Gaming in the New Year

So, the New Year is right around the corner, and a new decade, as well. This decade has been good to gaming, and I can only hope a new one will be as good. There are some promising gaming developments on the horizon, and I think I'll try and go over a few of them.

For one, a lot of companies in gaming seem to be looking towards new means of getting their product out there. From Wizards of the Coast and their push with D&D Insider to White Wolf and their new media directions, where much of their new material will be released online (check out their New Media seminar), it seems online is the new way to go. Programs, PDFs, and other online venues are the way of the future for gaming, and I suspect we'll see a lot more of that.

In an old school area, Green Ronin has partnered up with the video game maker Bioware to create a Dragon Age boxed set, reminiscent of the old boxed sets that TSR used to put out for AD&D. It is supposed to be an introductory set, that covers just the first five levels and uses a new system designed by Green Ronin. I've heard that it isn't all that all-encompassing, covering a bare minimum of things from the video game world, but it should also be the first of several, and the ones yet to come should cover more. Put that together with the idea that Dragon Age the video game is supposed to be part of trilogy, and Dragon Age could turn out to be quite the system.

Speaking of old boxed sets, the next setting that D&D 4th Edition is about to put out is one that fans of AD&D should like: Dark Sun. Dark Sun used to be my favorite setting; it mixed post-apocalyptic madness with fantasy to create a world that was nothing like any world we had seen before. The new setting books are supposed to roll the world back to what it was just after the first edition of Dark Sun, and I find this to be very promising. I loved the old dark Sun, and I look forward happily to a new version.

A book I think will be interesting is a book being put out by White Wolf for their 'new' World of Darkness (not new anymore for the last few years, but it's definitely not the first version). That book is called World of Darkness: Mirrors, and it is supposed to be a book about alternate versions, or alternate realities, in the World of Darkness, and how to use them. I like the WoD, and I like most of the games for it, but I think it will be interesting to see new spins on some of the things that have been given to the fans and readers.

Finally, something that I hope will come out, as it has been delayed for quite a while, is the Dresden Files RPG. I've read all the books, and I think the world described in Jim Butcher's series would make a great setting for a game. It's not as dark as the World of Darkness, and has some interesting characters like Harry Dresden, Michael the knight, and many others. Hell, I wouldn't mind seeing an RPG based on Jim Butcher's Codex Alera, either.

Well, that's it for now. I'll be back with the new year.

Christmas Special

I am stuck with my family in Florida, using a laptop I am unfamiliar with and don't have a lot of time on, but I have had time to watch some TV, especially some stuff I have recently received on DVD. I won't tell what, though: maybe you can guess from what I'll be talking about.

It's Eberron, two years after the Last War. The Five Nations of humanity are rebuilding, still wary of each other. There are many threats that lurk in the shadows; the monsters of Droaam, the quori of Sarlona, the daelkyr and the Lords of Dust - and nobody yet knows what happened to turn the nation of Cyre into a freakish wasteland. But none expected the threat to come from something that hasn't even happened yet - the future.

Metal monstrosities cloaked in flesh, like warforged skeletons in humanoid bodies, have started to appear on Khorvaire. They seem to be singleminded in their pursuit of several individuals - but nobody knows why, as some of these individuals are children, and most have never done anything illegal or even violent. But they do not stop, do not reason, and they do not run. They seem to exist only to kill.

It seems they come from a different place, or even a different time, sent by a being known only as the Lord of Blades. He claims responsibility for the Mournland, and has promised to do the same to all human lands. He is after those who will be able to stop him, who will lead the charge against him in the future as laid out in the Draconic Prophecies - and he must get to them before they become a threat to him.

The foes of the Lord of Blades must survive. You may be among them. Help may come from the strangest of places, at the strangest of times. One never knows what the future may hold.

I just came up with this idea, and I think it would be a fun game to run, though I doubt I'll ever have the players for it. If you're interested, though, let me know - a game that may have time travel in it can always have new players dropped in.

The Return!

So I have finished up all my work for my Master's degree, and I am now free to begin plotting new gaming-related ideas, at least for a while. I've had some interesting ideas while I've been studying, as well as rehashing some old ones.

One of the ones that keeps coming back to me is the idea of a sort of Castlevania-themed game. I've never really played the Castlevania games myself, but I have watched a couple of them played, and the setting always interests me, even if it is just a complex method of fighting Dracula. The idea of running a game in a setting something like that of the Castlevania games has some interest for me, not least because it brings in some interesting ideas involving horror and suspense that don't normally come up in D&D.

I've been reading through some of my old Eberron books, too, and that setting still calls to me. I don't know what it is, but the whole deal of complex national politics, diverse groups and organizations with separate goals, new takes on many of the normal D&D races and classes, and just the feel of the Eberron setting really make me want to both run and play a game in this setting.

I'm looking for a good game that involves a more Norse, Viking kind of theme. Not a game based in historical Scandinavia, but one that uses things like Vikings, runes, and traditional Scandinavian sorts of monsters to create an interesting game setting. I had contemplated this quite some time ago when I was thinking of trying to write up a setting for Magic: The Gathering's old Ice Age set, because the idea of playing in a frozen world sounded interesting to me.

Really, I just want to play in or run some sort of gamer online, so I'll take what I can get. I'm trying to recruit some friends who would be willing to play, and then maybe fill out the group with other people they know. If you have any kind of interest in playing in or running a game of any of the kinds I have described, comment here, or contact me. Even if just to talk about RPGs or video games, I'm free for discussion.

Recent Events

Lately, I've been pretty busy with other things that keep me from writing in my blog. Mainly, my preparations for my Master's degree exam have been keeping me away from any serious contemplation of gaming - which is, of course, my true love in life.

I have managed to find some time to read through some decent fantasy recently, namely the fantasy series by Jim Butcher, the Codex Alera. The sixth book of the Codex Alera came out last week, and in preparation I read through the previous five books over the Thanksgiving week. I loved Butcher's other series, the Dresden Files, and his fantasy series hasn't disappointed. It does fall victim to some of the big cliches of fantasy - namely, the farmboy who discovers unknown talents and rises to greatness - but other than that, it's a very solid series, with some very interesting fantasy ideas.

I love to read a good book, fantasy or otherwise, though fantasy and science fiction are what I prefer to read for fun - don't get me wrong, I love educational reading, and I want to get my PhD in English and teach college students, but for fun, fantasy is what I prefer. I wish I could find a way to get some fantasy discussion into a classroom, but it's hard to work something that new into the study of English - and I shouldn't talk, since my interest is in Medieval Studies, the earliest forms of English.

In any case, for the next week or two, I'll still be busy with my MA exam, but some part of my mind will be on fantasy, gaming, video games, and the like.

On Heroes

What is it precisely that makes a hero? Heroes are one of the staples of our culture, those stories we are told at bedtime as children, the stories we will later grow to enjoy in books and movies and other media. Heroes are the people who choose good over evil, who take a stand and say “This far, and no further.” For whatever reason, they are people who have decided to stand in the way of what they believe is wrong and work for good rather than evil, and we immortalize them for it. That seems to be the basic premise of a hero; most heroes have little else in common. Achilles in the Iliad, for example, is a near-psychopathic killer who flies into a rage when a friend is killed, yet in the end he has mercy on the king of Troy. It seems unreasonable to compare him to more contemporary heroes such as Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings, as Aragorn seems to be a paragon of virtue – he is a master swordsman and archer, he is courteous and kind, he is loved by those who are his subjects and respected by others.

So why is the study of the hero important, if they are so varied? Can characters like Odysseus be compared to characters like King Arthur? Is a person’s heroism greater or lesser because of how he goes about it? It seems there are different types of heroism, and each involves different things, though all seem to tie back to the general concept. First, the hero searching for redemption. This seems to be a fairly common heroic ideal, especially recently, with characters like Angel, or the lesser-known Skilgannon the Damned, from David Gemmell’s book White Wolf. Both of these characters have horrible deeds in their past; mostly, they seem to involve large amounts of murder, whether they felt sorry about it at the time they did it or not. Somewhere along the line, things changed and they decided to walk another path; for Angel, it was when he was given his soul, and for Skilgannon it was when he realized that his queen, who ordered the massacre of an entire city, told him that she would do it again for victory.

These sorts of heroes have a lot they want to atone for, and they try as hard as they can to do so, whether it is possible for them to accomplish this goal or not. Often these heroes are the most utilitarian, killing those who work for evil rather than trying to rehabilitate them, because they see things differently – sometimes, though, these heroes become the strongest proponents of rehabilitation, because they are trying for redemption – why can’t others? They often recognize real evil when they see it, for they have a great deal of experience, and they can be the most extreme heroes in many situations. They are probably the heroes most likely to see things in terms of shades of grey, as they have seen true evil and they know that not all bad things are Evil with a capital E.

Holiday Reading

Like I said in my last post, I've been reading a lot of David Gemmell books lately. I can read through them very quickly, as they tend to be pretty straightforward, which is part of what I like about them. I like the idea of a main hero who knows what his faults are, and doesn't tend to be arrogant about most things. Granted, most of Gemmell's books are about great warriors, but they are self-aware, to a point; they know that they are good at what they do, and also that they may not have the most complicated way of looking at life. His most popular character, Druss, has a very simple, black and white way of looking at things; he knows when something is good or evil, and will always try to choose good, even if it means pain or suffering for himself. I've even been looking into a game to try and express the kind of setting Gemmell's books take place in, and found one that seems to fit well called Barbarians of Lemuria, which lists as some of its inspirations things like Robert E. howard's Conan and Kull stories.

I'm also looking into re-reading Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series, which is the polar opposite of Gemmell's books in the fantasy world. Far from being fantasy pulp books, where one can be read independantly of the others, this series is intricate and long, with a complicated design and story that are sure to keep the mind working. Even in paperback, the shortest book in this series is over 700 pages, and there are dozens of characters and numerous storylines to keep track of. The setting is gloriously high magic, but is also not ahsamed to let major characters die, sometimes nobly, somtimes ignobly. Most of the main characters don't have a great deal of time for self-analyzation, and those that do are often confused by what they find.

These two series, along with my newfound addiciton to Bioware's new videogame Dragon Age: Origins, will likely keep me occupied for much of my holidays season. I'm already on my second playthrough of Dragon Age, and have put in close to 80 hours of play - and I still haven't managed to do all I want to, and accoridng to the game's logs, I have completed only about 65% of what is possible to do in the game. I love Bioware for their games, but sometimes I wish they weren't so addictive - every game of theirs I have bought, and I have bought most of their games, has cost me a significant part of a month, if not more. So while this is not technically holiday reading, I do spend a lot of time reading things in this game, particularly the entries that are found throughtout the game that explain more of the setting's history and cultures.

Swords & Sorcery

One of my favorite authors of all time is David Gemmell, who died in 2006. I started reading his books with Legend, and after that I was driven; I managed to collect every book he published in one form or another, and I read through most, if not all, of them about once a year. I'm currently in the middle of this year's read-through.

I think one of the things that attracts me to his books is that they tend to take place in fantasy worlds, but they are generally fantasy worlds that don't have the overwhelming amount of magic that some other fantasy worlds have. There are no super-powerful wizards or direct channels to deities in most of his books; there are a few mystics and psychics, and a couple shamans, and maybe a couple wizards or sorcerors, but these are magic-users who have to prepare to use their magic, and using their magic costs them personally. They don't lob fireballs at all their problems; mostly, they pay mercenaries or assassins to take care of things. Mostly, magic is treated as somethign the other guys, or the bad guys, have, and is something to be avoided or overcome.

then there are the characters. Sometimes they aren't very deep, but I find the way he describes them fascinating. The grizzled old legend wielding his famous two-handed axe; the eagle-eyed bowman; the soldier who will throw himself into combat in a berserk rage; the deadly weaponsmaster who moves like a dancer; the practical fighter who has no problems with dirty tricks if they help him win; the heavily armored warrior who takes blows so his companions will not. These are people whose problems aren't often solved by magic, and they have to fight to make their way in the world. They live in a world that is constantly struggling, and even if one nation declares peace, another will start a war.

I know these books and stories aren't the deepest literature around. I know that some of them owe a great deal to previous characters like Conan or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. Something about them calls to me, though; maybe it is the way in which the mqin characters have to solve their problems, or the fact that many of the best characters live by a simple, ironclad code to do no evil, and stick to this code in the face of everythign they must fight. It would be fun to try and run a game in a setting like this, where magic is rare or a thing for the bad guys; I wonder how players would handle it, and I'd love to play in something like this.