Speculate Marathon + Fundraiser Nov 12th

Speculate Marathon Schedule graphic

Hi folks! I haven’t been very active on this feed, mostly because I’ve just now started returning to in-person cons and I’ve been hard at work on writing without as much news to announce.

But now I have news!

If you’re a long-time viewer or fan, you know that I co-host an actual play show called Speculate with my friends Gregory A. Wilson and Brandon O’Brien. We’ve played games from D&D to Blades in the Dark, Girl by Moonlight, and more. We’ve been making actual play shows for several years, we love making these shows, and want to make more!

Which brings me to the news. We’re going to be streaming an all-day event on Saturday, November 12th, starting at 3pm EST at Twitch.tv/Arvaneleron

We’ll be bringing you several segments of gaming fun, with the hope that you’ll get excited about what we do and help us to be able to do even more. We’re very proud of the work we do, but it’s resource-intensive, not just in time, but in costs – games, tech, paying for audio editing (worth every penny), and more. Right now, our primary pain point is resources.

Our goal is to be able to release episodes more regularly, going weekly for at least a couple of months, with some other options if we reach higher levels, things like a website refresh, some new tech for regular cast members, and new shows/programming.

Here’s a rundown of our schedule! All times EST

3pm – Greg is running a D&D one-shot from Critical Crafting with Skiffy & Fanty show cast members Shaun Duke, Paul Weimer, and Trish Matson!

6:30 pm – Brandon, Greg, and Iwill dive into the world of Destiny 2, a game renowned for good shooting and interesting but largely underused lore. We’re excited to talk about the world and storytelling techniques Destiny is now utilizing to put the story more directly into the gameplay.

9pm – The Strange Friends Crew (as seen in The Case of the Cindered Seal and Fractal Spire) will be playing a one-shot of Blades in the Dark as we’ve done for Worldbuilders and other special events, but this time, with a major twist! We’ll be playing in Faerun’s famed city of Waterdeep in an adventure GMed by Iori Kusano!

Throughout the fundraiser, we’ll have special incentives for large donations, highlights/greatest hits reels from our shows to run during the breaks, and more!

So please mark your calendars and get excited about an entire day of storytelling awesomeness as we work to take Speculate to the next level!

Streaming on Twitch!

Promotional Image for Twitch.tv/TurboTango

I’ve relaunched my channel “TurboTango” on Twitch, which I’m hoping to use to stream both video games and some future TTRPG actual play.

In last Sunday’s re-launch stream, I played a run on Trials of Fire, a fantasy post-apocalyptic roguelike deckbuilder. It’s a recent favorite of mine, and I’ll be playing the game again (with a new scenario) this Sunday!

My current streaming schedule is as follows:

Wednesdays and Sundays, 1-4pm EDT – Games With Mike (Video games, mostly roguelikes and/or deckbuilders)

To get reminders when the streams go live, you can follow my page at Twitch.tv/TurboTango and turn on notifications.

Origins 2019 schedule

Hello again! It’s still convention season, and Origins will be my third con in six weeks and the end of my busy period with travel for the summer. I’ll be moderating several panels and speaking on a couple of others, and you can also find me in the Origins Author’s Library section of the exhibit hall much of the rest of the weekend. So if you’re headed to the show, I hope you’ll swing by and say hello!

 

Thursday, June 13:

1pm-2pm: Career Expectations: What can you expect from a writing career? How do you decide if you’re a success or a failure? Mercedes Lackey, Jennifer Brozek, Michael R. Underwood (M), Robyn King

4pm-5pm: Next-level Worldbuilding for Prose or Gaming: Talking about power dynamics in worldbuilding, layering of history, cohesive/coherent worldbuilding that feels like it all connects, etc. Lucy Snyder, Michael R. Underwood (M), Doc Myers

 

Friday, June 14:

2pm-3pm: Pen and Pixels: Lessons from gaming for prose fiction and lessons from prose for gaming. Carlos Hernandez, Michael R. Underwood, Tracy Chowdhury, Gregory A. Wilson (M)

 

Saturday, June 15:

3pm-4pm: Branding & Marketing Yourself and Your Content: Running a podcast, releasing short fiction for free, blogging, Tweeting, etc. All the different ways to identify and bring more attention to your writing and your brand. Larry Dixon, Michael R. Underwood, Robyn King, Cat Rambo, Gregory A. Wilson (M)

 

Sunday, June 16:

1pm-2pm: Using Folktales, Legends, and Myths in Your Storytelling: Learning how to differentiate the different types of folklore and how to incorporate them into your worldbuilding. Mercedes Lackey, Doc Myers, Addie J. King, Michael R. Underwood (M)

BFGCon Schedule

This weekend, I’m headed to BFGCon, a regional games conference in Frederick, MD. I’m presenting on a few panels, but will otherwise just be hanging out and taking in the gaming goodness.

Friday

1300 – 1400 Turning Games into Art – A panel discussion

Ben Walker
Jess Comstock
Michael R. Underwood
Sarah Zeiter

Saturday

1430 – 1530 Next Level Worldbuilding — A presentation by me with lots of time for Q&A

Michael R. Underwood

Sunday

1300 – 1400 Social Justice Gaming – A panel discussion

Dan Layman-Kennedy
Jess Comstock
Michael R. Underwood
Daniel Laughlin

D&D – Wayfinders, Drama Systems, and Me

I’ve been thinking a lot about D&D and tabletop RPGs, not just in general, but for some specific reasons that will become clear pretty soon (/tease). Here are some of these thoughts, prompted by a new release from Wizards of the Coast re: D&D.

This week, the Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron arrived on the PDF storefronts. The guide is a living document-slash-Early Access-type-dealie unofficial supplement for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition (5e), bringing the world of Eberron back to the game. Eberron was created by Keith Baker (who you might also know as the creator of Gloom) for the D&D 3rd edition setting contest. I remember entering the contest with negligible hopes, and I was exactly right – didn’t make it past the first round. Alas, the email address I used is long gone so I don’t have a record of it, and only remember the vague details (it was vaguely Deadlands-inspired and was focused on like the power of the land and artifacts, I think?). I’ve gotten better at keeping track of my ideas, thankfully.

Drama Systems

When Eberron came out, it was remarkable (to me) for applying a Drama Die-style mechanic to D&D – Action Points. Action Points could be used to make a roll more likely to succeed or to activate class abilities, etc. This was meant to represent the pulp adventure tone of Eberron, which was more cinematic than the default 3e D&D tone.

Around fifteen years later, this re-introduction of Eberron comes with a new mechanic, again cribbed from and/or reminiscent of something happening elsewhere in the RPG design world – Environmental Elements.

This mechanic is, IMO, straight-up a D&D version of Situation Aspects from FATE Core.

This type of mechanic, where drawing upon the established details of a scene in your action (We said there’s a chandelier, so I’m going to jump up and swing on it to get over the guards so we can flank them) grants a mechanical bonus, is a fabulous tool. In the Wayfinder’s Guide, it grants advantage. The version from FATE allows for an extra aspect bonus (the game is built on creating and using aspects for bonuses).

Newer story/indie games talk about ‘Fictional Positioning’ and ‘Fiction-First Play’, which are both ways of focusing the play and judgment of mechanical advantages on the specifics of the scene in a way that enhances visually evocative play. Rather than thinking about what you want the rules to do for you, this style says “what does the fiction say right now, and what do you want to happen in the story?” and then asks “how can the rules help you make that come alive or resolve a dangerous or contested situation?”

As in, very much a way of playing RPGs that I like. I like cool rules, I like utility powers and mechanics that express theme and let players show mastery and achieve extraordinary results. But a lot of why I like those things because they let me drive the story forward in interesting ways.

When I cracked open the Wayfinder’s Guide, one of the questions I had was “how will this version of Eberron convey the pulp adventure tone the world is known for?” In 3e, it was action points. Here, Environmental Elements — and maybe more! I’ve just started reading. Action Dice do not make a return, though as this is a work-in-progress, who knows what will come down the road. And really, I don’t think it’d be too hard to just port Action Dice over to your D&D 5e game. Especially if you want to focus on the high-adventure/pulp heroics tone.

The Lineage of Chainmail

5e is (IMO) the most playable, most accessible edition of D&D yet, even though it is still very firmly tied to its lineage as a spin-off from a miniatures war game (Chainmail). I like some crunch (by crunch I mean more detailed and interconnected mechanical systems) – in 3.X and 5e D&D I like classes like Rogue, Bard, and Inquisitor that have some interesting inter-connected systems and utility powers, especially when it expresses an interesting character theme. But even though it’s more accessible, 5e D&D still has big spell lists, massive numbers of systemic interactions that need to be considered at every step of the way in a big, dramatic fight. And for me, it still has the Superhero Crossover problem of “Did you have the right plan for this?” where in order to keep combat moving, you have to reach such a high level of internalization of tons of different spells and effects and interactions and countermeasures so that you can declare your action and resolve it very quickly.

But then I see another problem on top of that. To keep tactical combat moving, you have to be concise and optimized. In my experience, it’s common for big combats to last 90 minutes or longer, and that’s with players and the GM keeping things moving. But what *I* want most from a fight is emotional stakes and cool description – the baseline mechanics of D&D don’t help me with that – unless the DM decides my description is cool enough to earn Advantage (more on that later)

Slowing a fight down to convey how your character feels or to do a flashback or to give a cool description of your action, even a 15-30 second description…it still slows the fight down. And the system is already set up for combat to be a slog. So as a player I end up getting self-conscious about balancing optimized, efficient play with my own play agenda of expressing my character’s emotional landscape and/or being a co-cinematographer and describing a cool action.

The Advantages/Disadvantages of Advantage/Disadvantage

D&D 5e has Advantage/Disadvantage, which is an *excellent* system. (In brief – normally in D&D you roll one 20-sided die and add a number to see if you rolled high enough to do the Thing. With Advantage, you roll 2 dice and take the better result. With Disadvantage, you roll 2 dice and take the lower result) But in my own games and the games I hear people talk about, Advantage and Disadvantage are criminally under-used. My friend Andy Romine said this about Advantage/Disadvantage:

I love the idea of Advantage/Disadvantage, but my experience has been just that — the DM “grants it.” Kind of a one-way street…Nothing stopping PCs from asking for Advantage (“Hey, I see that chandelier…”) but the game’s action economy doesn’t seem organically set up for this.

That’s the thing – Advantage/Disadvantage feels more like it rests on top of the core system instead of being as fully integrated into the system – mostly because the major way that you get either is a Guess Culture thing. You can describe an action hoping for advantage, you can ask for it, but it’s still all by fiat. The Inspiration system isn’t enough, IMO.

And beyond that, I’m not sure the D&D materials do a good enough job of communicating to the DM how powerful a tool Advantage/Disadvantage is. Even though other parts of D&D talk about Advantage/Disadvantage, it still mostly comes from DM fiat. If more things in D&D just straight-up gave you Advantage/Disadvantage, from class abilities to spells, etc. it would feel more like a critical part of the game, and I think it’d do a better job of helping the player avoid the famous whiffs where the d20 conspires against an awesome idea/action/etc. and then it just…fizzles.

But now, Environmental Elements takes a *huge* step toward making Advantage feel like a central part of the D&D system.

New Moves, New Opportunities

And here’s another thing I’ve been thinking about for D&D. One of the things that I love about the Powered by the Apocalypse lineage of games (Apocalypse World, Dungeon World) is the way they approach information-gathering. In those games, when you want to investigate a scene or get information from someone, it falls under one of several ‘Moves’ (attacking is a move. Trying to intimidate someone falls into another move. It’s a cool approach. Go read Apocalypse World). With these moves, you roll and then get to pick from a list of questions. If you roll poorly, you get fewer questions, and maybe you take a consequence but still get some information.

I’ve been thinking about running a game that I’d call D&D but would really be drawing heavily on the systems of games like Dungeon World, Blades in the Dark, and FATE Core. I’d use the faction rules and downtime rules and progress clocks from Blades in the Dark, and I’d adapt the information-gathering moves from Apocalypse World/Dungeon World

It’d got a little something like this.

“When you analyze a situation, Roll Perception. For every 5 points of your result, you get to ask one question:

What is the biggest threat?
What is my way in/out?
What happened here?
Are there hidden threats I should know about?”

And then like maybe you get an extra question if you also accept a consequence/suffer a cost/etc.

Example – “You can get a better look and one more question if you scramble to the top of the tree and expose your position to the giant crows.”

None of this is new in the Powered by the Apocalypse lineage. But it’s a huge departure for the ‘make the DC or fail’ setup of D&D, even in 5e. But even that small change is liberating for me as a player and as a DM because it is less of a binary state. It’s more tangible, more focused. If I only get one question, I can prioritize. And if I want to push for more information, I have the permission to push and the cost/benefit is spelled out and systematized.

And what I think I can do here is to hybridize D&D. I can start players with the familiar trappings or the familiar shell of the D&D-style adventure fantasy, but hack the game by changing come of the cogs and gears in the system with others that I like better, and to add some after-market attachments (faction rep, downtime action, clocks) to provide more tools to make D&D into the kind of game I want to be playing. I could also just run something like Dungeon World, and I think I will, but the idea of trying to make D&D into the version of the game that I want is very appealing.

A while back, I applied to a D&D designer position – and one of the things I pitched in that application was the idea of a D&D Accelerated (inspired by FATE Accelerated, a version of FATE Core). This hacking of D&D process would basically be me designing D&D Accelerated through exploratory play, which is not a bad approach, IMO.

But mostly, I am excited to be playing more tabletop games and to draw joy and inspiration from the game texts, sourcebooks, and more. Look for more gaming news from me soon. 🙂

Wherin I Heap Love Upon Blades in the Dark

After reading Austin Walker‘s comments over the weekend (read the whole thread), I dipped back into the tabletop RPG Blades in the Dark. Reading the game, I was struck again at what a fabulous accomplishment it is. Every page and section makes me want to play the game.

As Walker indicates, each chapter has Questions to Consider, and the entire text of the game does a great job of drawing back the curtain regarding how the game fits together. The creator John Harper invites the reader to step up to become a co-designer of Blades in the Dark as they’ll play it. Everyone’s version of a given game is different, and Harper doesn’t shy away from that reality.

You might have heard me talk about Blades before, as I got in on the game early in the Kickstarter and have been a vocal fan ever since even though I haven’t gotten to play the game yet.

Blades in the Dark is set in an industrial fantasy city called Duskvol, a trade city in a world that suffered a magical apocalypse a thousand years ago. That event shattered the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead and now the known world is ruled by an immortal emperor and cities are protected from hungry spirits roaming free across the world by giant magitek electrical fences. The tone and flavor of the setting are conveyed throughout the core book, with hooks abounding and a clear manifestation of the default grim tone of the setting in the writing. The game is designed not just for telling the tales of daring scoundrels, it’s designed for telling tales of daring scoundrels *in this particular world*. It’s very much gothic dark fantasy ala the Dishonored and Thief video games (both specifically invoked as inspirations for Blades).

I prefer more optimistic worlds and games, especially these days (*waves to 2017*), so I’m also excited for the Broken Crown, a playset about trying to take down the Immortal Emperor, and other alternate setting playsets. Especially Null Vector, the cyberpunk playset. Blades is an amazing game for Cyberpunk because Blades is designed to drastically reduce the amount of planning a group has to do for heists. I have a sad memory of spending over two hours arguing with a game group about how to pull off a kidnapping in Shadowrun, and in Blades that conversation would have been five minutes deciding which general approach to take and then we’d have gotten right into the action.

Thinking back to the way tone informs the design, I’m hoping to see these playsets to adjust the mechanics in order to convey the setting’s tone. If they don’t, I’ll need to do it myself, but I’m hoping that the transparency of how the tone is built into the design means that a change in setting comes with an adjustment in the design tone.

I have spent more than a little time thinking about how I’d hack Blades in the Dark to make a Shield and Crocus RPG. I even have a working title: War in the Bones.

Fun Side Notes

  • The game’s publisher, Evil Hat Productions, has given an open invitation to designers who intend to make hacks of Blades in the Dark (new games using the system/design) to submit to them. This is likely to help foster a new family of RPGs the way that Apocalypse World became a games lineage with games like Dungeon World, Monsterhearts, Monster of the Week, etc. Blades is heavily informed by Apocalypse World but is, IMO, a full iteration forward compared to the above hacks.
  • I love that hacks of Blades in the Dark are called “Forged in the Dark” like Apocalypse World hacks are “Powered by the Apocalypse.”

I don’t get to play nearly as many RPGs as I want or even as much as I did before I started working at Angry Robot, but I still love delving into new games to see where the discipline of RPG design is headed. Anyone similarly interested needs to be following Blades in the Dark.

Giant Spiders, the Action Economy, and Your Game

Last session, my D&D party had a great RP-driven evening, having just survived a huge throwdown with a fiend-controlled Arch-druid, a humongo spider, and a zillion spiderlings.

That fight is what I wanted to talk about today. I really like 5e’s Legendary action system. I think it’s a great way to address the primacy of action economy in the game.

What’s an action economy?

It’s the idea that in a tactical combat game, having more actions is a huge advantage. In earlier versions of D&D, a 5-person party vs. a dragon instantly had the advantage if the dragon only got one action per round, even if they got claw/claw/bite.

In the recent X-Com games, you want to get the upgrade that lets you bring a fifth squad member into missions as soon as possible, as it gives you more actions per turn. Having a fifth person is an advantage aside from that, but what I want to focus on right now is the actions. Who has them, how many, and when?

In this case, the spider got a Legendary Action (mostly webbing and biting) and the Lair Actions involved birthing new spiders to throw at us (ala spawning mobs/adds in a raid).

The Legendary/Lair Actions made the combat feel much less in our control, systematized the rate of new monsters coming in, and made the boss feel like a Boss.

The last boss we fought before the spider was a powerful necromancer who had been built up over several sessions as A Big Deal. But then, our party totally overwhelmed him, esp. thanks to our Smite-tastic vengeance Paladin and having several spell-casters who could counter-spell and use Dispel Magic. Even with undead minions around, the necromancer just didn’t have the opportunity to really put the pressure on us or keep away from our DPS. Legendary Actions would have changed that a lot. They become less special if every notable enemy has them, but maybe that’s okay?

The Ruler Reactions in the X-Com 2 expansion are a similar system, whereby the Ruler characters (special unique bosses) get a Ruler Reaction after every one of your characters acts. This means they can move around, punish characters that move out into the open, etc. Being able to interrupt and/or act out of turn is a *huge* tactical asset in turn-based games. The Chosen characters in the War of the Chosen expansion don’t get Ruler Reactions, but they do have a large # of actions per turn, allowing them to move in, attack, and then retreat to cover, etc. Some of your characters get similar bonus actions, especially the Skirmisher. Having all of those active at once could get tricky, but it re-shapes the flow of play, making it far less a game of big chunks of “my turn, their turn” and much more of a fast-paced thrust/parry/riposte kind of game.

Anyone else been playing D&D with Legendary/Lair Actions or have stories of Rulers/Chosen from X-Com to share? Or other games that use the same kind of systems?

 

Solipsism and Celebrities

  • The 80s saw, for example: Call of Cthulhu (81), Paranoia (84), Ars Magica (87), d6 Star Wars (87), Cyberpunk 2013 (88), Shadowrun (89).
  • The 90s brings the World of Darkness, Torg, Amber, Underground, Blue Planet, 7th Sea, Aberrant
  • In the 2000s you get the Forge/Story Games movement (Sorcerer, Dogs in the Vineyard, etc.), D&D 3.0, the OGL, etc.
  • And in the 2010s we have Apocalypse World and Powered by the Apocalypse games, RPG Kickstarters, Tons of anniversary editions of old RPGs (WoD 20th anniversary editions, 7th Sea 2.0, etc.), Pathfinder’s rise, D&D 5e, Critical Role, Roll20, etc.

Where’s the stagnation in there? I see mechanical innovation, troupe play, bridging across to other genre influences, acting techniques, roleplay theory, scene framing, etc.. And that was just a short thread overview of a way more complicated and nuanced tradition.

It’s okay to say “I got bored with RPGs, but since video games have become so much their own thing, I got excited about RPGs again.”

It’s also sensible to say that technological innovation with streaming and podcasts enabled RPGs to become an outward-facing art form and that Podcasts of Acquisitions, Inc. PAX events, and streaming games like Critical Role turned small group experiences into shared experiences. Yeah, for sure. You don’t get The Adventure Zone or Friends at the Table being A Thing without the rise of podcasts.

Roll20, Skype, & other systems let people re-connect with childhood friends to play across a continent or play w/people they’ve never met. *Raises hand* That’s me. Playing a Roll20 D&D game with old SCA friends and their friends.

There was this trend in confessional gamer memoirs in the 2000s where the white male gamer waxes rhapsodic about loving RPGs as a kid, about how it was this secret only he and his friends knew about and appreciated. But then he “discovered” girls, went to college, and/or “grew up” and cast RPGs aside, only to re-discover his love for them later, returning not just with nostalgia, but with renewed appreciation. Harmon’s bit seems like this, but probably across a different life path. It’s okay to have left and come back, but RPGS were always here.

WoD (World of DarknesS) and esp. Mind’s Eye Theater enabled women to claim space in RPGing that had been largely denied. Women & people from other marginalized populations/identities have always played RPGs, but World of Darkness and its LARPs were a major vector by which even more people got into RPGs, continuing to shift the balance away from the straight white male perceived monolith.

Yes, this is a golden age of RPGing, but it’s not because of video games. Video games & Tabletop RPGs have evolved in tandem, borrowing back and forth from one another, but tabletop is not a symbiote thriving only because of video games.

Do better, Dan Harmon. Like it or not, you’re seen as a major name in RPGs now because of HarmonQuest. Do right by the community people see you as representing. You need to roll better on your Save vs. Be That Guy.

P.S. Shout-out to SF writer John Appel for strong contributions to this original twitter thread.

Light a Candle

Things have been pretty scary the past few weeks, even within the hard year that 2017 has been. We had a family health scare just a little while ago (all better now), plus the ongoing garbage fire that is US politics.

So I wanted to spend a bit of time focusing on things that have been bringing joy and light into my life, in case these things could do the same for you. At the bottom, I list some resources I’ve been using to stay up to date on politics with a minimum of hassle/frustration.

Sources of Joy

One of the things I do to relax is listening to podcasts. I started listening to podcasts over ten years ago when I was out in Oregon doing my M.A. in Folklore. Back then, the only show I listened to was Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing. These days, I’m a part of two podcasts and subscribe to many more. The two below have been particularly helpful for me this summer:

Friends at the Table – A marvelous actual-play tabletop role-playing game podcast with great players, engrossing worlds, and amazing music by composer Jack de Quidt (who is also one of the players). The current season Twilight Mirage is especially engrossing, telling the tale of a far-future utopia in crisis.

Waypoint Radio – The home podcast of video game website Waypoint. They focus less on giving games scores and more on story structure, design, and the political dimensions of games. They sometimes also talk politics (esp. labor and health policy) and are clear and open in their progressive leanings.

When I’m not listening to podcasts, I am often chilling out with my wife watching TV or watching something in the background while I work on this or that. Here are some shows and video series that have brought me joy the past few months:

DuckTales – The original show was one of my favorite cartoons as a kid, and the 2017 remake on DisneyXD is very amusing so far. I am a total sucker for anything that plays in the ‘modern multi-genre pulp’ mode where mummies and vampire and Atlantis and so on are all real.

Breakfast & Battlegrounds – This is a video series on Waypoint comprised of recordings of the game Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds. Breakfast & Battlegrounds is complete with a (funny, loose) continuity, special music (boat jazz!) and fun special guests. Austin & Patrick from Waypoint play as father & son team Crowbar & Sickle, in search of the elusive Chicken Dinner of victory. The most fun I’ve had watching a video game in some time.

Killjoys – A fun, sexy, space-based action-adventure series which starts with great episodic stories and builds to a cool metaplot. The showrunner is the same as the urban fantasy series Lost GirlKilljoys is about a pair of space-age bounty hunters called Killjoys who travel The Quad (four planet/moons bound together by a corporate-owned government).

And of course, since I’m a gamer, here’s a recent game I loved playing:

Pyre – The new game from Supergiant Games, who created Bastion and Transistor. It’s a cool fantasy combination of a visual novel/choose your own adventure and a magical sports game. The biggest draw for me in this game is the cool characters and their evolving relationships with one another. Also, you can complete a play-through in about 10-12 hours.

Podcasts
Pod Save America
 – Ex-Obama staffers break down the news and snark along the way. Unabashedly Democrat-leaning & progressive, a bit bro-y, though not gross.
Pod Save The People – Activist Deray Mckesson provides a grassroots view on politics, with a strong focus on the impact to and organizing by communities of color.

Website
What The Fuck Just Happened Today? – Trump-focused digest of American political news.