ars ludi

“Imagine a third kid there who’s very quiet, who never says anything”

Now imagine me standing in front of a room full of people, talking about GMless role-playing games for an hour. Too hard? No problem! Like magic you can just listen in as though you were there…

Fifty-four minutes of anecdotes of human awesomeness peppered with outbursts of laughter. You can also download the MP3 if you prefer.

Related links:

• “That is why I play these games… it gives you hope for humanity.” (Our Ground is Level and Our Table is Round)
• “I can be kind of a jackass” (Benefits of Tyranny)
• True love between a man and a crocodile… (Fiasco)
• “Now he’s my real brother…” (Shock)
• the games: Fiasco, Shock, Polaris and Microscope
• the communities: Story Games Seattle, Story Games Olympia, Ready, Set, Game PDX, Play Out Loud, Gamma Ray Games, and Go Play NW

Stay tuned, more Norwescon panels are on the way.

Ever wonder if you’ve read every single ars ludi post? Afraid you might have missed some gold? Well to make it easy for you I’ve added a chronological list of every single ars ludi post. But pack a lunch before you head out because there are over 300 of them all the way back to 2005.

Talk about a walk down memory lane. I’m pretty sure I’ve read them all. Pretty sure.

Now I just need a way to flag the classics…

UPDATE: Lo and behold, the classics are marked. I’ll probably refine the list over time but right now those are the best of the best. I added separate icons for favorite articles and epic game summaries.

“Hey, you haven’t talked about Kingdom in a while. What’s up with that?”

Good question, caller.

Imagine a cave. A dark cave. In a swamp. Lit only by the intermittent glow of fireflies.

Now in the cave put a figure. A figure facing a wall of rock. Solid rock. Rock from the heart of the world.

And in that figure’s hand put a chisel. A very sharp chisel. A chisel that *could* carve rock. Even really hard rock.

Now imagine that figure isn’t moving. Or lifting the chisel. Imagine that figure is bending his total will towards the rock and trying to carve it with the power of his mind!

That’s how Kingdom is going.

To be fair, that’s exactly how Microscope was in the homestretch too. It’s also how I wrote a paper about Oedipus Rex my freshman year in college. Apparently it’s just a thing I do but clearly I save it for the important stuff.

To translate that from drama into English, I’m scrutinizing every detail of the text with my piercing gaze, making sure it’s what I want it to be and that it’s doing what I want it to do. I’m looking back on all the very best Kingdom games I’ve played and making sure I am emphasizing the things that spawn games like that. And I’m looking back on all the very worst Kingdom games I’ve played (there have been a few) and putting procedural snipers on rooftops to prevent games like that from happening.

I’m rather pleased with how it’s going.

There will come a time soon(ish) when I will let slip the dogs of kickstarting. When that time comes I will dearly need your help to get the word out and make Kingdom happen. I’m not bad at designing games but I’m ass at marketing and self-promotion. I’ll seriously need your help.

I’m reading David Wright’s translation of Beowulf. I’ve read Beowulf before but one of the points Wright makes in his analysis is that it’s not just the events that happen in Beowulf but that the audience of dudes in horned helmets knew who the historical figures in the tale were and knew both their histories and what happens to them after the story of Beowulf is over.

The text is full of allusions to the future beyond the epic, things that have nothing to do with the current story. Warriors who are good friends now but who will one day murder each other. The peerless hall of Hrothgar which Beowulf saves from Grendel’s depredations but will itself be consumed in fire.

Tall and wide-gabled, the hall towered overhead; yet it was to endure terrible and leaping flames, when in the course of time a deadly feud between Hrothgar and his son-in-law should be kindled by an act of violence.

So the old skald telling the epic of Beowulf knows the audience knows all those things that are going to happen after the story. He’s counting on them knowing because that knowledge changes the entire meaning of the story.

Without that knowledge, Beowulf is a tale of heroism and monster-slaying. With it, it’s a reflection on the impermanence (and perhaps even futility) of man’s deeds and the material world.

Knowledge of the future changing your perception of the present? Yeah, it’s viking Microscope.

I’m going to be on a stack of panels at Norwescon. To wit:

System Matters: The Right RPG for the Job (Fri 1-2 pm)
Like the invisible hand of fate, the rules you use weigh on every aspect of your game sometimes in ways you aren’t even aware of. Are you using the right tool for the job, or do you always use the same hammer for every task? You may be sabotaging your game before you even sit down at the table.
John Harper, Ben Robbins, Chris Pramas, Aveloc Twiceborn, Ryan Macklin

GM-less Role Playing Games (Sat 1-2 pm)
Or “Oh my god who’s running this game?!?” Good GMs are awesome but you don’t need a GM to play an awesome game. Explore games designed to play with no GM, like Fiasco, Shock and Microscope. Whether you’ve never played a GM-less game before or you’re already an expert, come examine what makes them tick and stretch your gaming muscles. Microscope creator Ben Robbins gives an introduction to GM-less Role-Playing games.

D&D vs Story Games (Sat 2-3 pm)
D&D and Pathfinder may be the most well-known role-playing games, but indie games like Fiasco and Polaris are becoming more popular. Can these two genres co-exist in the same room together? What do they have in common, and what are the benefits and limitations of each style of play? Is it possible to like both? Industry experts and indie creators discuss the differences between traditional tabletop role-playing games, GM-less story games, and everything in between.
Ashley Cook, Ben Robbins, Erik Mona, John Harper, Jonathan Tweet, Ryan Macklin

Women in Gaming Communities (Sat 6-7 pm)
Gender inequality among gamers continues to be a frequent topic. Women and girl gamers often feel unwelcome in the boys club, and gamers can be clueless or dismissive of gender inequality. What are some successful ways to get women into gaming? What are some things to avoid? How can event organizers and game designers make women that show up more comfortable?
Lillian Cohen-Moore, Ashley Cook, Ben Robbins, Gwen Yeh, Mickey Schulz

Apocalypse World: The New Rosetta Stone of GMing? (Sat 7-8 pm)
Hidden in between the crowbars, shotguns and radioactive mutants, Vincent Baker (Dogs in the Vineyard, In A Wicked Age) snuck in a doctoral thesis dissecting the fundamental nature of what GMs have been doing since the dawn of RPGs. Forget vague gaming advice: this is step-by-step method. Learn how you can take the lessons of Apocalypse World and calmly whoop ass and bring fun in any game you run.
Ben Robbins, John Harper, Ogre Whiteside

Running a Sandbox RPG (Sat 8-9 pm)
Sandbox RPGs put the players in the driver’s seat. Hop off the railroad and go where you want, do what you want. But GMing a good sandbox requires iron discipline and a solemn oath to follow a very different set of rules than most RPGs. Learn the dark secrets of running a successful sandbox game and not falling back into dangerously “normal” GMing habits.
Erik Scott de Bie, Ben Robbins, Clinton J. Boomer, Erik Mona, John Harper

And no, your eyes do not deceive you: there’s a lot more indie gaming content in the role-playing games track this year. Will it be awesome? Come and find out.

For bonus points guess which of these panel descriptions I wrote. Difficulty level: T1 Village of Hommlet.

I told this story over at story-games.com but it deserves a place in the Microscope archives, so here it is:

We were at Emerald City Comic Con, manning the story games table, when a kid comes up with his Dad. He’s maybe 10 years old and he’s curious about these games even though he’s never played a role-playing game before. And I mean intensely curious, not just idly asking. He’s heard of Dungeons & Dragons so I idiotically try to explain the difference. He follows what I’m saying far better than I probably deserve (“so someone could say ‘I want there to be an ogre!’”) but I have to face that we should just sit down and play. Explanation is no substitute for doing.

But here’s the thing: I’m nervous. Despite having spent years as a child and even teaching myself to game while a child, I don’t spend a lot of time around children nowadays. I’m used to teaching games to adults. I don’t know how to talk to children. Not to mention the whole “oh, perhaps that subject matter is inappropriate for a minor — but hey, I told him about the Veil!”

I’m seriously wondering how badly I’m going to mess this up.

Fortunately I’m not alone. Dad says he’s just going to watch so I need one or two other people to play and I’ve got the cream of the crop standing right next to me: Caroline, ace-organizer from Story Games Seattle, and Ian who I’ve only played with this weekend but has already showed himself to be an excellent gamer and a kind human being.

I grab Microscope and we sit down to play. Microscope is my go-to game for unknown situations because a) I wrote it b) it gets creative fast and c) it lets people participate how they want to participate. Ironic, I know.

Caroline, it should be mentioned, played an inspiring game of Microscope with a little girl back at Geek Girl Con. I missed it and I’ve been jealous ever since. So this was my chance, right? So long as I didn’t completely chicken out. Or choke.

We sit down and I ask the kid if he’s interested in superheroes (hey, we’re at Emerald City Comic Con!). He gives a reserved nod so I whip out the quickstart seeds I made and ask him which one grabs him. He picks:

“The greatest superhero on Earth is gone and lesser heroes struggle to fill the void.”

Everyone else agrees that sounds great. I read the questions to the group to customize our history. What’s the hero’s name? Everyone pauses and ponders. “He’s called the White Knight,” the kid says. Nods around the table.

What’s his superpower, I ask? His Dad chimes in and says maybe he can heal people. Dad isn’t technically playing but it sounds like an interesting idea. We’re mulling this over when his son throws out a clockwork sword so we decide, why not both? He could be a peerless inventor/scientist who makes devices far beyond anyone else’s technology and he’s also found cures to numerous diseases, etc. Can other people maintain or replicate his inventions? We decide no, it’s all too advanced. Hmm, suddenly the disappearance of the White Knight seems like serious business.

We make our bookends (“White Knight vanishes mysteriously and villains rise up” all the way to “Heroes find and free White Knight”) and do the palette. We’re doing the first pass when Dad chimes in again and suggests a period where diseases are on the rise, because hey, the super-doctor is gone. Not so fast! I point out that clearly he is playing and he should stop trying to get out of it. He can no longer deny being intrigued. So now there’s five of us and Dad’s plague period goes on the table.

Caroline introduces an event, “the Death of White Squire” and puts it in the plague period Dad made. The White Squire, she explains, is the White Knight’s side-kick who tried to fill his shoes. There’s a funeral with other heroes in attendance.

We add a couple more things and then we’re ready to start normal play.

Who wants to make the first focus? Ian steps up and picks the White Squire, running with what Caroline just made. Excellent. He makes an event where the White Squire brings the heroes together and tries to get them to unite behind him now that the White Knight is gone but totally fails. He follows up with a scene in that event asking why the heroes rejected him.

We role-play and it does not go well for the White Squire. He gets slammed by the other heroes who tell him there’s more to being a hero than vanity. It’s his “you’re no White Knight” moment and it’s pretty harsh because it’s clear the Squire only has good intentions and doesn’t want to let his missing mentor down.

Nicely played all around. The kid is next after Ian and he decides to make a dictated scene. Keep in mind, this is right out of the gate. We’ve barely started playing. He puts the scene in Caroline’s “Death of the White Squire” event (which is itself within his Dad’s plague period) and without hesitation says the question is “how did the White Squire die?”

And then this 10 year-old kid who has never played a role-playing game before completely floors me: “The villains capture him and secretly infect him with a disease they created, then they release him and he goes around infecting people without realizing it before he dies. That’s how the plagues start.”

Holy crap.

To my chagrin I actually exclaimed “holy crap” right then and there. Right in front of his Dad. I know: language. But I was so utterly taken aback by the pathos-bomb this kid dropped. White Squire, failed protege of the great healer White Knight, goes down as an unwitting disease vector, an ironic pawn of the villains. “Holy crap” remains the only appropriate reaction. That is some nefarious villain shit right there.

And yeah, the rest of the game was basically fantastic. His Dad had to drag him away from the table to go see the rest of the con. Kids do in fact rule.