The generic unified RPG unsystem

Once Dungeons & Dragons was published and was really taking off, it became clear that the game—the booklets themselves—wasn’t very accessible. I’m sure whilst writing them, Gary never dreamed the game would end up on the shelves of a mall bookstore. He was writing to fellow wargamers. Along came Dr. John Eric Holmes with a proposal to do remedy that. Thus, the first Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set.

Dr. Holmes brought some of his own ideas about how the game should work. Later, as the successor to his Basic Set was coming out, he wrote an article for Dragon magazine in which he discussed some of the changes to the game he wanted to make that Gary veto’d. Also, TSR decided that first Basic Set should include bits of and advertising for the forthcoming Advanced D&D game.

I never had the Holmes Basic Set—though I bought the PDF and have it around somewhere—so I don’t know it very well. Jeff posted the following quote from it (emphasis mine):

A final word to the Dungeon Master from the authors. These rules are intended as guidelines. No two Dungeon Masters run their dungeons quite the same way, as anyone who has learned the game with one group and then transferred to another can easily attest. You are sure to encounter situations not covered by these rules. Improvise. Agree on a probability that an event will occur and convert it into a die roll — roll the number and see what happens! The game is intended to be fun and the rules modified if the players desire. Do not hesitate to invent, create and experiment with new ideas. Imagination is the key to a good game. Enjoy!

That pretty much lays out the “generic unified unsystem” that I try to use with any system. I think it is a subtext in many early role-playing games. (And now I know it’s a part of the text of at least one as well.) I particularly like that he used the word “agree”.

Charles Totten

Here is a Rob MacDougall article about Charles Totten: “Dungeon Master Zero”

I like the following “genealogy”, though it likely has problems beyond just being overly simplistic.

J. von Verdy du Vernois
Free Kriegsspiel
↓
Charles Totten
Strategos
↓
Dave Wesely
Braunstein
↓
Dave Arneson
Blackmoor
↓
E. Gary Gygax
Greyhawk

Scrabble and overvalued points

There’s an interesting article on the Wall Street Journal site by Carl Bialik: Price Drop: Stocks, Homes, Now Triple-Word Scores

"Za," "qi" and "zzz" were added recently to the game's official word list for its original English-language edition. Because Z's and Q's each have the game's highest point value of 10, those monosyllabic words can rack up big scores for relatively little effort. So now that those high-scoring letters are more versatile, some Scrabble aficionados would like to see the rules changed -- which would be the only change since Alfred Butts popularized the game in 1948.

Which reminds me of the link between skills and the skill points in role-playing games. (Where you can replace “skills” and “skill points” with various abilities and the mechanics for acquiring them.) When you add more skills, you often have to consider whether to change the number of skill points characters get.

These imbalances could theoretically be addressed by narrowing the football goalposts, bringing the three-point line closer to the basket and raising some Monopoly prices. But removing these strategic advantages, and the ability for smarter players to exploit them, can make a game boring, some say.

See, roleplayers aren’t the only gamers to worry about balance or claim a rule is broken. (And don’t think it is something new among RPGers. I remember plenty of balance discussions in the 1980s.)

Scheme in the browser (again)

I found myself reading “Popularity” over at Brendan’s Roadmap Updates...again.

This time, a comment by Mike Ivanov stood out to me:

It took almost a decade for ‘average developer’ to grok JavaScript. Now it is understood, at least. How much time would pass before Scheme achieved the same level of acceptance? I bet forever.

Which again has me questioning that. I can’t believe that anyone who has really “grokked” Javascript couldn’t have grokked Scheme. After all, Javascript essentially is Scheme with C syntax. Grokking the language behind that syntax is much more difficult than grokking the syntax.

I think that Javascript was in a unique position. I suspect almost no-one learned Javascript for its own sake. People learned Javascript because it was (essentially) the only game in town for the role it played. (Indeed, it is still too difficult, IMHO, to use Javascript outside that role.)

That’s certainly why I learned it. At the time, I would’ve much rather used Perl, but my customers had Javascript built into their browsers. I wasn’t going to ask them to install client-side Perl.

Likewise, I suspect that Javascript is one of those languages that was the first programming language for a lot of people. Those are people who aren’t coming in with syntax-bias.

Which may be pointless speculation, but that’s what thinking-out-loud is for. I still give thanks to Brendan that I’m required to regularly, at work, program in Scheme/Self even if it is with C syntax.

Guitar Hero stifling potential musicians?

Michael over at Fretbase wrote:

I’ve always argued that Guitar Hero is a tragic diversion for potential musicians who will never learn how to play an actual guitar. Worse, anyone playing Guitar Hero is not even responsible for making the music; they can only “hit” or “miss” the notes already laid out for them. The only way to remove a person any further from the process would be to handcuff them to a chair and blast an iPod Shuffle from across the room.

I think Michael is wrong on this. I haven’t seen any of the people I play Guitar Hero and Rock Band with thinking of it as playing music at all. They think of it as a game. For—I think—exactly the reasons Michael criticizes it. For the most part, it doesn’t feel like playing music at all. It feels like playing a game. I see nothing to convince me that any of the non-musicians among them would take up an instrument in the absence of these games, or that the musicians are making music less than they would. If these games are taking time away from something else, it is other games.

A friend once said to me, “I know a lot of people who own guitars, but you’re the only one who knows how to play it.” I find it hard to believe there are many potential guitarists who aren’t taking up the instrument because of Guitar Hero.

Moreover, another Fretbase contributor, Brian, posted an article about how a survey shows that—because of these games—players are more likely to start playing guitar or play more often if they already do.

Third hand

My Digitech RP350 (“Modeling Guitar Processor”) has the ability to control almost any parameter with its expression pedal. Some of the things I’ve had fun playing with have been...

• Reverb depth
• Tremolo speed
• Amp gain
• The mix between the original signal and the harmony generated by the intelligent pitch shifter.

When I do this, though, I always wonder how might do it with individual pedals. Well, I chanced across a device that claims to do exactly that: the Third Hand by Tone in Progress. An expression pedal that appears to be able to mechanically turn a knob on an effects pedal.

Good metagaming; bad metagaming

In role-playing game circles, metagaming often has a negative connotation. (Wikipedia also has an article on metagaming in role-playing games.)

In general, this is not the case, though. A metagame (“beyond the game”) adds an extra layer—a higher level—that can often (though not always) make the game more interesting. e.g. Trading in Monopoly could be considered a metagame.

I want to ramble about two scenarios today.

Scenario 1: A magic-user is about to drop a fireball on a bunch of enemies. The character doesn’t know that the party thief, who is out-of-sight, will get caught in the blast. The player, however, does know it. The player also knows that there’s a good chance the fireball will kill (or knock out) the thief.

One might argue that the player should have the magic-user choose a different action because: (1) A player shouldn’t knowingly have their character do something that substantially risks the fun of another player. If the thief character were to be killed by the fireball, the thief’s player is going to be out-of-the-game for an indefinite period of time. (2) There are surely other actions the magic-user could take that wouldn’t be out-of-place or out-of-character.

I tend to argue, however, that a large part of the fun of role-playing games for me is having things play out in a “natural” manner. Trying to prevent yourselves from getting caught in a situation like this and suffering the consequences when you do find yourselves in this kind of situation is important

Scenario 2: Black Dougal fails a saving throw versus poison and dies. (This also applies to characters who are otherwise disabled or simply not present at the current scene for some reason.)

What I’ve typically seen in this situation is that Black Dougal’s player is relegated to quietly watching the game since they no longer have a live and present character to speak through.

These days, however, I tend to think that there is no reason that players should not be able to advise other players.

(This post partially inspired by Grimm Studios podcast episode 19.)