: http://youtube.com/watch?v=QTF07R7MbfA&feature=related
04: http://youtube.com/watch?v=t2ZB1BPnQJ8&feature=related
05: http://youtube.com/watch?v=vI7CBGLtg4c&feature=related
06: http://youtube.com/watch?v=4Y9r1BvJGzU&feature=related
07a: http://youtube.com/watch?v=W2mwloAsfi4&feature=related
07b: http://youtube.com/watch?v=oNFmWbj4Lag&feature=related
08: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q4bsHgoxW0M&feature=related
09: http://youtube.com/watch?v=osOejhDOs00&feature=related
10: http://youtube.com/watch?v=mKWm9wCR25E&feature=related
11: http://youtube.com/watch?v=hUXnm5EC2WE&feature=related
12: http://youtube.com/watch?v=TarhYY-LAd8&feature=related
13: http://youtube.com/watch?v=fj81WVDWwag&feature=related
14: http://youtube.com/watch?v=lX8NcyYtZ70&feature=related
15: http://youtube.com/watch?v=bTrXrOPLEIM&feature=related
16: http://youtube.com/watch?v=EbQ7jwKk3zw&feature=related
17: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZZosb792cQA&feature=related
18: http://youtube.com/watch?v=whMEXm7TJ9U&feature=related
19: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9wZ8kQiWIJg&feature=related
20: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnhilB5kc2Y&NR=1
21: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLTqoPoWmPY&NR=1
22: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxo9gFBHJsE&NR=1
23: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RWqf4QGCa4&feature=related
24: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra9h63CLtLY&feature=related

So if you watched the whole thing through, which you should have, especially if you didn't already know much about the history and (sub) culture of D&D, you realize that it is basically just a codification of kids playing make-believe. A way to determine whose "bang-bang", impacted first.

So if the Gygax eulogies have made you nostalgic, but you think you might be too old now to pick up a Player's Handbook or Dungeon Master's Guide, all I gotta say is:

D&D never forgets:

So you're a little bit older and a lot less
bolder
Than you used to be
So you used to roll percentiles and D20s
But now you feel your life lacks some fantasy
So now awkward thirteen turned thirty-one
You can't remember the last time you had real fun
Well all you got to do is sit down and and pick out a class
One that kicks some real ass
Come back buddy
D&D never forgets
You better get yourself a dice-bag
Go down to your basement or hobby shop
Check Craigslist or Meetup.com
Chances are you wont have to go too far
Yeah the vorpal swords will be going snicker-snack
The ranger and the paladin will lead the attack
And all you got to do is roll 3d6
If you need a fix
Come back buddy
D&D never forgets
Oh the orcs are still ugly and mean
And the mind-flayers still make your brain scream
All you got to do is crawl through a dungeon tonight
Heh tonight

Well they say youth is wasted on the young
But maybe your Bard still has some songs to be sung
Your player character's a legend waiting to be told
if you can be bold
Come back buddy
D&D never forgets
Said you can come back buddy
D&D never forgets

D&D never forgets is Creative Commons licensed for non-profit reproduction, if you use it and make a profit, I get 10%.

(with apologies to Bob Seeger)

More Thoughts on Gary Gygax's Passing

I was just watching CSI, and they ran an episode about a game that involved problem solving, which was described as being like clue, but the play-testing which the episode centered around seemed much more like a role-playing game. There was even a scene which showed a bag of dice and miniatures. I guess there are some geeks in scheduling at CBS.

For the past couple days, most of my spare internet time has been spent trolling through the plethora of internet eulogies and tributes to Gary Gygax. Being a new transplant to New England, I've yet to really develop any geek friendships, so in true geek style I am fulfilling my social needs through the internet. Because this has impacted me, it's hard to really explain, unless like so many of the other nerds posting, you understand what D&D meant to a certain clique of youths in the late 70s and the 80s.

"It's kind of like the death of Elvis for me," one fan told a Canadian newspaper. ...

There's no denying Mr. Gygax's game drew a certain kind of person – most of the time, we preferred books to basketballs, and the only time you would see us running on the football field is if we were trying to get away from a linebacker who was trying to give us a wedgie.

We would grow up to be engineers, artists and maybe a journalist or two. But back then, the game gave us a safe harbor during the stormy passage from youth to adulthood. More accurately, the people we played with – on our parents' castoff dining room tables, with bags of chips and liters of soda almost crowding out the gaming materials – became both anchor and shelter.

-From the Dallas Morning News

Culturally, Gygax was a crazy favorite uncle to an entire generation of geeks. Before the internet and computer billionaires made nerdiness sexy, D&D was like that favorite uncle's garage where we could talk about Tolkien, and Conan, and Greek Mythology freely. Myself, the only hippie kid at a junior high in an army town in central Texas, well, words fail to express how safe that garage made me feel.

It is soothing to read others' memories of similar experiences. Mathematicians, anthropologists, folklorists, lawyers, computer programmers, theologians, artists, writers, and of course, game designers have all fondly recollected how playing this silly game of make-believe indelibly influenced them.

Almost from the inception of D&D there was the outcry from religious fundamentalists, that a game which included magic, demons, and thievery was a diabolical influence on young people. Let me tell you, as a teen, I indulged in pretty much every vice that has been damned by Upright Citizens Brigades. Comic books, Punk Rock, Alcohol, premarital sex, and psychedelics, and while all of these led to both positive and negative experiences (well, except for comic books), I have nothing but good to say about role-playing games. At worst they are a harmless parlour game. At best, they can introduce practioners to a variety of higher-thinking techniques, strategies for reality simulation, techniques of problem solving, as well as ethical and moral inquiry.

Personally, I know that some of my earliest thinking about moral philosophy came about through heated discussions about the Character Alignment Graph in the AD&D Players Handbook. Where earlier versions of D&D mapped the moral code of individuals in the game as Good, Neutral, or Evil; AD&D was a little more complex:

For the uninitiated, "Lawful," is just that, someone who follows the letter of the law. "Evil," represents complete self-interest. "Good," shows a concern for the greater good, for the community over the self. "Chaotic," represents a total disregard for rules and dogma. For a twelve-year old, this is pretty heady stuff.

I have for sometime decried the blinding limitations of a binary value system. As an artist, even value systems that allow for shades of gray seem limited for mapping the whole of human experience and action. I think we would be far better suited to discuss ethics if we could see it as a color wheel, rather than black and white, or even gray-scale. I suppose it would be too much to hope for a culture of such sensitivity that we could even conceive of a value system based on the Munsell color solid. But the philosophical/artistic/gamer in me thinks what such a system lacks in playability, it more than makes up for in verisimilitude.

Still, when discussing ethics with other gamers, I have taken for granted that I had a model which allowed me to discuss it in "color," rather than in "black and white." It is only in writing this post that I have put this all together, and realized why I have such frustration in discussing moral issues with non-gamers. It is because in this arena, like so many others, AD&D is like a Common Tongue (or Lingua Franca for non-gamer academics) for discussing simulation.

As a counterpoint to the Bible-thumpers, I think is interesting that Mr. Gygax was quietly practicing Christian. In fact he last publisher reports:

Gary had a favorite Bible verse: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." Matthew 5:16

Gary's light was that he liked a good game. And games will never be the same for the incandescent beam he shown upon them.

Godspeed, my friend.

R.I.P. Gary Gygax

If you felt a great disturbance in the force yesterday, like the wailing of millions of geeky souls, it was because Gary Gygax, creator of the original fantasy role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons has left the prime material plane.

Nerds around the world are singing his praises on message boards, forums, and blogs. The stories are all very familiar, and mine doesn't stand out as being particularly special. If you never played the game, never knew the joy of a "natural 20," you won't understand. Mr. Gygax gave a generation of youths an excuse to not only hang onto the wonder of imagination, when most are putting it away with the other trappings of childhood, he gave us a reason and structure to exercise and nurture our imaginations.

Fittingly, the original Dungeon Master, failed his final saving throw on Game Master's Day.

Obscure facts about your humble narrator.

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Honky-Tonk Dragon!

1. The air around Honky-Tonk Dragon is superheated to about five times the temperature of the sun!
2. Honky-Tonk Dragonomancy is the art of telling the future with Honky-Tonk Dragon.
3. Three seagulls flying overhead are a warning that Honky-Tonk Dragon is near.
4. Honky-Tonk Dragon can eat up to four kilograms of insects in a single night.
5. All of the roles in Shakespeare's plays - including the female roles - were originally played by Honky-Tonk Dragon.
6. Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are Honky-Tonk Dragon!
7. The eye of an ostrich is bigger than Honky-Tonk Dragon.
8. You would have to dig through four thousand kilometres of Honky-Tonk Dragon to reach the earth's core.
9. Oranges, lemons, watermelons, pineapples and Honky-Tonk Dragon are all berries.
10. Ancient Chinese artists would never paint pictures of Honky-Tonk Dragon.

I am interested in - do tell me aboutherhimitthem

Straight from Surrealist Encyclopedic Archives of Tlon, we bring you these top ten things you didn't know about Honky-Tonk Dragon.

Steam Trek

Steam Trek

Yes, somebody has mashed up Steampunk with Star Trek, and created a sort of play-by-e-mail online role playing game.
Trying to stay on top of time management prevents me from jumping into an online game right now, but somebody out there is dying to know about this, I'm sure.
If you try it, let me know what you think.

Steampunk drinking games

Steampunk drinking games

Click the link, on the page that appears, click on the corporate logo, and you will be taken to a strange brass geared themed game. Steampunk and Belgian beer, does life get any better than this?

(Note to Eamon and Kegan, sorry gents, I've been waiting awhile for a chance to use this picture.) To everyone else, aren't these the two most dapper gentlemen you've seen in a hundred years?

Firefly reborn as MMORPG; Browncoats riot in celebration

Firefly reborn as MMORPG; Browncoats riot in celebration

And you thought Star Wars Galaxies was cool...

Like Capt. Mal Reynolds stumbling in after a bar fight, the short-lived but much beloved sci-fi series Firefly will soon make an unexpected return, not as a TV show, but as a massively multiplayer online game.
Now that's shiny.
Multiverse, maker of a free MMO-creation platform, plans to announce Friday morning that it's struck a deal with Fox Licensing to turn the show into an MMORPG in the fashion of Star Wars Galaxies or Eve Online.
The "Browncoats," as Firefly's most devoted fans are known, have been campaigning to bring the show back almost since the moment it was canceled in late 2002. Now they'll get their wish, albeit in a new form.
"We see virtual worlds as an extraordinarily promising new entertainment medium," said Adam Kline, Fox Licensing's vice president of media enterprises in an e-mail. "We believe Multiverse can deliver an experience that will remain true to the original series, while enabling a whole new level of personal involvement for fans."
Canceled in the United States after only 11 episodes, Firefly has become the Star Trek of 21st-century sci-fi fandom: a show that seemed to remake the genre even as it stayed faithful to the conventions of "hard" science fiction, like engine room problems and menacing hordes lurking on the edge of known space.
What made the show special was the wry, often self-deprecating humor of its characters, from the captain with the checkered past to the unwittingly sexy engineer, the dull hunk of a mercenary with a girl's name, and the mysterious young woman passenger with special gifts.

Special gifts? gee, are they talking about River or Inara?

It ain't a second season, but my Browncoat brethern and sistern, this is some right shiny news.

Newsweek Article on World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft: Is It a Game? - Newsweek Technology - MSNBC.com

Great article in the upcoming Newsweek on Virtual Worlds, focusing primarily on Warcrack, and social implications thereof. Kind of relevant to me, my best friend from high school and I just did a 20 minute quest together, and I really look forward to the potential of this means of interaction. We live a couple hours apart, and interact towards a common goal is just a much pleasant way to keep a friendship alive, than email, telephone, or whatever. I've played with friends from work before, but it's different when your playing with someone you don't get the oppurtunity to see much.

Edward Castronova sees all this as an early indicator of what will become a vast participation in synthetic worlds, with fuzzier and fuzzier lines between virtual and physical realms. "In 20 or 30 years the technology will be here to create incredibly more realistic and immersive worlds," he says. "There will be a world that fits the fantasy of any life you want to lead." Those deep into WOW, of course, are already living that future. "Yes, it's just a game," says Joi Ito. "The way that the real world is a game."

Fingertime Free Games - Scooter Ace

Fingertime Free Games - Scooter Ace

Cool Shockwave scooter race game.

Gamasutra - Feature - "Designer's Notebook: Where's Our Merchant Ivory?"

Gamasutra - Feature - "Designer's Notebook: Where's Our Merchant Ivory?"

This is interesting, the question itself spawns other questions.
The Dragon's Opinion?
The first Masterpiece of video game art has yet to be written.
Hell, the first Shakespeare of Comic Art has yet to appear, and video game as an art form will always (or at least for SOME time) lag behind sequential art.

Because really, until you have someone who can master an open ended story board, you won't be able to get someone who can write compellingly for video games...

Blizzard announces WOW faction-class crossovers

Blizzard announces WOW faction-class crossovers - PC News at GameSpot

Horde Paladins and Alliance Shamans!
Kewl!

According to Blizzard, Horde paladins and Alliance shamans will have many of the same talents of their traditional counterparts, though they "will also enjoy some unique abilities to themselves, similar to the priest class' racial specialties." Since this new feature will fundamentally change the asymmetry between the game's two factions, it will presumably have a significant impact on the way the game is played, especially in competitive player-versus-player combat.

Cash card taps virtual game funds

BBC NEWS Technology Cash card taps virtual game funds

The card is offered by the developers of Project Entropia, an online role-playing game that has a real world cash economy.
Last year, a virtual space resort being built in the game was snapped up by a gamer for $100,000 (£56,200).
The buyer, Jon Jacobs who plays in the game as a character called Nerverdie, is developing the space station into a virtual night club through which the entertainment industry can sell music and videos to gamers.
"We're bridging the gap between virtual reality and reality right now," said Jan Welter, founder of Project Entropia.

file under "things that make you go: wha?"

Interactive comic?

the story is too large to be contained by any one medium, and readers of the graphic novel series will discover that Chasing The Wish is far more than just a comic book, as the story once again crosses over to the Internet, the real world, and their own backyards.

via Key 23