Author Archives: Keith Baker

Six Questions: Russell Morrissey

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Groundpug Day is nearly upon us! Will Mister Pants see his shadow tomorrow?

While we wait for the answer, here’s six questions with Russell Morrissey of EN WORLD. In all my years of forum-wandering, I’ve always found EN World to be my favorite source for news, reviews, and discussion, and I’m proud to have an ENnie award on my desk. Over the last few years, much of my forum time has been devoted to the official WotC Eberron forums, but as I start talking more about Codex, I expect to be spending considerably more time on EN World. Recently the site was attacked, and Russell is running a Kickstarter campaign to build a new and better EN World. Now, here’s the man himself!

What’s the story of EN World, and how did you end up as the man behind the curtain?

So, before there was an EN World, there was a website called Eric Noah’s Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News, run by Eric Noah.  In the lead-up to the release of D&D 3E, Eric reported all the scoops and rumours, and compiled all the information known about the game – his site was very popular.  EN World started compiling d20 news not long before Eric decided to stop maintaining his website, and the two sites merged to become the site you see today.  Over the years it’s changed of course – it’s no longer just a d20 and D&D site; it’s a site for all tabletop gaming (though D&D and Pathfinder are still the most popular topics on the site).

In an internet filled with fantasy forums, what makes EN World stand out from the crowd?

EN World’s one of the older RPG communities out there.  There are some older ones, and some bigger ones, and lots of newer, flashier ones, but I feel that EN World’s combination of age and size works well.  It means that the site is a treasure trove of information —  much of its traffic comes from specific Google searches about very focused questions, which lead folks to a particular thread or topic.

Additionally, EN World is one of the best, most generous communities around.  In fact, I’m constantly surprised by just how amazing this community is, and I’m very grateful for that.  The recent Kickstarter is a testament to the community.

I’m also proud of the news page, which is a daily updated news digest that’s been going strong for 12 years now, and is still the busiest area of the site to this day by an order of magnitude.  It’s changed format over the years, but it’s been diligently reporting RPG news for as long as anybody else in the industry, and longer than most – with an additional focus not just on large announcements, but community news, blogs, fan creations, and the like.

EN World also tries to keep busy and *do* stuff.  Some more successfully than others, but the site stays active: we’re responsible for the ENnies, we make adventure paths, we have spin-off communities, we’re even making cartoons these days!  I’ve never been content to just sit there and watch it bumble along, and I always like to try new things. Some of those things don’t work so well, while others work out very well indeed, and that’s down to that wonderful community of active, vibrant people.  I feel it’s important that EN World be more than just some messageboard software and a news page – it should be doing things.

What’s the strangest story that has come out of EN World?

Yikes. There are stories of generosity – just look at the current Kickstarter; of opportunity, like the day Peter Adkison contacted me and said “Hey, would you like to hold the ENnies at Gen Con?”; many stories of insanity (you should see some of the rants the moderators get in their inboxes!); stories of disaster; stories of wonderful friends I’ve made across an ocean who have welcomed me into their homes; bizarre stories of people who write lengthy blog posts calling me mean names because they don’t like how I run a little D&D website; odd legal threats with no grounding in reality; hacking attempts on the website. You name it, it’s happened!  Where do I start?

There’s more to EN World than forums and news. EN Publishing has produced a range of products, from the War of the Burning Sky campaign to Space Fight! What product are you proudest of, and what are you looking forward in the future?

Is this where I get to blow my own trumpet?  I honestly think that our ZEITGEIST adventure path is astonishing; right at the very top-tier of fantasy adventure-writing.  Of course, I’m going to be biased, but it’s so good (I can say that because I’m not writing it personally!)  It’s also very brave, and is very much targeted at the experienced GM, a group that I always feel could use more complex, challenging, rewarding material.  It’s consistently gotten glowing reviews and critical acclaim, and that makes me very proud indeed.  When we originally produced the War of the Burning Sky adventure path, we determined to do something different to what existed already; what WotC or Paizo was doing already so well in their own right.  Emulating them would be pointless.  So we started a journey of sorts with WotBS, and went even further with ZEITGEIST in a different kind of experience for a dedicated group of gamers looking for something new.  It’s more of a niche market than the stuff the bigger companies are producing, but for those within that niche it’s so rewarding.

In 2012 EN World began hosting video content. Where do you want to go with this?
I don’t know what the future holds for the internet, or for websites like mine. It has changed *massively* in the last decade, and it will change massively in the next decade.  One part of that is ensuring that you’re not left behind.  I got onto the social networking thing too slowly, and a bit too late.  The video aspect is another example of that – I don’t know for sure that video will be more, less, or equally important to the web in five years’ time, but I want to be in a position to handle it whichever.  So we’re essentially “training” ourselves to do it; it’s new to us, requires a very different skill-set, and has technical challenges, but it’s also the sort of thing a “grown up” news entity should be able to handle easily.  We did a trial run at Dragonmeet (a small convention in London) in December, which went well.  We put together a cartoon last year which was our way of starting to learn an entirely new skillset, and we’ll be doing that again this year. I hope to bring video coverage of Gen Con to EN World this year.  Essentially, right now, it’s about getting ducks in a row for the future. One area I wish I had covered is audio podcasts; and that’s another challenge again!
Currently you’re involved in a Kickstarter to help support EN World after the site was brought down by an attack. What happened? What will you do with the funds if the campaign exceeds expectations?

In December, EN World was attacked (and then a bit later my other site, Circvs Maximvs, was attacked). The hackers brought down both sites, and I was forced to rebuild EN World — the existing code clearly was no longer secure.  The Kickstarter is accomplishing that — in fact, it’s already exceeded expectation by a degree which is astonishing to me. So first of all, I’m rebuilding, securing, optimizing, and hardware-upgrading the site – that’s the primary goal.  Then I’m adding cool functionality or additional ways to conveniently access the site’s resources (mobile apps, for example – I’ve already put an Android app into place, and an iOS one is awaiting Apple approval).    I’m offering swag in the form of PDFs, apps, even exclusive dice.  The long-term result is going to be a fast, powerful EN World positioned for the next ten years with awesome functionality and resources.

Dragonmarks 1/30: Dreams, Werewolves, and DM Etiquette

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The last post generated quite a few interesting questions, so I decided to push ahead with another round. As always, these are purely my opinions and may contradict canon material.

In general, how much is it worth correcting players who, during play, misremember aspects of a setting?

This depends on a number of different factors.

  • Is the element directly important to the current adventure? Will the flawed recollection interfere with players’ ability to enjoy the story?
  • How will your players respond to being corrected? Will it be a welcome clarification, or cause irritation?
  • Is the misremembered element something that is especially important to you or your interpretation of Eberron? Is it something fundamental (the Last War was fought between the Five Nations, not between Galifar and Riedra) or a point of trivia that actual people in Eberron might not know (according to Faiths of Eberron, House Medani helped end the lycanthropic purge by creating a focus item that identified lycanthropes).

As someone who travels the world running Eberron games, I often have players who aren’t familiar with the setting. Perhaps I’ve got a player in a one-shot who is treating his warforged like a robot. I know that there’s lots of differences between warforged and robots. But his interpretation isn’t going to interfere with the one-shot adventure, and my explaining the differences will frustrate him rather than improve his enjoyment of things. On the other hand, if I had that same player in a campaign that was going to last for a year and involve interactions with other warforged, House Cannith, and the Lord of Blades, I probably would explain the differences so he’d have the proper context for his interactions with these forces. And if someone said “This ‘Last War’ was fought against the goblins, right?” I’d explain it right away.

Codex sounds very interesting. When will we be able to know more about it? I’d like to know if you’ll create it entirely on your own or if supporters will somehow participate, as happened with the Midgard campaign setting.

I will be writing a longer post about it sometime within the next week; I have a few deadlines I need to deal with first. I’ll address the design process in that post.

Concerning colonization… wasn’t Stormreach originally a colonial post of Galifar?

No. This is discussed in more detail in City of Stormreach. It was established as an outpost by pirates and legitimized by a compact with Galifar, but it was never subject to Galifar’s laws or authority, and it wasn’t settled according to any sort of royal plan.

Secondly, is there room for unknown continents in Eberron?

There’s room for anything in Eberron if you want to come up with a story for it. But a mystery continent is a big add, because Eberron has been well-explored. From dragons to gnomes to elves, you’ve had a host of intelligent, sophisticated races exploring the world. How did this continent go undiscovered? Was it hidden by magic? Has it just risen from the ocean floor? Or have people known about it but never gone there, and if so, why has that changed?

By contrast, Codex is set during a period of exploration, and the potential to discover new lands is one opportunity for people to add their own flavor to the setting.

Are there concepts or facets of Eberron that seem intrinsically influenced or tied to certain editions, such as 3E where it was debuted and 4E where it got its (arguably) first big makeover? As a DM I feel pretty confident in my ability to fit rules, story and player expectations into a package everyone will have fun with, but I’m curious if the issue’s ever come up with the mighty Hellcow.

Not big ones, but sure, there’s a lot of little things. A few examples:

  • Eberron was originally designed for D&D 3E, but by the time it was released D&D was up to 3.5. The changes might seem fairly minor, but they can still have an impact. Notably, in 3E, any lycanthrope can spread the curse; if you’re bitten by a werewolf and turned, you can bite me and turn me. This was the impetus for the Lycanthropic Purge: lycanthropy is a dangerous contagious curse that could easily spread out of control if not contained. But 3.5 changed this so that only natural-born lycanthropes could spread the curse; a true werewolf could bite you and turn you, but you couldn’t pass it to me. This completely changes the exponential threat potential and makes the Purge seem like overkill. Hence we shifted the story to say that back in the time of the Purge, the curse was stronger and all ‘thropes were infectious; the Purge weakened it, so it’s no longer the threat it once was.
  • The first Thorn of Breland novel was written during the 3.5 era. In 3.5, dragons possess blindsight, and this plays a role in the story. Likewise, Thorn is very much a 3.5 Assassin; if she gets a little while to watch you, she can do a sudden death strike, and she knows a handful of spells (disguise self, spider climb, etc). In 4E, dragons DON’T possess blindsight, and at the time of the second novel, there were no rules for assassins. I ended up simply ignoring most of these things… though I did address the Eladrin in the third Thorn novel.

Races would probably be the biggest change; with 4E, we wanted a place for the new core PHB races – dragonborn and eladrin. I feel we did a reasonably good job of fitting these in without dramatically changing the world, and I like the role of the Eladrin. But it did take some thought.

In general, Eberron was designed with 3E D&D in mind – but it can certainly be adapted to any system.

All this time I thought it was the Silver Flame Church who started the anti-Lycanthrope purge, not the Flame itself/Tira!

If you haven’t read it, I’d take a look at this Dragonshard article about the Purge. A lot of people have the wrong idea about the Purge, and think that the Keeper got up one day and said “You know what I feel like doing? Hunting down lycanthropes who are minding their own business.” In fact, the Purge began as a war of defense and containment after there was an exponential surge in lycanthropy in what is now the Eldeen Reaches. Waves of lycanthropes were raiding Aundair, and at that time the curse was highly contagious. I like to describe it as “28 Days Later with werewolves instead of zombies.” The first days of the “Purge” were much like the marines versus the xenomorphs in Aliens: brutal and terrifying. One to one, very few templars were a match for a lycanthrope, and one bite is all it takes to turn an ally into an enemy. After years of bloody conflict the tide turned in favor of the Silver Flame, but it was no easy battle. The decades of persecution that followed were fueled by a hunger for revenge, especially on the part of the Aundairians who had lost homes, friends, and family to the lycanthrope plague. This is why the Aundairian Pure Flame are the most zealous and aggressive followers of the Silver Flame; their branch of the faith was born in war and vengeance.

And lastly, it says in Faiths of Eberron that the Lycanthropic Purge ended shortly after House Medani invented a dragonshard focus that could detect lycanthropes. Do you have any thoughts on how this item would function?

I didn’t work on Faiths of Eberron, so I don’t know what the author had in mind. As a dragonshard focus item, it would require an heir of the house to operate it. Other than that, I’d have it function as best fits your story. It could be a tracker a la Aliens, which notes general position and distance, but not complete details; this would allow you to maintain some mystery. “There’s definitely a werewolf in this room… but which of us is it?” If you want to kill that mystery, it could be a monocle that reveals the lycanthrope’s true shape, but thus only works with line of sight.

It says in the Eberron Campaign Setting that “when mortals dream, they psychically project their minds to Dal Quor.” What about immortals? Could a bound rakshasa rajah in suspended animation find a way to project his mind to Dal Quor?

The basic idea is that mortal spirits are influenced by all of the planes, and pulled between them. We slip into Dal Quor when we dream. We’re pulled to Dolurrh when we die. Beyond this, we are creatures of body and soul; it’s the spirit that visits Dal Quor when you dream, leaving your body behind.

Meanwhile, immortals are physical embodiments of ideas. This has two aspects. First, the immortal doesn’t dream the way mortals do. Its body isn’t mere flesh: it’s a physical representation of its spirit. The two don’t separate. If it wants to go to Dal Quor, it goes there in one piece. So it doesn’t “dream”, but it could planar travel. This ties to the second point. The mortals of Eberron are touched by all planes. War and peace, light and darkness, madness and dream; all of these things shape mortal minds. An immortal is a creature of one shade. It is PURE war, unadulterated madness or dream. It is a physical embodiment of the core ideas of its plane. A rakshasa or a Fernian balor has no innate connection to Dal Quor; dreams aren’t part of their core identity.

Having said that, could a Khyberian Overlord find a way to project itself into Dal Quor? Sure. If that’s the story you want to have happen, make an explanation. Perhaps Bel Shalor’s connection to the Silver Flame lets it ride mortal spirits into Dal Quor. Perhaps the followers of the Voice In The Darkness have created an eldritch machine that lets her push into the realm of dreams. If you want it to happen, decide what it takes. But it’s not normal, and it would be a significant event.

Furthermore, it also states that “the only way to reach Dal Quor from the Material Plane is through the psychic projection of dreaming.” Does this mean that only mortals on the material plane dream? What about mortals on other planes? What about mortals from the material plane traveling to other planes?

As noted above, creatures of Eberron are inherently shaped by all of the planes, and it its this connection to Dal Quor that lets us go there when we dream. Many of the planes don’t HAVE mortal inhabitants… or their mortal inhabitants are immigrants (or descendants of immigrants) from the material plane. I would say that most native mortals don’t go to Dal Quor when they sleep; in this I’ll point to the Eladrin, who don’t dream. Do traveling mortals dream? I’d say it depends on the plane. In Fernia, you might dream in Dal Quor; however, planes such as Baator (well, demiplanes) or Dolurrh might have a spiritual gravity that prevents you from escaping through dreams.

Do some noble lords have their own armies, as in feudal societies?

Yes and no. If you look to Karrnath, while the army has a national command structure, individual forces are raised and maintained by the noble families; the leaders of each family are known as warlords. So while the army typically serves the coordinated vision of the king, every soldier is personally loyal to a specific warlord, and any warlord could choose to remove his support from the king – something Kaius has to keep in mind. While this has been specifically called out in Karrnath, I imagine it’s the basic model for most of the nations: nobles are charged to raise and maintain elements of the national armies. Beyond this, there’s nothing stopping nobles from having their own private forces. The only restriction that’s ever been mentioned is the Korth Edicts, which prevent Dragonmarked Houses from having armies. If a noble of Galifar wants an army and can afford to maintain it, that’s their business.

 

Dragonmarks 1/25: Codex, Cannith, and Changes I’d Make

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It’s been awhile since I’ve done an Eberron Q&A, largely because I’ve been spending most of my spare time working on my new setting, codenamed Codex (working title only – it’s my Blue Harvest). But I don’t want to neglect Eberron, and a few of these questions segue into my upcoming Codex post. As always, my answers are just my opinion and may contradict canon sources: it’s up to you to decide what to use!

If there were anything you’d change about as-published Eberron, what would it be? What would you add or expand?

Lots of things. I wish we’d had more space to talk about the planes and undersea nations. I’d like more information about the spells and weapons used during the Last War, and more information about what war in Eberron actually looks like (and how these things could affect a post-war story). I wish we’d been able to provide more support for goblins as PCs. I wish we’d gotten the scale right on the original map of Khorvaire. Most of these are practical things that I believe would improve the setting for other players & DMs. There’s other changes that are more about what I want in a world, but don’t necessarily serve anyone else’s needs. I’d like the history of Galifar to have been shorter and a little more dramatic. I’d like more restrictions on resurrection and more of an exploration of its impact on society. There are lots of other little details like this, but they’re more for my peace of mind than because they interfere with people’s ability to enjoy the world.

As you progress in future RPGs/settings/etc, are there themes you tried exploring in Eberron that you’ll try to explore more?

Certainly. Looking at just a few…

  • The Impact of Magic on a Society. Any time I’m working on a world or system that involves magic, I want to seriously consider its impact on the world around it, and how it could be incorporated into a culture. Codex is at a different point in the history of magic than Eberron, and there’s more of a breakdown of different cultures employing different forms/schools of magic. But the basic idea—if magic exists and is reliable, how will it change the world—is definitely there.
  • War. There are many different ways in which war can generate stories. Eberron dealt with a civil war shattering a major kingdom. Codex will do something different… but war and its impact on the people caught up in it is certainly a theme that will be present.
  • Dreams. I’ve always loved exploring dreams. The very first RPG piece I had published was essentially Inception rules for Over The Edge. I wrote Oneiromancy rules for Atlas Games’ Occult Lore. Eberron plays with the Dreaming Dark and the Kalashtar. Codex is going in a different direction, but dreams have a role in the world.
  • Divine Mysteries and the Importance of Faith. Codex takes a very different approach to the divine than Eberron does. But it is still a world in which faith matters, where the absolute nature of the divine remains a mystery to mortals.
  • Shades of Gray. There’s always a place for the cut-and-dried pulp villain; when you fight the Emerald Claw, you generally know you’re doing the right thing. But as a noir fan, I want the world as a whole to be less black and white.

That’s just off the top of my head. I like conspiracies and intrigue, so you can be sure you’ll see a lot of schemes going on. I like to think about monsters—what are their cultures and drives? If I took another ten minutes, I’d likely come up with ten more answers, but I’ll get to those in the future.

Do the Five Nations have or seek to have colonies?

Colonization isn’t a strong theme in Eberron. By the numbers, the Five Nations aren’t even fully utilizing the land they currently claim; there’s no desperate need for new land. Beyond that, there’s not a lot of appealing land to colonize. Sarlona and Argonnessen are already taken, the Frostfell is hardly appealing, and Xen’drik is a cursed, twisted land full of dangerous things.

With that said, colonization and exploration are themes I’ll be exploring in Codex.

The Silver Flame infamously conducted a pogrom vs. lycanthropes. Has it similarly campaigned against other supernatural types?

Sure. Remember all those demon overlords trapped in Khyber? They’re the end result of the very first Silver Flame pogrom versus a supernatural threat. Of course, that predates HUMAN worship of the Silver Flame. In modern times, there’s nothing on par with the purge of lycanthropy, but in part that’s because there’s never been a threat that called for it. The Purge was a response to a massive outbreak of infectious lycanthropy; if left unchecked, this would have consumed and destroyed human civilization on Khorvaire. The forces of the Flame met this head on, and once it was broken, took steps to eliminate it completely. If there was, say, a zombie apocalypse, they’d act with the same ruthless efficiency to hunt down and destroy all vectors of zombie infection. There hasn’t been such a large-scale obvious threat, and so we haven’t seen such a thing. But on a smaller scale, the Silver Flame is CONSTANTLY campaigning against supernatural threats. That’s the purpose of the Templars: Protect the innocent from supernatural evil. Are there ghouls in the graveyard? The templars will check it out when they arrive. Is Dela possessed? Call for an exorcist of the Silver Flame! People often see the Silver Flame as intolerant or overzealous, but it’s important to remember that Eberron is a world where there ARE rakshasa, vampires, and demons abroad in the world, where you could be possessed or where evil from Khyber could burst onto the surface at any time. If it does, the Templars are charged to face it and if necessary, to lay down their lives to protect you from it.

Is there a Cannith family tree w/the prominent family member’s dates of birth/death & so on? How old was Norran when he died?

I’ve never encountered or constructed a full Cannith family tree. I don’t believe there’s a canon source as to Norran’s age, so it’s up to you to decide what best suits your story.

Also would warforged eventually expire if sealed in a vault? If Cannith seals unwanted creations up, do they last forever?

Warforged don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe. As such, a warforged could survive for a very, very long time if it was sealed in a vault. Do they last FOREVER? That depends on the environment. If you stored a suit of armor in this vault, would it still be intact and usable in a century? If the answer is “yes,” than a warforged stored in a similar way would also survive. If the environment lends itself to decay and corrosion, and if circumstances prevent the warforged from maintaining itself, it could fall pray to rot or corrosion. On the other hand, if it’s capable of moving and tending to itself, it could probably hold these things at bay. As defined, warforged have no set “expiration date,” and there are canon sources that deal with warforged created during the Age of Giants that are still operational.

Can a rakshasa truly worship the Silver Flame? If not, why don’t Silver Flame priests detect the evilness of disguised rakshasa?

This question originally dealt with the plot of a specific novel; to avoid spoilers, I’m addressing the general point. First, I don’t believe that a rakshasa can truly worship the Silver Flame… because if it does, it will cease to be a rakshasa and become something else. Immortal fiends are essentially incarnate ideas; if the idea changes substantially, I maintain that the creature will become something entirely different. A fallen angel becomes a radiant idol or a devil. A “risen” rakshasa would likewise take on a new form… perhaps that of a deva.

Given this, how do undercover rakshasa avoid detection? They have to be able to duplicate the powers of the roles they seek to fill. A rakshasa posing as a silver pyromancer has to learn some way to make his magic LOOK like that of a true silver pyromancer, even if it’s not. However, the Lords of Dust have had tens of thousands of years to work on this.  They have access to epic level spellcasters and hordes of treasure amassed since the dawn of time… so they can use magic items to help their disguises. One of the most important of these is the Mask of the Misplaced Aura, described on page 170 of Sharn: City of Towers; this is an amulet that gives the wearer a different aura for purposes of divination. So a rakshasa could have a MotMA that makes him show up as a 10th level lawful good cleric, even though he’s actually a 12th level lawful evil sorcerer/outsider.

What would change if the Twelve creates some magic equivalent firearms just for dragonmarked heirs?

It depends how effective they are compared to other weapons, from crossbows to eternal wands. Can they by any dragonmarked heir, or just one with a dragonmark? Do they require martial training, or are they mystically accurate (more like a longbow or a wand of magic missiles)? What’s the range? Do they automatically penetrate armor? How expensive are they—can every heir have them, or are they as rare as high-level sorcerers?

One of the underlying themes of Eberron is the uneasy balance of power between the nobility and the dragonmarked houses; the military power of the houses has been held in check by the Korth Edicts. If the houses acquire this new tool, there is the chance for them to be seen as a new military threat. I expect that the Five Nations would seek to ban them, just as they shut down Cannith’s creation forges. The question is if the Twelve would defy them, and what would happen if they do. Will all the houses stand together behind the Twelve, or would some break ranks? Are the nations prepared to forgo the services of the houses to enforce this point? Might they convince the Church of the Silver Flame that these firearmed dragonmarked heirs are a supernatural threat that endangers the innocent?

Ultimately, I think the answer largely depends on diplomacy and how these things are used. If they are used sparingly and in accord with the laws of the land, they might go largely unnoticed. On the other hand, if the houses flaunt them and engage in acts of aggression, it’s possible you could have an entirely different sort of Next War on your hands.

You mentioned a pulp hero named The Beholder. Would he be more like Batman or The Shadow?

The Beholder and her tagline (“No evil escapes the eyes of the Beholder!”) was inspired by the Shadow. The Beholder was a kalashtar with an assortment of agents (her “eyes”) she could communicate with telepathically to coordinate her war on the villains of Sharn.

Why may Aereni be interesting villains?

Hmm. The members of the Undying Court are tens of thousands of years old. They are one of the few forces who are capable of interpreting the Draconic Prophecy. Together, they wield divine power on par with the Silver Flame, if not as far reaching. They are capable of ruthless action in pursuit of their own interests, as shown by the extermination of the Line of Vol. Their power is limited beyond Aerenal, but can still be channeled through their priests and paladins. So, here’s a few ideas.

  • Take a page from Fringe. The Undying Court has been watching humanity for thousands of years. Now it acts. Through some unknown method, the Court extends its power to (Sharn/Stormreach/wherever), allowing them to wield their full divine power in this region. This allows them to shatter any organized military force that challenges them. Aereni soldiers commanded by deathless paladins seize control of the region and place it under martial law. They are constructing eldritch machines that will extend the range of their powers and allow the Ascendant Counselors to leave Shae Mordai. First off, WHY? Are they trying to save humanity from itself? Is this really an attack on the Lords of Dust/Chamber/Erandis Vol, who were about to do something big in the area?
  • Take it on a smaller scale. Aerenal decides that it won’t put up with the people of Khorvaire providing aid and support for its enemies (Erandis and the Emerald Claw). It begins to send military strike teams into the Five Nations to attack the Emerald Claw, and to hit areas with divine strikes. Aerenal considers these actions fully justified and is unconcerned about collateral damage. As an adventurer, you can easily get caught up in conflict with these forces, especially if you have any attachments to the Blood of Vol. Do you fight them? Strike back at Aerenal? Or try to help them finish their mission as quickly and efficiently as possible to minimize collateral damage?
  • If you’re an elf, chances are your ancestors at least passed through Aerenal. That means the Court knows something about you. Perhaps you have an ancestor on the Court. Or you have an ancient enemy on the Court who has been slowly eliminating your entire line. He’s finally gotten around to you. He’s coordinating strikes from Shae Mordai. Not only do you not know who he is, you don’t know the basis for the feud. Can you find the answers to these questions before it’s too late? How do you reach him in Shae Mordai?

Our local group is trying to get a better understanding of airships, which has made us curious about some of the choices used.  In the campaign setting book  airships use fire elementals and galleons use air elementals.  It just doesn’t make sense to us.  Why not just use air elementals for both ships?

A galleon uses an air elemental to generate wind which it harnesses with sails. The fire elemental works more like a rocket. With that said, some airships do employ air elementals; Pride of the Kraken from Principles of Fire used both an air and fire elemental.
I have been doing some research on flying fortresses.  In doing so I stumbled across a forum post that was speaking about the command center.  The post mentioned that it uses three bound elementals, earth, air, and fire. How does an earth elemental aid the flying fortress?

I don’t believe it’s my post, so I can’t say what the original author intended. However, I could see it as possibly being less about the interaction with the earth and more about enhancing the structural stability of the vessel.
If an elemental vessel loses its bound shard or it becomes damaged can it be repaired? Better yet can it be replaced?

Provided that it survives the experience, sure. If someone removes it while it’s docked, it could be replaced. And a galleon could lose its shard and continue under normal windpower. However, a large airship that loses its shard while in motion is going to crash, so a new shard is the least of your repair issues.
If shards are replaceable, would it then be possible to have a vessel that could swap crystals to take on different traits?

I don’t see why not. This would be an argument for a ship with multiple bound elementals—so you could still have one active to maintain the stability of the vessel while you switch out the other.
It seems that all of the Eberron publications only intend for the core elementals (air, earth, fire, and water) to be bound?  Do you have plans for the other elementals?  I know I do.  Is it possible that they can’t be bound?

I think any elemental should be able to be bound. I have no plans for them, but I certainly encourage you to run with the idea.

Besides Q&A it would be cool if you write short Eberron stories (FR authors do it).

I don’t know what FR authors do, but there’s a few factors here.

First, Eberron is the intellectual property of Wizards of the Coast. If I wrote an Eberron story, they would be within their rights to order me to take it down or change it. Would they? I don’t know. But they COULD. There’s been issues in the past as to whether I could post an Eberron adventure on my site. And there’s certainly no way I could sell an Eberron story.

This ties to point number two, which is time. I don’t have a whole lot of it, and the freelance RPG business isn’t the most lucrative job in the world. As a result, I need to focus the time that I have on projects that I feel are going somewhere. I’d LIKE to finish the stories of Thorn and Daine and Lei. But those stories belong to WotC, and I can’t afford to work on a story that not only can’t I sell, but that I might not even be able to post for free. Hence my working on Codex. I want to work on something that I know I can expand. So I’d be thrilled if WotC authorizes me to do more Eberron fiction. But it’s not something I’m comfortable investing time in without that authorization.

Six Questions: Javier Grillo-Marxuach

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I know a lot of interesting people. Some I’ve worked with, some I’ve met while traveling the world, some just owe me money. My name may be on the website, but it seems kind of boring if I’m the only person whose voice is heard here. So I’m bringing some of my friends to the site, as time permits. I’m not a podcasty kind of guy, so I’m just keeping things simple: one guest, six questions.

This week I’m talking with JAVIER GRILLO-MARXUACH. Javi is the creator of one of my favorite television shows ever: The Middleman. He also wrote the comic the show was based on, and has done writing for such diverse shows as Lost, Charmed, Medium, The Pretender, and many more. He’s written comics! He’s created short films! He is one of the smartest people in the room, and if you’re not familiar with his work, you should get right on it.

What’s your story? Do you already know how it’s going to end, or are you just making it up as you go and hoping you get renewed for another season?

Though some days it feels like my story is the product of a writers room where lunch has not yet arrived, everyone is snapping at each other in hypoglycemic shock, the ratings arrived wrapped in fish and the dailies have become indelible proof that our once-irresistible-but-now-crotchety, dialogue-rewriting leading man has been spending too much time at the craft services table…those days aside, my story is pleasantly open-ended and I have made my peace with the truth that such uncertainty is far more conducive to fun, surprising opportunities than a relentless drive toward a dramatic conclusion.

You’ve worked on a host of shows and comics, but you’ve also created your own original characters and stories, such as The Middleman and Ramiel: The Wrath of God. What inspires your original work?

Let me answer this question with my favorite anecdote from the set of The Middleman. I was hanging out with our leading lady – Wendy Watson herself – Natalie Morales, and the actor who played her boyfriend Tyler – Brendan Hines. We were shooting the second-to-last episode and I answered a question about Brendan’s character by telling him that “Tyler is me on my best day.” Natalie looked at me in abject shock and horror and exclaimed that “But you said Wendy was also you!” I replied that indeed, she was. Natalie followed that up with the slightly repulsed statement “But… Wendy and Tyler are having sex!” In the difficult and awkward pause that ensued, I realized that there is probably no better way to summarize the relationship of creators and their work.

Tell me about The Middleman. How would you sum it up for a complete newb? What makes it unique?

It’s like having your brain smashed with a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick. No, wait, that was a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster. They blend. OK, The Middleman…it’s basically a brightly-colored superhero fantasia where good is rewarded with victory and sustaining friendships, where doing the Right Thing results not in burden, compromise and tragedy, but in knowledge, wisdom and renewed optimism, and in which evil is not an unstoppable force without end, but the simple consequence of a lunk-headed refusal to behave with what we shamelessly earnest sentimentalists refer to as “simple human decency.” Those of us who made the show, quite simply, went to work every day with the humble goal of creating a televisual version of the Platonic Ideal of the Fisher Price garage we all had as children: an endlessly playful structure full of bright and shining things all leading to a good time. Whether we succeeded is up to you – the viewer – to decide.

The Middleman can always be counted on for a colorful exclamation, be it “Mutual of Omaha!” or “Eyes without a face!” What’s your favorite Middle-expression, and what was your criteria for coming up with them?

Because The Middleman transformed himself from a snot-punchin’ hellion into a clean-livin’ man who renounced profanity, the scripts continually called for more – and more colorful – expressions to articulate what ordinary people would normally do with an expletive. To fill that need, we had a dedicated white board in the writer’s room for Middleman exclamations (coming up with them became such a pervasive obsession that, to this day, the writers will email me new ones on a regular basis, even though the show has been off the air for some four years). You know, it’s hard to have a bad day at work when every time you turn your head in a certain direction, you see a board full of bon-mots like: Abs of Steel! Band of Brothers! Lhasa Apso! Land of the lost! Abe Lincoln’s mule! Breakfast of champions! Misfits of science! Easy-bake oven! Gods and monsters! Corinthian leather! Non-dairy creamer! Star 69! Door number three! My little pony! – and, of course – In-a-gadda-da-vida! As for my favorite Middle-exclamation, I have to say that while most recently, I truly enjoyed having the Big Green Cheese exclaim “Sons of Anarchy!” (in my traditional Christmas card Middleman short story that I do for the fans), I prefer the sheer elegance of simplicity to be found in heaving out a good, loud “OH PHOOEY!”

We met at a D&D game. How did you get into gaming, and what do you enjoy about it?

Dungeons and Dragons is like geek Esperanto: a shared language for people who love living out loud in a realm of imagination. I got into it when I was ten and the first edition came out…and it was like nerd-nirvana for me and my friends (that and VCRs and the Atari 2600). I love the social aspect of role-play gaming, the creativity, and – of course – the Mountain Dew and pizza. The best way I can describe D&D is how I explained it to the five year-old son of my current Dungeon Master…the little guy asked “what’s D&D?” and I said “you know how you have a video game system? It’s like that, only your dad is the console and the television.”

What are your plans for 2013?

I am incredibly blessed and lucky in that I get to do for a living something that I love dearly. Someone in my position should never take that for granted, so I plan on doing exactly what I always do, make things and hope they get out to anyone who might enjoy them: I have a new comic series “Unfathomable” coming out in the summer through APE Entertainment (the best way I can describe the premise is “Transformers with fish”)…I am also creating a pilot for the SyFy channel and doing some work on a new series created by Naren Shankar of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” – with whom I worked on seaQuest – and Luc Besson, who directed “The Fifth Element” among many others. Truly, all I want is to continue to have the privilege and opportunity to put these weird little objects from my mind into the world and see if they survive!

Six Questions: Ryan Macklin

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I know a lot of interesting people. Some I’ve worked with, some I’ve met while traveling the world, some just owe me money. My name may be on the website, but it seems kind of boring if I’m the only person whose voice is heard here. So I’m bringing some of my friends to the site, as time permits. I’m not a podcasty kind of guy, so I’m just keeping things simple: one guest, six questions.

Today I’m talking to RYAN MACKLIN. You may know Ryan from his blog or his podcast, Master Plan (by curious coincidence, the most recent episode of Master Plan is an old interview with me!). As a game designer, Ryan is everywhere you want to be. He’s been involved in the design and development of a host of games ranging from the Leverage RPG, the Dresden Files RPG, A Penny for my Thoughts and more. He’s contributed a series pitch to Robin D. Laws‘ Hillfolk system, and has a piece in the Cortex Plus Hacker’s Guide. Beyond any of these, he’s just released an entirely new system of his own design. It’s called  MYTHENDER, it lets you bake Odin’s ravens into a pie, and it’s absolutely free. So what are you waiting for? Follow that link and check it out. And then come back and see what Ryan has to say about it!

Ryan Macklin, what’s your Master Plan?

As you might imagine, I get this question often. My answer for it has changed over time. I’ve joked about world domination (as have some of my guests on Master Plan), but right now the truth is: my Master Plan is to survive and help a few people along the way. And when it comes that second bit, I take a shotgun approach: I write on my blog about the creative process to help those who are new to it. I speak openly about struggles with mental health in the gaming community to help those who need to hear someone tell their story. And I suppose that even games I make help people to enjoy a moment in time, either to unwind or to think about something they wouldn’t otherwise.

This holiday season, I saw you run a game in which the players set out to crush Santa and hear the lamentation of his reindeer. Now that experience is available to everyone. Tell me about MYTHENDER.

Man, Mythender. My pitch is always: DO YOU WANT TO STAB THOR IN THE FACE?

That question has changed in visual meaning since Chris Hemsworth’ take on the Marvel character. SO THANKS UNIVERSE. Anyway, it’s my take on the idea of what truly mythic stories are about: power and hubris.

Much of the design is focused around two things: the emotional brain will hook deeper into language and tactile elements than the rational brain will in mathematical puzzles. And because the game is about telling a story of raging power and corruption, the emotional brain takes priority. So all the things in the game are worded deliberately to trigger a certain emotional space, and the large number of dice the game requires is about feeling the weight of your power in your hand and feeling how that diminishes when you’re hit.

I wanted to make a game the fulfilled the promise I thought Exalted had, and I wanted to play with ideas in Nobilis. I just didn’t realize I would be doing them in the same game. Of course, I’ve pretty much down the “here’s the pitch for game designers” for the last two paragraphs. So, BACK TO LET’S STAB ODIN IN HIS GOOD EYE and try to not become gods in the process, lest our friends End us.

What do you consider to be your finest creation?

That’s a damned hard question. If we stick to gaming, then when it comes to mechanical engines, certainly Mythender. The Game Creation chapter of Fate Core is my finest bit on campaign creation advice/procedure. Or the $15,000 I helped make in a few days for someone’s cancer treatment bills. But I’m hedging by breaking down into categories and whatnot, and the real answer is none of those.

Truthfully, there’s an uncomfortable finality in “finest.” So I’ll say my finest creation is years ahead, at minimum. It’s the one I’m chasing, the one bends like reeds in the wind, whose flaws are like cherry blossoms–for if nothing can be perfect, then let ones flaws be intentional and desirable.

After you die, you are dispatched to a special level of the afterlife in which you must run RPGs for the rest of eternity. What three systems do you take with you?

Mythender, because it amuses me. And I think implied in this answer is “all the stuff to run the game,” which means I’ll have a couple hundred d6s of various colors, as well as two different styles of tokens. So that’s awesome.

Man, it’s hubris to mention two games I’ve been involved in, but I really like what we did with Fate Core. Only I would probably want to also take Cortex Plus. They’re similar enough that I wouldn’t want to take both, so I guess I would take Fate Cor…tex Plus. Sure, I’ll make that hack before I die, so that it exists.

And finally, whatever is the most recent game from Jason Morningstar at the time of my death. If there is a god, that game would be Nine Roosevelts Against the Impossible.

You worked on the Leverage RPG, and you’re currently working on Margaret Weis Productions’ Cortex Plus Hacker’s Guide. Tell me about the Guide and your piece of it.

Well, I can do better; you can actually read a rough draft of my article on my blog: http://ryanmacklin.com/2011/11/hacking-stress-in-cortex-plus/

But it’s a treatise on language design in games. I have both a mathematical and creative writing background, so I feel like I can say with a decent amount of authority that language design is a stronger and more important component to creative game mechanics than the math. Some people call this “theme,” which is fair. And for those who would say “what about visuals?” I agree — that’s another aspect of communication/language/whatever you want to call it.

Anyway, my article is about showing how changing what you call Stress traits in Smallville can do for your game. Since in Smallville, how you suffer and deal with detriment is prescribed with language, that’s a really fascinating hack point that I think few considered.

A freak wormhole drops you into Gen Con 2018. What do you find there?

First of all, me without my pants on. PUT YOUR DAMN PANTS ON, FUTURE SELF.

I ohh and ahh at the next iteration of board games that make deckbuilders look antiquated. Like, I can’t fathom what that is, but knowing it’s there excites me right now. And the number of vendors selling phone/tablet games at Gen Con is pretty awesome.

Naturally, I swing by the very impressive booth that Daniel Solis has for his games, and I remark about how I’m entirely unsurprised at his success.

Leonard Balsera is sitting at the bar waiting for me, with a “where have you been, you bastard?” look and a manhattan waiting for me.

Later, after the exhibit hall winds down, I will come up to you and ask you what sort of wizard you are that you knew this would happen. I would beg you to show me the way home. But not without a few pages of notes I’ve taken about upcoming trends in gaming. Still, I intentionally don’t look at anything I’ve worked on — spoilers, after all.

Six Questions: Wolfgang Baur

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I know a lot of interesting people. Some I’ve worked with, some I’ve met while traveling the world, some just owe me money. My name may be on the website, but it seems kind of boring if I’m the only person whose voice is heard here. So I’m bringing some of my friends to the site, as time permits. I’m not a podcasty kind of guy, so I’m just keeping things simple: one guest, six questions.

Today I’ve got WOLFGANG BAUR on the spot. You may know Wolfgang as the co-creator of Dark*Matter, the founder of Open Design, the chief kobold at Kobold Quarterly, or for the Midgard Campaign Setting or the host of other RPG material he’s created over the years. This week he released the Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding, which includes a few essays by your truly… along with a few other folks such as Monte Cook, Jeff Grubb, Chris Pramas. If you want to get the guide, you can pick it up from Amazon, Drivethru RPG, Createspace, or the Kobold Quarterly store. Now on with the questions!

How did you get started with gaming, and how did you end up where you are today?

I started with a blue box and some friends, then found some submission guidelines for Dungeon Magazine. I published a few adventures, just a trickle back in the days when Dungeon was bi-monthly. Then one day a friend told me TSR was hiring. I never had a careful strategy to work in games, but I was very hardworking and very lucky. Both helped.

I left Wizards of the Coast to strike out on my own, but have kept good relationships with Paizo, the WotC old guard, and others because I admire what they do for the hobby. I have found new friends and co-workers both at the big firms, and by working with freelancers for Kobold Press. Gamers have a good community.

Why kobolds?

Because they are the underdog. My whole career in RPG was in working for the big guys, first TSR, then WotC. And they have a lot to offer, in terms of art, editing, distribution, quality, creativity–not to mention the ability to pay the rent.

But when I struck out on my own, I felt like one little guy in a room full of giants, firms with deeper pockets, bigger networks, larger audiences, everything. So, the small-but-fierce credo of the Kobold Press was forged from necessity. Over time, we’ve grown, but in the larger picture, we’re still a small firm that survives by its wits. And a few well-laid ambushes and traps. Small means vulnerable, but also nimble, and that’s kobolds.

Your latest release is the Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding. Tell me about the guide. If I’m just sitting down to create a world, how will it help me?  

The guide is split out into sections on different topics, covering all the essential elements for building a world.

To provide the best advice, almost a dozen different industry veterans tackle different topics, from mapping to working in an established world to how to design a useful fantasy society or a new pantheon. The authors have been done worldbuilding for Guild Wars, Battletech, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Midgard, Magic: the Gathering, Star Wars, and Westeros. It’s advice built on real experience and real success.

The cartographical advice, for instance, comes from Jonathan Roberts, the cartographer for George Martin’s Game of Thrones setting, Westeros. The pantheon advice comes from pantheon authors for D&D and Pathfinder RPG. The discussion is directed at showing you what your main decision-points are, and where different worlds choose different styles or paths. The examples help make the arguments, in other words, but there’s enough meat here to engage even long-time RPG veterans.

To my mind, some of the most interesting discussion comes from those people whose names you might not know. Scott Hungerford, one of the men responsible for the worldbuilding of Magic: the Gathering and many other major properties, talks about how to keep your world straight with a setting bible. I don’t think it gets any better than advice from people who do this professionally, and written to make your home game better, faster, and more engaging for players.

What’s the Guide got to offer gamemasters who already have a homebrew setting or use an established world?

Absolutely tons of great advice to enrich and expand your setting or an established setting! Who wouldn’t want some worldbuilding advice from Monte Cook or Chris Pramas or Jeff Grubb–or Keith Baker?

The Guide describes how to create a tribal society and how to create a secret society, how to generate adventure and conflict with mystery cults, how to think about the role of technology and how to deploy magic to create a sense of wonder. It tackles the value (or lack of value) of long historical timetables. The Guide to Worldbuilding isn’t just about the basics; it about the trade-offs, and how to expand an existing setting is definitely part of the package.

The Guide to Worldbuilding talks about what to leave out of your setting, and why, in a way that should give any worldbuilder food for thought. Not to mention, the chapter on how a freelancer might approach writing for a licensed setting such as Star Wars or Game of Thrones.

Well before Kickstarter became ubiquitous, you started Open Design as a way to have patrons directly fund RPG projects. In Open Design, senior patrons directly contribute ideas to the projects. What inspired you to create Open Design? What’s an example of a critical idea provided by a patron? 

I founded Open Design (the company) as a self-publishing effort, to put forward my designs and ideas. I quickly discovered that the fans who funded the work had lots of great ideas themselves, and that the conversation with the patrons and backers helped fine-tune, develop, and expand the best ideas. So that method, while time-consuming, has become a key element in creating better, award-winning work.

An example of a critical idea? Sure, a dwarven mines project some time ago was going to be a straight-up Mines of Moria sort of riff until a patron named Brandon Hodge said “Why not give the dwarves a secret society, sort of like Freemasons?” That was a great twist, and the designers and backers of the project played with it, enriched it, and made it concrete, from titles to robes to key plot points. That one suggestion led to lots of interesting plot and setting elements, so we ran with it. That one suggestion reshaped the entire final product in a way that was more exciting, more original, and more playable.

In other words, it might be more work to do it this way, but 50 minds are definitely better than one. The results have been impressive.

Through Open Design, you’ve produced the Midgard campaign setting. Tell me about Midgard. Given the choice of Golarion, Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Greyhawk and more, what makes Midgard unique and interesting?

While there are many fine settings, Midgard stands alone by placing a premium on presenting real myths and legends with a fantasy twist (the ravenfolk, the world trees, the ley lines) and it offers new roleplaying elements such as Status rules and the Deep Magic of shadow roads and ley lines. It’s not a wildly weird setting, but a paean to European fantasy traditions put through a Pathfinder lens.

It’s also the only complete fantasy setting written expressly for Pathfinder RPG—well, other than the Paizo house setting of Golarion. It is the only fantasy setting that gives its fans so many chances to publish their adventures in it. Midgard is a truly shared world, because of its collaborative design approach. That makes it powerful stuff. One reviewer called it “without doubt or hyperbole the very best fantasy RPG campaign setting that I have ever read (and I’ve read many!).”

Sometimes, not being first means that you learn from what other settings did right, or did wrong. Midgard clearly did.

Recent Releases: Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding

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While my next big thing is a long-term project, I’ve got a number of small things in the hopper. One hit shelves today: The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding. This is an anthology of essays by a host of talented designers, including people I’ve worked with in the past and others whose work I’ve long admired. The topics range from very broad to quite narrow; some look at things from a high level, whereas others are more practical… how to design a cult, a guild, a tribe, a nation. I contributed two essays, “How to make a High-Magic World” and “Bringing History to Life.” I’ve only just received my other’s copy, so I’m still digesting the other essays in the book. So far I’m enjoying it, and as someone currently designing a new setting, it’s given me a lot of things to think about. Wolfgang Baur will have more to say about the Guide in this week’s Six Questions, but until then, take a look for yourself at Drivethru RPG, Createspace, or Amazon!

Beyond this, my most recent releases are all tied to my love of Lovecraft. Unpleasant Dreams is an expansion for Cthulhu Gloom, adding new Stories, Transformations, Guests, and more; I discuss it in more detail in this post. Earlier this year I released Cthulhu Fluxx, which brings a little much-needed madness to the chaos of Fluxx. While it keeps the overall structure of Fluxx – get the Keepers you need to meet the shifting goal, while dealing with the ever-changing rules – Cthulhu Fluxx adds a second layer. You’re trying to win for yourself, but you also need to work with the other players to keep everyone from losing. No one wins if Cthulhu rises… with the possible exception of the secret cultist, if one is out there! It was a fun challenge as a designer, and I’m happy with the results.

I’ll be talking about my next big thing soon; we’re still catching up from the chaos of the holidays, and I’m getting back into my work groove. I hope that 2013 is treating you well so far!

 

 

Six Questions: Molly Lewis

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I know a lot of interesting people. Some I’ve worked with, some I’ve met while traveling the world, some just owe me money. My name may be on the website, but it seems kind of boring if I’m the only person whose voice is heard here. So I’m bringing some of my friends to the site, as time permits. I’m not a podcasty kind of guy, so I’m just keeping things simple: one guest, six questions.

My guest this week is ukulele sensation MOLLY LEWIS. I first heard Molly’s music at W00tstock, then got to know her at PAX and JoCoCruise Crazy II. Her music addresses such timeless topics as the Lincoln Assassination and the immortal wisdom of Mister T; she’s also a brilliant gamer who plays a mean hand of Pit. If you aren’t familiar with her work, YouTube is here to help you out, and I suggest you go there IMMEDIATELY. We’ll still be here when you get back! In addition, Molly is just about to embark on a West Coast tour with nerd-folk duo The Doubleclicks. If you’re on the west coast, check the schedule for a local show!

If someone made a quirky primetime sitcom based on your life, what would we see in the first episode? 

I’m picturing an old-fashioned expository theme song and title sequence, sort of like That Girl. (“Who’s that? Doesn’t know how to drive a car / la la la lalala la / Who’s that? Eating kimchi straight out of the jar / la la la lala la / She loves board games, she’s kind of arty-farty / She’s a party animal! in that she talks to cats at parties / She’s MOLLY.”)

In Seinfeld, the original premise they pitched was you watch a comedian go through his day and gather material for his standup show, which you see at the end of each episode. It would be way taxing on me as a songwriter if I adopted this premise and then had to crank out a song every week, but if I have a sweatshop of other songwriters to help me, it might be plausible.

In the first episode I think we’d follow me getting ready for an upcoming Dammit Liz show. The primary sets that my sitcom would use the most would be My House, My Home Office, and Cafe Mox (Central Perk : Friends :: Cafe Mox : my sitcom). The first episode of my sitcom would have to establish all these sets.

We’d open up at INT – Molly’s House – DAY, where Ben and I are in our living room. He is playing Darksiders II or looking at pictures of shoes on his phone or something. I’m sorting through my Cards Against Humanity set to create a sanitized set I can take home to play with my family over the Thanksgiving holiday. After I reduce my whole pack down to about 10 useable white cards, I declare Mission Accomplished and decide to go upstairs to get some work done.

So we cut to INT – Molly’s Home Office – DAY. I get a Skype call from Dammit Liz (IRL I would get an email but Skype makes for better television) inviting me to the “Dammit Liz Presents A Guy Fawkes Day Musical Fireworks Celebration” or something. But uh oh! it’s been 6 months since I’ve written a new song, and I don’t have any material appropriate for Guy Fawkes Day. 🙁

I go to INT – Cafe Mox – DAY to meet up with my fellow nerdy songwriter friends The Doubleclicks and Marian Call. (By warped sitcom physics, Juneau Portland and Seattle will all be very close together.) We talk about my songwriter troubs and they suggest ideas that are well-meaning and clever but very distinctively their style, and I feel bad stealing ideas from my friends.

The pilot episode would probably end up at some Dammit Liz production, because we need to establish (1) that I’m a professional ukulelist, and (2) it would be a quick & easy way to introduce all my friends that might make appearances later in the series. Look, it’s the hilarious duo Kris & Scott (spinoff??), OMG the Loading Ready Run people, oh Logan Bonner you lovable scamp LOL.

The show would end with me singing my new song about Guy Fawkes Day (“My Parliamentary Heart Bursts For You” or something).

What are your favorite songs… that you’ve written, and that you haven’t?  

Right now I am mainlining some “Ballad of Booth” from Assassins, something fierce. As someone who has written a songbit about the Lincoln assassination from Booth’s perspective, it is SO choice. The whole reason I wrote my Lincoln song is because I read Assassination Vacation immediately before I got that prompt, and found the portion about JWBooth fascinating – He honestly thought he was being the Good Guy, a liberator and patriot, and wrote as much in his diary post-assassination.

I judge the quality of song rhymes based on whether or not I can tell which rhyming phrase was put down first; sometimes you can just smell when someone went “Oh crap, what rhymes with ‘call me MAYBE’? ‘This is CRAZY?’ Pffft, that’s fine.” If the rhyme works into the song naturally, and if you have command of the language, the anal-retentive listener shouldn’t be able to tell which phrase you put to paper first – or the rhyme has to be so cheekily clever that it comes around the other side. (Tom Lehrer does this a lot; he’s the inspiration for the “commuter bus / uterus” rhyme in my Mr. T song.) Sondheim rhymes are so tight that you can’t pick out where the thought even started. (Some say it was your voice had gone / Some say it was booze / Some say you killed a country, John / because of bad reviews.)  I’m pretty sure he could crush me between the lobes of his brain.

And it’s weird because he’s my friend and stuff, but “I’m Your Moon” by Jonathan Coulton is a fantastic song. That was the song that made me go “Just who is this Jonathan Coulton guy??”

I generally think love songs are boring cultural excess, but “I’m Your Moon” works for me on so many levels because the most romantic bits about it are based on actual scientific facts about Pluto’s relationship with its moon (they’re very similar in size and so Pluto’s center of orbit is between them, and their rotational orbits are synched so that they are constantly facing each other, like dancers), and it also gave the whole Pluto Isn’t A Planet thing some closure (at least in my heart). It took these inert space bodies and gave them personhood, gave them pathos. It was just everything you wanted to tell Pluto after it got demoted, from the only celestial being qualified to really console Pluto on anything. It’s really a very lovely, thoughtful, and well-constructed thing.

When I was in high school we had to write an Elizabethan sonnet for my English class; everybody else wrote sonnets about love or teenage angst, and I wrote about Pluto lamenting that it wasn’t a planet anymore. It remains an issue close to my heart.

Another recent acquisition is Let’s Misbehave / Irving Aaronson – A fantastic song for ukulele, I might add. It’s the kind of mischief that I want associated with the ukulele.

What led you to the ukulele?

The sheer novelty of it. No, really. I had gone through guitar, mandolin, and banjo in the span of 2.5 years. Guitar was too big for my tiny frame, mandolin was tough on my fingers (two of each string, ouch), and banjo was inherently fragile and dorky in a way I couldn’t work with. So one day my dad is coming home from the office and he sees this weird looking tiny stringed instrument in the window of a shop and says “That thing looks dumb, maybe Molly can play it.” So he brings it home and I go “Whaaa?” but it ended up incorporating all the advantages of the other 3 instruments while doing away with the disadvantages.

I played guitar for about 3 years before ditching it for ukulele, because I was reasonably good enough at it and it’s important for me to be able to sing while playing my instrument. I always got squirmy though because when a girl gets onstage with a guitar, especially a teenage girl, people are really quick to compare her to other lady singer-songwriters. People were eager to put me in a box, and they thought it was a compliment when they told me that I reminded them of Michelle Branch or Jewel or The Dixie Chicks or something. I found it insulting for some reason.

I picked up ukulele in 2004, sort of as it was starting to crest into trendiness, and there were no ukulele playing ladies that anybody could compare me to. I liked people asking “What IS that thing?” when I brought it out and played it. So I stuck with it.

If you were kidnapped by animatronic presidents and forced to work at a Disney Park, what would you want your job to be?

I’d love to play with Billy Hill & The Hillbillies, but I don’t think they have any openings. 

If I worked at the Dole booth outside the Tiki Room I could eat pineapple whip all day. I’d like that.

I definitely want to be the person who loads people on and off the Matterhorn. I’ve always envied their sweet wooly jackets. They’re long, kind of gray and forest green – they might even be reversible? Ben tells me they’re called toggle coats, because they have these horn things instead of buttons. The people that load the Pirates Of The Caribbean ride also get pretty cool outfits. They get to wear orange and burgundy striped socks, and the ladies get this suedey bodice thing – and pants. Most Disney ride operator ladies have to wear dresses of some kind.

When I was a kid I really wanted to be a skipper on the Jungle Cruise because I thought they had the most creative freedom of all the Disney employees? and then learned as I grew up that they actually have to submit their jokes for approval before they can use them on the job. So, that’s boring.

When you enter the Haunted Mansion, there’s this haunted stretchy gallery room you start in before you get into the boarding area. You’re supposed to stand in the middle of the room to get the full effect, and so there’s an employee (also with a great costume) who says “Ladies and gentlemen, kindly drag your bodies away from the walls to the dead center of the gallery,” their emphasis. This one time we had this lady who did not get where the jokes were in that spiel, and so she said “kindly move your cadavers away from the scary walls to the dead center of the haunted gallery.” I wanted to school her about how I was 12 and could do her job better than she could, but didn’t.

What’s your favorite game at the moment? 

Earlier this week I played Cash & Guns for the first time, the game mechanic of which involves pointing foam orange pistols at other players; I worried it would be sort of a gimmicky game mechanic that doesn’t add much, like the inflatable clubs in Ugg Tect, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it’s a good and easy pickup game.

I really like team games that involve more bluffing and talking than, uh, actual strategizing. So Fiasco is a favorite, Werewolves is good (The Resistance is also in the same vein, but has more structure). Deck-building and turn-based games are touchy for me because I had some roommates in college who really loved Dominion but weren’t good about talking the other players through what they were doing in their turn. You only spent 1/4 of the game enjoying yourself, and the rest waiting for it to be your turn; there was a lot of “[nudge] Is your turn over?” “…Oh. Yes.” (They also didn’t like to put out that involved any kind of intrigue or stealing cards from other people, which is half the fun of Dominion.) Games like Fluxx or We Didn’t Playtest This or Gloom keep everybody involved in the game even when it isn’t their turn, and Dominion should be like that, but I wasn’t playing with the right people.

And I’m normally sort of unenthused with iPhone games, but I’ve recently discovered Spaceteam, which involves barking nonsense commands at your friends and twiddling knobs and switches on your phone screen. I love games you can spontaneously break out when you and your friends are waiting in line for something, or sitting around a table in a bar. (I carry Zombie Dice in my purse for this reason.)

If you were trapped on a desert island with only three Cards Against Humanity questions, what would they be?

“Why am I sticky?” Seems like a question I’d ask myself often on a desert island.

“In a pinch, [blank] can be a suitable substitute for [blank].” because that’s the sort of resourcefulness one needs on a desert island.

“[blank]. High five, bro.” You need to keep morale up when you’re stuck on a desert island.

 

Fantasy Roundtable: Family Ties

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The holidays are a time when families come together. The presence of my relatives got me thinking about games, and how RPG characters often exist in isolation. After all, if my goal is to make the most efficient dungeon delver ever, what practical benefit is there to having a kid sister or an aging mother? Sheer mechanics aside, how will it make the game experience more fun for me?

In general, exploring family is a way to add depth to a character. Where have they come from? What are their roots? Is the fighter carrying on a proud tradition, or is he a black sheep whose adventuring career is an embarrassment to his noble family? Is there a town he calls home, or are his kinfolk spread across the land?

Here’s a few of my ideas on the subject. Some of these I’ve used in the past; others I might try in the future. I’d love to hear what you’ve done with families in your games!

THE ORPHAN

You want to be a lone wolf with no ties to the world? Nothing wrong with that. But if you don’t have any family, WHY don’t you have any family? A few scenarios:

  • Graven’s family were massacred by the Karrns in the Last War. This fuels his long-standing hatred of all things Karrnathi and general dislike of the undead. If he’s mainly a dungeon crawler, this might be as far as it goes. In a more intrigue-oriented campaign he might eventually learn that the attack was actually carried out by the Emerald Claw on behalf of Erandis Vol; his family held some secret that posed a threat to her. Can he uncover this and avenge the fallen? Alternately, some of his relatives could still be held in undead servitude. Can he lay them to rest?
  • Junius lost everyone and everything he knew in the Mourning (or Spellplague, or similar vast disaster). While it’s not a goal that drives him at the start, he might jump at the chance to uncover the mystery of the disaster that destroyed his loved ones. Another adventure might involve exploring the ruins of his family estate, salvaging family treasures still hidden there.
  • Sera has never known her family; she was raised in an orphanage/by wolves/by mercenaries. She’s never stayed in one place long enough to be friends. On the surface, this leaves the character with no story at all; however, it also means that there’s no facts in the way of making up a story, as when it is suddenly revealed that Sera is the long-lost last heir of the throne of Elf-dom, spirited away and hidden by a loyal retainer when her family was being hunted down by their rivals.

In popular fiction, Kvothe from The Name of the Wind is an orphan. Many of his adventures have nothing to do with this, but his desire to avenge his parents is an underlying theme that drives his long-term goals.

INHERITANCE

The Lord of the Rings and The Order of the Stick are both driven by quests handed down from previous generations. OotS’s Roy Greenhilt is bound to fulfill his father’s blood oath, while Frodo is given the task of carrying his uncle’s ring to Mordor. The heroes are also equipped by their elders; Roy wields his grandfather’s sword, while Frodo receives the sword Sting and a coat of mithral chainmail from Bilbo. By contrast, Thorin Oakenshield of The Hobbit has no special sword or armor, but he receives a map and a quest to reclaim his ancestral home. In all three cases, the inherited quest is the end goal of a campaign arc; all three have a host of adventures on the way to carrying out their heirloom quests.

This sort of story is easily adapted to a roleplaying game; it simply requires cooperation between the players and the GM when it comes to planning out the campaign arc. In terms of providing a character with an heirloom treasure, there are a number of ways to handle this. Each character could receive a treasure, so everyone is on even footing. It could be that only one character receives an heirloom, and this is balanced by increased responsibility or danger; the character is the subject of a vendetta and will invariably be the focus of enemy attacks. On the other hand, it may be that the heirloom drives the story but has no mechanical value. Thorin simply receives a map. And while Roy carries his grandfather’s sword, it only becomes a powerful magic item once he has it reforged. In this, there’s some similarity to Aragorn in Lord of the Rings; he has the pieces of a powerful sword from the very beginning of the “campaign”, but he is only able to reforge the sword after a series of trials and triumphs. In both cases, the sword has a personal meaning to the hero who carries it; it’s not just some random treasure plucked from a monster’s hoard. They effectively acquire the weapons through adventure – but the weapons have personal significance due to their family history.

THE FAMILY BUSINESS

Perhaps you are following a family tradition… in which case, other members of your family might be more advanced in your chosen field than you are. The wizard’s mother might be the Master Diviner at the Mage’s Guild. The father of the rogue could be a Boromar underboss who with a sizeable territory in Sharn. The fighter might be the son of a general in the army or the captain of the city watch.

This sort of connection raises a host of possibilities. The first is the question of the relationship between the player character and successful relative. Is the PC following in the footsteps of the parent? Does he expect to fill his forebear’s shoes, or is he following a different path? If the relationship is a good one, the relative could serve as a patron for the party… either directly supplying them with missions or simply cutting them a break on services they might not otherwise be able to obtain. Diviner Mom can help the party identify magic items, and she occasionally provides them with a free augury… but a time may come when they need to help mom overthrow the corrupt guildmaster, or exorcise the quori that has managed to weasel its way into her mind. If the family member does provide some sort of concrete benefit to the party—whether missions or services—it will make storylines that threaten her have that much more impact.

One question is whether or not you are aware of your family’s business at the start of your adventuring career. It could be that your ancestors are a secret order of demon-hunters, but your parents have kept the truth hidden from you because you weren’t ready to take on the responsibility/the stars weren’t right/your sister was the Chosen One. Now that the demons are rising/you found the sword of angels/your sister is dead/you’ve reached level ten, your ancient purpose is revealed… which might be just the thing to explain your new paragon path/prestige class.

A spin-off of this is the noble heir who starts off as a free-spirited adventurer, but who is eventually called upon to carry out the duties of his office. When King Bob is assassinated, it’s up to the fighter to take up his crown; he must deal with the problems facing the tiny kingdom. The party’s cleric must serve as his spiritual adviser, and the rogue is the spymaster. The little kingdom is caught between two greater powers; the PC King could escape much of this responsibility by swearing allegiance to the empire to the north, but will he surrender his kingdom’s independence so easily? Such a plotline is an interesting way to switch from a heroic arc to a higher level campaign. The PCs have honed their skills crawling through dungeons and fighting monsters; now they must deal with spies, assassins, and armies.

Another take on this is having the entire party be drawn from a single family. Looking to the Boromar crime family, you could easily have characters with different classes all pitching in to help the family business in different ways.

THE RIVAL

A family rival could be a friendly rivalry within your own family… the fighter’s sister is a sorceress, and has always been determined to prove magic superior to the sword. She has her own band of adventurers. Sometimes they help you; sometimes they beat you to something you were searching for; sometimes you only find out about an interesting dungeon because they got their first. This gives a possibility for cavalry to arrive when you bite off more than you can chew… but you might also end up having to bail your sibling out of trouble when they take on too much, and end up imprisoned/possessed/petrified/what-have-you.

Alternatively, you could be dealing with a rivalry between families. Capulets and Montagues, Hatfields and McCoys, Bagginses and Sackville-Bagginses. This could be primarily a political rivalry that has little direct affect on your adventures, and mainly comes out in the reactions of certain NPCs who either support or oppose your family. On the other hand, it could be simmering on the edge of violence, with a constant threat of assassins or attacks; between poking around in dungeons, you might raid the estate of an enemy family, or be sent as envoys to win the favor of a neutral family.

THE NEXT GENERATION

Epic level getting you down? Do you long for the simple days when a dire rat was a challenge? Perhaps it’s time to jump forward a few decades and start a new campaign based on the descendants of your current party. This works especially well if some sort of interparty romance has already formed over the course of the campaign; if the fighter and the wizard already hooked up, there’s a solid family that can be the backbone of the next generation. It’s possible for every player to play a descendant of their original character, but you shouldn’t feel tied to this; the core descendants will surely have friends and acquaintances from distant places. Likewise, use your imagination when asking where are they now for your original PCs. They could be happily married & running the local inn/wizard’s guild/kingdom. But perhaps the sorcerer vanished a decade ago, and no one knows what became of him. Maybe the rogue and fighter quarreled, and the rogue is now a legendary assassin whose name is spoken in whispers. The paladin has fallen and rules a dark kingdom with an iron fist. Perhaps the warlock’s child has inherited a problem from the original PC; it turns out that part of the warlock’s pact concerned the soul of his firstborn child, and it’s up to the next-gen PC to pay the price for her father’s lust for power.

These are just a handful of ideas; there’s many other ways that family could play a role in a campaign. An entire campaign could be based around dynastic conflict. Your kid sister is determined to be an adventurer and has followed you into danger… can you keep her alive? Your brother is getting married to the Inspired ambassador… do you trust her? What do you get as a wedding gift? Will you go to the destination wedding in Sarlona? Quests for vengeance, ancestral curses, the spell your great-grandfather never quite finished… delving into family can provide all sorts of interesting flavor and inspiration for good NPCs.

This is just a starting point. What have YOU done with family in your games? What would you like to do in games to come?

12/12: Books I’m Reading, Games I’m Playing

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Clothes make the SpaceTeam.

I’m working on my post about my Next Big Thing, but in the meantime I thought I’d throw out a quick note about the things I’ve been enjoying over the past month. This isn’t a best of the year post; these are just the things I’m listening to, watching and reading RIGHT NOW, and my thoughts about them.

THINGS I’M READING

Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

I’ve been enjoying Locke & Key for years now, but I had the good fortune to receive the special edition of Welcome to Lovecraft as a gift, and that’s got me reading the series through again. Locke & Key is certainly my favorite comic of recent years, and on the list with Sandman, Hellboy, and Grant Morrison’s run on Doom Patrol for lifelong favorites. It’s best to discover it on your own, but I’ll describe it as a blend of Narnia and a good ghost story. A group of children return to an old family estate and stumble across its ancient and magical secrets… but the doors opened by the magical keys can lead to more gruesome dangers than Lucy or Edmund ever faced in Narnia. I like keys, and as such I’ll also give a nod to Skelton Crew, a studio that has produced replicas of the magical keys from the series. As comic collectibles go, these are fantastic. The keys are the critical visual element and tool from the stories, and Skelton’s replicas are a good size and weight; they’re fun things to carry around even without the story connection. So far they haven’t opened any doors for me, but who knows.

The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

In The Hobbit, the people of the Shire know relatively little about the world beyond their fields. Luckily, Gandalf shows up and provides us with detailed exposition about the history of the dwarves and that the dragon. Moving on to the Lord of the Rings, through Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel we are kept well-informed about the history of the conflict and its major players.

The Kingkiller Chronicles have some common threads with Lord of the Rings or The Wheel of Time. There’s an ancient evil lord. He’s got a cabal of powerful minions, much like the Nazgul or the Forsaken. They’re all up to something. But unlike LOTR or Wheel of Time, we don’t know what it is. Imagine Lord of the Rings without Gandalf. Frodo has the ring. He actually knows that it’s bad and should be destroyed in Mount Doom. But he doesn’t know where Mount Doom IS. The stories about Sauron are full of conflicting details, and while some legends say that he lived in Mordor, there are no current maps that show the location of this long-forgotten kingdom. In The Kingkiller Chronicles, Kvothe has much the same problem. He’s had a disastrous encounter with the ancient evil, but he has trouble finding out exactly what it IS. As he learns magic and hones his other skills, he—and we, through his eyes—gets glimpses of the truth through folktales, songs, rumors, and religion. But there are conflicts in all of these, and the truth remains to be revealed. Rather than the story being about the goal—IE, the destruction of the Ring or the defeat of the Dark One—it’s more about the journey. For me, much of what I enjoy is the way that the mysteries of the world are slowly unfolded instead of being laid out from the start.

I’m still only partway through WMF. In some ways, it’s a blend of Harry Potter and Ender’s Game—a brilliant boy learning the secrets of magic, using his wits to deal with rivals at school and the other challenges of life. Yet there are constant patches of crabgrass foreshadowing great deeds and tragedies that lie ahead. It’s a very different sort of tale from the warring kings of A Song of Ice and Fire. But it’s certainly managed to hold my interest; I want to know more about the world, perhaps more than I want to know about Kvothe.

 

GAMES I’M PLAYING

I play a lot of games. In the last week I’ve played Cards Again Humanity, Ticket to Ride, Lost Cities, Love Letters, Quirks, Cthulhu Fluxx and a few different flavors of Gloom. I’m very happy with Unpleasant Dreams, the first expansion for Cthulhu Gloom… if you have any questions about Unpleasant Dreams (or for that matter anything I’ve made), please ask here! Here’s some thoughts on a few of my favorite games I’ve played in the last month.

SpaceTeam

You’re flying a ship through a galaxy crowded with wormholes and asteroids. Your ship is barely holding together. Panels are falling off. Slime is leaking out from the cracks. There are an endless assortment of adjustments that need to be made. Punch the orbvalve! Set the microfluxer to 5! Deactivate the quantum valve! Consider purchasing upgrades! It’s more than one person can handle. Fortunately, you’re not alone. You’re part of a SpaceTeam.

SpaceTeam is a cooperative game for 2-4 people, played on iPads and iPhones. Each player has a piece of the ship’s control panel, covered with an assortment of bizarre and often hilarious controls. As the game unfolds, you receive instructions and have a limited time to complete them. But many of your instructions apply to the controls on the panels of other players. The result? A lot of panicked shouting, as you watch the timer counting down and hope that the command you’re shouting makes sense to one of your comrades. “Tighten the Ubercronk! Set the Hypermodulator to six! Tip the Waiter! Wormhole – EVERYONE FLIP!” Any given action is quite simple: push a button or turn a dial. However, the combination of time pressure, communication within your team, and console malfunctions that have to be fixed or simply ignored make it an extremely entertaining experience. I’m sad that they didn’t create a holiday version; I can imagine sitting around the living room with my family shouting “Deck the halls! Parum the Pum-Pum! Mistletoe – everybody kiss!”

In short, it’s a fun, quick cooperative experience, and a perfect way to pass time while standing in line or waiting for something to start. And it’s free. So what are you waiting for?

 

Geistes Blitz

A simple game that combines speed and pattern recognition. Five objects are placed in the center of the table. A card is drawn from the deck. Each card has four elements: two objects and two colors. If a color/object combination matches one of the objects on the table—for example, there is a picture of a white ghost—the first person to grab that object off the table gets the card and the point. However, in many cards, neither of the two objects shown are the proper color. In this case, you look for the object that isn’t represented on the card in any way. So if a card has a green rat and a red ghost, you are looking for an object that’s not a ghost or a rat, and isn’t red or green… which only leaves one possibility, the blue book. Grab the book and you get the point. If you grab the wrong object, you lose a point—so while speed is important, you don’t want to grab until you’re sure.

This basic game is a great deal of fun, and it’s good for people of all ages; I admit that I played about five rounds with an eight year old and lost every time. However, there are lots of ways to increase the complexity once your group is familiar with it. You can say that if there’s a ghost on the card, you need to shout the name of the proper object instead of grabbing it… or that if there’s a book, the correct answer is the object that’s the color of the book on the card, not whatever the normal answer would be. It’s fast and easily portable. The only problem is that it’s somewhat hard to find. I got my copy off the internet, and I’ve been recommending it to every brick & mortar store I’ve been to.

Always/Never/Now

Always/Never/Now is a cyberpunk adventure cycle created by brilliant designer Will Hindmarch, and I’d say that it’s something like a mash-up of Mission Impossible and The Usual Suspects as written by William Gibson. You’re a brilliant operative who’s been called out of retirement for one last job… a job that will span the course of many adventures and delve into a host of mysteries. The system is inspired by Lady Blackbird; it’s easy to use and encourages players to get into the mind of the character. As the group’s strategist, you don’t get experience for killing things; rather, you get experience when other people follow a plan that you’ve devised. As such, you are rewarded for being a leader. Pregenerated characters are provided, which means that you have a well-balanced team with a lot of interesting backstory built into the characters themselves. One element I found particularly engaging was the use of environmental tags. When our group was engaged in a tense car chase, Will provided us with a list of specific objects in the scene – high tension wires, a hapless motorcyclist, a tanker truck, a news helicopter, an overpass. Over the course of the scene, we could use each of these elements once in the description of an action in order to get a bonus to the roll. Now, nothing was stopping us from introducing these or other elements on our own; but by providing us with a list, Will really got me thinking about what we COULD do with those things. I might have simply tried to outrun the enemy; instead, I starting thinking about how the hapless motorcyclist could flip over their hood, causing them to crash into the tanker truck. It’s an idea I could easily see transporting to other settings and systems, such as Eberron. If you want someone to swing on a chandelier, let them know that the chandelier is right there waiting to be used!

Always/Never/Now was funded on Kickstarter early this year. At the moment, the only way to play it is to corner Will Hindmarch at a convention (and I suggest you do). However, it will soon be available as a PDF for download. I’ll be sure to mention it here when it is; it’s definitely worth a roll of the dice!

And finally, for those who missed my earlier post, here again is Gloomy Santa…