Return To Tomorrow

Darn, I came home from today's game too late to get this in on the proper day but no matter. I am still a fan and as a fan this is still my duty.






It is an honor to remind every reader of this blog that Saturday, September 8th, 2012
celebrated the 46th Anniversary of the Original Series of Star Trek.

If you didn't get to see Google's tribute, here it is...




I personally think it's adorable. There was a number of other variations of it as I understand and I highly recommend doing a search for them. You might want to use, hmmm, let's see now, perhaps...Google? It's so crazy it just might work.

Tomorrow (er, that is, today...I am so confused) I will recap our first session of my buddy Ray's Hunter X Hunter game. I was really, really good. From me, that's like three cheers while I jump up and down tooting on one of those New Years Eye horns that sound a bit like a kazoo.

Hope you are all enjoying your weekend. Live long and peace out.

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Barking Alien

*Top illustration by the very talent Robert Grabe.

Updated Musings

My gaming anniversary has passed and I am now in my 35th year of gaming.

This will mark my fourth post in four days. A trend? Possible, even likely. With no major campaign to prepare material for and business not yet back to full, I have a bit more time in my schedule to blog.

But what to blog about? Ah, the age old dilemma, going as far back as blogging itself.

Well, let's see what is on the agenda...

A new school semester means a new Sunday Program at the Learning Cente

r in Brooklyn. We had a short but pretty successful run with Superheroes and I think I may make that the new offical game for at least the first part of the Fall/Winter season. I am debating whether to stick with my simplified ICONS variant or go with a new Marvel Heroic variant I've been thinking about. I really like the idea of the kids experiencing some of the mechanics of the game like the Doom Pool and gaining Plot Points when they purposely activate a weakness or negative distinction. There are lessons to be learned in there somewhere.

September 15th is just around the corner and it brings with it the next RECESS Game Day 'mini-convention'. I will be running my Muppets Role Playing Game in the early half of the day and my Galaxy Quest RPG in the later half. I am extremely excited to be revisiting both of these games. My recent gaming experiences have not been nearly fun enough for me and I am looking forward to running some games which embrace a very different mindset from my groups' recently completed, deadly serious Champions campaign.

Other than that...

I intend to give you some info on our new Hunter X Hunter campaign once we've started it. I don't think I will do full recaps but I might. I will continue to discuss Star Trek, Traveller and other Sci-Fi games, Superhero gaming and whatever other weird RPG subject catches my fancy.

I am also going back to my oft put off project of developing a game to self-publish.

In the end this post was more fluff and filler than I had intended. I assure you that ideas with more meat to them are coming up soon...

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Barking Alien

Lost In A Cast of Thousands

At one time, one of the things I was well known for among the gaming circles I was associated with (and something I was pretty proud of I might add) was my NPCs.

Not only did I have NPCs in my campaign universes that players enjoyed 'seeing' and dealing with but the sheer number of them was staggering to many of my fellow GMs.

There were Star Trek campaigns where at least a third of our vessel's crew compliment of 350 were jotted down with enough tips and tags that helped me to remember them as if they were three dimensional characters with co-starring roles. I recall Supers games where, not unlike the one I just finished, the New York or Metropolis based heroes were on friendly terms with teams of heroes from Detroit, Coast City, London and Tokyo. Even in my D&D-But-Not campaign world, heck especially there, PCs are often visiting allies and relatives in far off lands, checking in with contacts and favorite merchants across the sea and getting to know the common folk who live and work in the town that serves as their base of operations.

I love NPCs. I love thinking about them, making them, doing different accents and strange alien speech patterns, and getting honest to goodness tears out of players when they are threatened or, heavens forbid, die.

Just the other day, one of my players, the often inscrutable Lee, remarked that he enjoyed one of my previous one-shots quite a bit as it didn't feature my usual 'cast of thousands'. I have to ask myself (partially because I didn't get the chance to ask him) why he liked not having so many NPCs around?

Knowing what I know about Lee, his perceptions of things (which are quite often so unlike mine it's hard to sync them up when gaming) and his feelings on what he likes and dislikes in a game, I can make some educated guesses about why he, and others of a like mind, would prefer a game where fewer fleshed out, allied NPCs existed.

Some players, especially in games based on or set in a known licensed universe, feel overshadowed or threatened by the presence of so many popular and powerful NPCs...automatically. They think, "How is my hero ever going to be the coolest, most powerful guy out there if Superman or Captain America exist in this game." How can my female Jedi ever rival Luke Skywalker?

Good question. My answer is that they won't if that is your default mindset. No actions on the part of the established NPC heroes in the Champions setting I created prevented or overruled actions by the PCs in a direct fashion. In fact, numerous successful actions by the PC group's least powerful character won him a higher and higher level of notoriety, privilege and respect among the NPC organization the PCs operated under. Could he have someday taken the top spot from a retiring NPC? Sure. Why not? No one is stopping you from being more heroic than Superman but you.

Another reason for not wanting so many NPCs is distrust. While I don't see this on Lee's part, I have seen it in other players in this and a few other groups. People used to the old school D&D style of play seem to know in their hearts that there are only three kinds of NPCs...The ones who hire you, the ones who steal from you and the ones who work for you. Often, these types mix and match and the first and middle ones can easily evolve into the ones who want you dead. Therefore, the only good NPC is either a dead one or one you can ignore.

My answer to this is, well, how sad. I've never run NPCs quite that way. Rather, those three types are among a dozen or more other types that occupy my game worlds. Some NPCs are friendly and want to get to know you because their lives are boring and talking to you is a moment of excitement in their daily monotony. Some think you're cute. Some are experts in their field and enjoy letting you know this every chance they get. NPCs are people too and there can be as many reasons that they do things and as many things that they can do as there are for PCs and real life people.

***

A different view of the 'lots of NPCs in a campaign' idea is taken by my good buddy and player Dave (which matches many of the players I have gamed with in the good ol' days). It should be noted that Dave's very first RPG was a Superhero game.

Dave said that he finds the aforementioned old school approach, which he experienced first hand playing D&D with Lee and his old group, disinvolves him. According to Dave, what he means is that it makes him feel like he is not fully immersed in a living, breathing, functioning place. The world feels more like a game and less like a setting where his character lives.

This is because he notes the existence of NPCs, helping, hindering and just plain being there, in virtually every other medium that inspires our games. Video games, MMOs, comic books, TV shows, movies and books are all full of characters who aren't protagonists but aren't out to get or hinder the main characters either. Every last barkeep and city guard can't be a threat or it becomes weary very quickly from Dave's point of view (and mine as well).

Now, there is one drawback to a large cast of extras that I hadn't ever experienced until this recent campaign that is making me rethink the use of so many powerful allies (not necessarily those more powerful or as powerful as the PCs even). NPC over-reliance.

In our Champions campaign, it seemed like no one was brave enough to do anything when they could either go into battle with an NPC by their side or heck, send in the NPC while they sat on the sidelines planning John Madden. By Einstein! It drove me crazy I tell ya! Players were treating this Superhero RPG like a real-time strategy computer game where they moved pieces around the field but made sure they were in little danger themselves. It was so opposite what I was used to in Superhero RPGs.

I thought that by the time I got to the end of this post, I would have come to some answer or epiphany on how to handle my NPC allotment with this current group in the future. Nope. Instead, I think it's going to depend a lot on the game I'm running. I am likely to make the PCs the first or only Superheroes in their town if I run another Supers game. Our next Fantasy game may be more focused on just the small group of them with no larger guild family to be seen for some time. For Science Fiction, perhaps a small trading vessel where the PCs are the only crew.

Hmmm. Sounds boring. Sounds like it could be anybody's game.

Sorry, I gotta be me. Extras...this way please...

Auditions for parts are on Sound Stage A.

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Barking Alien

Superhuman Face Palm

My Champions game has ended and honestly I can't say I'm not happy it's over.

The final session was brutal, not just in the nature of the combat but in the excruciatingly slow time it took to get some of the players to DO SOMETHING! It reached a point where Dave and I just couldn't take it anymore and told the players slowing things down to either take real action or the two of us would be leaving. I of course am the GM, so if I leave, the game is over.

There was a point where three characters, one PC and two NPCs, each as powerful as Superman, snuck up on a villain while invisible and silent (all were using Flight to float into the room). When perfectly in place to deliver a powerful strike and potentially take out the villain with ease, the PC in the sequence went from stalling to indecisive to wanting to have one of the NPCs be dropped in front of the villain (which would make said NPC visible as the other two characters were generating the invisibility field).

The level of indecisiveness, overthinking and down right cowardice was rivaled only by the complete lack of heroics. Interestingly, only Dave acted like a hero, thought on his feet and was both the brave and the bold during the adventure. While Lee's character ended up killing one of the world's worst villains, it didn't feel superheroic to me in the least. Dave's defeat of two other villains were far more epic and comic book like. His Batman/Daredevil character should be commended for NOT killing his opponent and his technomagic, light based hero merged with a Firestorm analog NPC to destroy a cosmically powered, evil android resembling a bad Silver Surfer. That was an awesome moment I have to tell you.

While the session did have some fun moments, great one-liners and crazy cool maneuvers, in the end it was a little depressing, very frustrating and really makes me want to either add to or change the group's make up for the purposes of my own sanity.

Well, off to bed. I really needed to get that off my chest. It doesn't make me happy to feel this way, nor to have to complain about it to all of you but I feel better having written it down.

I did reach one interesting realization based on a comment made by one of the players about a previous game I ran and why he really liked it. I compared what he said to our experiences in this Champions campaign and, well, be on the look out for a post on the nature and number of NPCs and how I feel it can effect a game.

Good night Earth,

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Barking Alien

Smegging Awesome

Oh to run a Red Dwarf campaign. Sigh.

Happy Labor Day Weekend Everybody!

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Barking Alien