Literature Review: "The Farthest Shore" (1972)

Two years ago, I discussed Ursula K. LeGuin's seminal "A Wizard of Earthsea," and last year, "The Tombs of Atuan."

This week, I wanted to take a look at the next book in the Earthsea Cycle, "The Farthest Shore."

In a somewhat surprising move, the second entry in the Earthsea Cycle has a new main character!  Rather than Ged from "A Wizard of Earthsea," we follow the action through the eyes of Tenar, a young Kargish girl who is the high priestess to the "Nameless Ones" at the titular Tombs of Atuan.

The Tombs are the center of religious activity for the Kargish Empire (one of the antagonists in "A Wizard of Earthsea") and feature several different faiths that seem to get along quite well.  Oldest and most sacred (but also neglected) is worship of the "Nameless Ones" and their high priestess is the "undying" Arha- undying in the sense that every time the incumbent high priestess dies, the other priestesses find a girl child born at the same time, while apparently becomes the new vessel for the "undying" Arha.

As so it was with Tenar, taken as a child and raised in this strange place by strange women for this strange purpose.  She loses her name (becoming the new Arha) and grows up a lonely servant of a mostly neglected religion.

Ged does show up, but only half way into the book.  He has recovered half of the broken ring of the archmage Erreth-Akbe is looking for the other half, hidden in the Tombs of Atuan.  Once rejoined,  the ring will reveal the powerful magic rune of Peace.  Arha/Tenar manages to trap him in the underground labyrinth but will he escape?  No spoilers but this *IS* the second book in a trilogy...

After "A Wizard of Earthsea," I found "The Tombs of Atuan" to be rather disappointing.

Like its predecessor, this is another coming of age story.  However, unlike Ged, Tenar is a victim of kidnapping and brainwashing and has no special powers.  Unsurprisingly, she has very little agency and spends the most of the book simply reacting to other characters.  In fact, when she asks to become an apprentice sorcerer, Ged shoots down this idea and she simply accepts his judgment!

So, why exactly would young girls want to be her?

The tone and feel of  "The Tombs of Atuan" are also vastly different.  For example, there's no exploration, and very little sense of the magical world of Earthsea.   In addition, the pacing is quite slow for most of the book.

Another area where the story is weak is that, rather than presenting a more balanced view of the Kargish, they are still portrayed unambigiously as the bad guys.  They worship the clearly evil "Nameless Ones",  They are okay with child slavery.  They even banned literacy!

Doing so, LeGuin turns them into orcs.

Of course, "The Tombs of Atuan" does have good points.  It's well written and imaginative and it does shed light on some of the events in the first book.

However, if you are expecting another fantasy adventure tale, you will be quite disappointed, as "The Tombs of Atuan" is more a psychological character study of a pretty weak character.  There are also some horror aspects, but frankly, this is not a frightening tale as I never felt that Tenar or Ged were in serious danger.

Let her be Eaten?  Whatever. 

TV Review: "The Last Kingdom" (2015-)

This week, I want to give a shout out to arguably the best historical adventure show presently on the air, "The Last Kingdom":

Based on Bernard Cornwell's "The Saxon Stories" series of historical novels, "The Last Kingdom" is a historical adventure television series that tells the tale of King Alfred the Great and the rise of England, as experienced by the protagonist Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a noble from Northumbria who became a Viking slave then son to his Viking owner then independent warrior.

Movie Review: "Masquerade" (2012)

This week, I wanted to give a shout out to another overlooked Historical Drama gem film, "Masquerade":

Set during the reign of King Gwanghae, the fifteenth monarch of Korea's Joseon dynasty, "Masquerade" is a creative interpretation of the missing 15 days in the 승정원 일기 (Journal of the Royal Secretariat), based on the cryptic entry:

"One must not record that which [the king] wishes to hide."

Director Choo Chang-min spins the above quote into a fanciful tale wherein the King is poisoned and, fearing further assassination attempts, temporarily replaces himself with a physically identical acrobat and comedian, Ha-sun, for the 15 days while he recovers.

Essentially a retelling of the classic tale "The Prince and the Pauper," "Masquerade" is a fish out of water story where Ha-sun needs to quickly learn how to be a royal or all kinds of things could go wrong.  Additionally, King Gwanghae and his body double are quite different, the former being a tyrannical asshat whereas the latter is empathetic and kind hearted, so it doesn't take too long for people to start to figure out something is amiss.  Nevertheless, Ha-sun is able to make a mark on the court and even the King with his earnestness and compassion.

A lively historical film, "Masquerade" nicely balances drama and comedy without becoming overly sentimental, and includes some pointed shots at Chinese soft imperialism.  The production design, sets and costumes are first rate and Lee Byung-hun excels in the dual role of both King Gwanghae and Ha-sun, where he gets to show off his acting range beyond his typical gangster-type roles (e.g., "The Good, the Bad and the Weird").

So, if you are an East Asian history buff, lover of K-dramas or just want to watch a good costume drama, check out this film!

RPG Design: Hit Points

This week, I wanted to touch on an issue that comes up in almost every RPG: a PC's health.

Hit Points are by far the most popular method of indicating PC health. Examples of RPGs with Hit Points include D&D, Call of Cthulhu, and most other RPGs.

By "Hit Points," I mean a numerical measure of the amount of damage a PC can sustain before death or incapacity.  

Hit Points have been in RPGs since the beginning of the hobby, being an innovation of Dave Arneson in his Blackmoor campaign.  Some people might argue that Hit Points started with Chainmail, but Chainmail's system of "Hits" was different and didn't really track to the man-to-man scale.

What Hit Points are supposed to represent is a topic of debate to the present.  Gary Gygax notes in AD&D's PHB:

"Each character has a varying number of hit points, just as monsters do. These hit points represent how much damage (actual or potential) the character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. A typical man-at-arms can take about 5 hit points of damage before being killed. Let us suppose that a 10th level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This is the equivalent of about 18 hit dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four huge warhorses. It is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic fighter can take that much punishment.The some holds true to a lesser extent for clerics, thieves, and the other classes. Thus, the majority of hit paints are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces."

However, Gygax ignores an issue that he indirectly brings up, namely that that 10th level fighter with 85 hit points, will only recover, as per the DMG, 1 hp per day of rest (for the first week and then perhaps a bit more later), which doesn't make sense if "the majority of [the 85 hit points] are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces".

Nevertheless, for D&D's abstract combat system, Hit Points are a quick and intuitive way to tracking a PC's health.  In that kind of system, Hit Points also add tension and drama to combat, escalating with every hit.  At least up to a point, as a PC with too many Hit Points raise game balance issues.

For example, that 10th level fighter with 85 hit points is a literal tank who can singlehandedly wipe out a small army.

Hit Points don't work as well for less tactical games, such as New School RPGs with story game elements.  For example, Ten Candles has no Hit Points since a PC's health is determined narratively.  This is also why Dungeon World, a New School game that apes Old School conventions, severely reduces the chance that a PC fails a roll.

Hit Points also obviously don't work for non-combat games, such as Golden Sky Stories.

Culture: Ancient Olympic Games (776 BC)

When we think about the culture of Antiquity, there's one event that stands out so much that we brought it back in modern times, the Ancient Olympic Games:

Like they are today, the Ancient Olympic Games were the ultimate international athletic competition, as well as a religious celebration of and for the greek god Zeus.  For example, a grand sacrifice of 100 oxen was made to Zeus during the Games.

The first Olympics is traditionally dated to 776 BC and the games were thereafter held every four years.  This measure of time, an olympiad, which became the main unit of time in Greeks historical chronologies.  And, in fact, so important were the Olympics to the Greeks that an Olympic Truce was enacted so that athletes could travel from their cities to the games in safety!

Beginning with just the stade (στάδιον), a foot race, the Ancient Olympic Games became a series of athletic competitions among representatives of Greek city-states.  As noted above, prior to the start of the Olympics, priests of Zeus travelled the land to announce the Games and tell any warring factions to wrap things up.

As long as they met the entrance criteria, athletes from any Greek city-state and kingdom were allowed to participate, with some notable exceptions.  For example, in AD 67, the Roman emperor Nero participated in the Olympics. He bribed organizers to postpone the games for a year so he could participate, and artistic competitions were added to the athletic events.  Unsurprisingly, Nero won every contest in which he was a competitor.  After he died a year later, unsurprisingly, his name was removed from the list of winners.

The Ancient Olympic Games gradually increased to twenty-three contests, although no more than twenty featured at any one Olympiad.  Participation in most events was limited to male athletes except for women who were allowed to take part by entering horses in the equestrian events. 

Unlike today, in the ancient Olympic Games there were no gold, silver, or bronze medals and there was only one winner per event.  This winner was crowned with an olive wreath made of wild-olive leaves from a sacred tree near the temple of Zeus at Olympia. 

The victorious athletes were honoured, feted, and praised. Their deeds were heralded and chronicled so that future generations could appreciate their accomplishments.

Also unlike today, killing your opponent was not forbidden: a victory was only negated if the death was the consequence of breaking the rules (e.g., Kleomedes of Astypalia).

A victorious athlete brought great honour to his home city. The sixth-century BC Athenian statesman Solon promoted athletics by rewarding Athenian victors at the Games financially - an Olympic victor would receive 500 drachmae (for comparison, a sheep was worth one drachma).

As their importance increased, the Ancient Olympic Games became a political tool used by city-states to assert dominance over their rivals.  In this, the modern Games have followed suit (e.g., the US boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the USSR boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics).

The Ancient Olympic Games continued to be celebrated when Greece came under Roman rule, until the emperor Theodosius I suppressed them in AD 393 as part of the campaign to impose Christianity as the State religion of Rome... until the modern Olympic Games kicked off in AD 1896 in Athens, Greece!

Citius, Altius, Fortius!

RPG Game Play: Rules Lawyers

Last year, I discussed perhaps the important meta-rule in RPGs: Rule Zero.

This week, I wanted to talk about an issue that was driving factor in the creation of Rule Zero: Rules Lawyers.

"Rules Lawyer" is typically a pejorative term used to describe someone who attempts to use the letter of the rules of the game without reference to the spirit, usually in order to gain an advantage for themselves.  As this can be a literal form of "Gaming the system," with the attendant negative consequences, Rule Zero arose.  As I mentioned last year:

"For games where meta decision making is distributed along traditional lines, Rule Zero serves as a manual override to the rules set: in other words, it exists in case someone needs to override the rules when they result a nonsensical result.  Furthermore, it serves the underlying philosophy that the rules should take a back seat if they interfere with having fun."

As  "judge" and "referee," Rule Zero allows GMs to keep a game from slowing down too much or going off the rails for various reasons, Rules Lawyering included.

However, as you might expect, Rules Lawyering can be a problem for some New School games that reject traditional GM authority in favor of greater Player Narrative Fiat, such as GM-less games.

A softer and more proactive way to address Rules Lawyering is with the group's Social Contract.


In addition, in some cases Rules Lawyering and System Mastery (high knowledge of the rules) are just two sides of the same coin, even though the latter is generally viewed positively and encouraged.

Furthermore, a clever GM can sometimes recruit Rules Lawyers to assist in running games, such as serving as a rules reference, managing less focused or experienced players, etc.

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Please return later!

RPG Design: Non-Human PCs

This week, I wanted to touch on an important related design issue that is very hard to do well, Non-Human PCs:

This isn't really a concern for my rule set, being Swords & Sorcery-themed and, unsurprisingly, humanocentric.  However, Non-Human PCs being believable are a concern for any RPG that incorporates High Fantasy and/or Science Fiction elements, which is a whole boatload of them- everything from D&D to Shadowrun to Star Wars.

Of course, what constitutes "believable" depends upon the level of immersion that the RPG purports to have.  For example, for B/X D&D's simplified rules set, where Demi-Humans are effectively the "multi-class option," as Race-as-Class mostly works.

However, for deeper levels of immersion, a lack of believability can be a problem for those who value verisimilitude.  As a world building task, it's quite hard work to develop a truly alien mind set, belief system, culture, history, etc.

Consequently, most RPGs (and other media) cut corners.  In High Fantasy, Non-Human species are typically the Tolkien standards, blatant Tolkien ripoffs or weird monocultures such as Scottish Dwarves.  Science Fiction is even worse, where most aliens are just Aliens with Forehead Ridges.

One of the few RPGs to do Non-Humans right is 2300 AD (originally titled Traveller: 2300, as the game as supposed to be a prequel to Traveller), from the genetically-engineered Pentapod to the vicious Kafers (a name based on the German word Käfer, meaning "beetle").  Culture, motivations and otherness are all done well and add to the aliens' strangeness.

The game is definitely worth a look to see how GDW handled the Non-Humans, as well as interesting relatively hard Science Fiction world building in general.  Except for having France be the reigning superpower, which shatters suspension of disbelief.

Being creative is hard, so the state of Non-Human PCs in RPGs is somewhat understandable.  However, sometimes avoidance is the best strategy (*cough*Swords & Sorcery*cough*).

Movie Review: Cleopatra (1963)

This week, I wanted to take a look at the movie that has the dubious distinction of being the only film ever to be the top-grossing film of the year to lose money at the box office, "Cleopatra":

An epic historical drama focusing on the famous Queen Cleopatra, the film focuses on her machinations to maintain her power and position in the face of the imperial ambitions of Rome.   But how is she supposed to do so, with Egypt hobbled by generations of corruption and incompetence?  The young queen must rely on her personal assets...

Loosely based on history, the film begins shortly after Caesar defeats Pompey Magnus at the Battle of Pharsalus to end Caesar's Civil War.  Pompey flees to Egypt and Caesar pursues, only to find his frenemy assassinated by the Egyptians.

Thereafter, Caesar is quickly involved (in several senses of the word) in the power struggle between Cleopatra and her brother/husband/co-ruler Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator.  Cleopatra seduces the new leader of the Roman world and, after Caesar defeats her brother, bears him a son, Caesarion.

"A woman too must make the barren land fruitful. She must make life grow where there was no life. Just as the Mother Nile feeds and replenishes the Earth, I am the Nile. I will bear many sons. Isis has told me. My breasts are full of love and life. My hips are rounded and well apart. Such women, they say, have sons."

However, after the would-be king kicks the bucket (Et tu, Brute?), Cleopatra then seduces his old friend, Mark Anthony, who has formed the Second Triumvirate with Octavian, Caesar's great-nephew and adopted son, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, another of Caesar's generals.

Like the First Triumvirate, the Second Triumvirate, is an alliance of convenience that breaks down and leads to a showdown between Mark Anthony, with Cleopatra as ally, and Octavian.  At the Battle of Actium, Cleopatra inexplicably chickens out and flees, causing by her doomed lover to follow and abandoned his troops.

With a run time of over 4 hours, "Cleopatra" was an epic (in several senses of the word) mess.  Originally budgeted at $2 million, the film rapidly ballooned out of control.  20th Century Fox fired original director Rouben Mamoulian after 2 years, $7 million, and only 10 minutes of film!  Replacement director Joseph L. Mankiewicz was able to complete the film, sort of.

Mankiewicz worked to sheer exhaustion directing by day and writing by night, with little sleep.  The resulting movie is a mish-mash of love triangle, battle scenes and over the top grandeur.  "Cleopatra" has a stellar cast but Elizabeth Taylor isn't able to carry the lead.  For example, Queen Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, was one of the most interesting figures of Anquity, a diplomat, naval commander, polyglot, and medical author.  However, not much of that background makes it to the silver screen.

So, if you want to see sparks fly between Liz Taylor and Richard Burton (they had a scandalous affair during production) or if you like old Hollywood Epics, this is an okay film.  Otherwise, check out a better and more accurate take of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony in Season 2 of Rome!

Design Philosophy, Revisited

So, it's been a couple years since I started this blog, and with the first public playtest of my rules set, Sorcery & Steel, under my belt, I thought it would be a good time to look back and see how S&S matches up thus far to my stated Design Philosophy.

As I mentioned earlier, with Sorcery & Steel, I want to create an "Old School" (e.g., traditional GM authority, player skill over character skill, Combat as War, etc.) rules set that combines "enough" interesting tactical options with also "reasonably" fast speed of play (i.e., a rules set that achieves Old School-style Tactical Depth at relatively low cost in terms of Complexity).  Here, "enough" and "reasonably" reflect my opinion and YMMV.

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with how Sorcery & Steel is coming along.  In order to be an Old School game with both tactical depth and streamlined gameplay, I front-loaded a lot of the mechanical crunch, especially into Character Creation/Character Advancement.  However, as one of my players put it, once you finish making a PC and understand the basic gist of the game, it generally runs very smoothly.

Also, speaking of Character Creation/Character Advancement, I adopted both random roll and point buy elements, since I believe that Character Classes are good from a design POV in that they provide players with an easy guide to how to conceptualize and to how play their PC, but I wanted a bit more flexibility.  The end result is more of Archetype-style PCs, where the player has an overall direction for the character but still has plenty of room to customize to suit.

In addition to the above design goals, I want S&S to able to handle Swords & Sorcery-flavored adventures and adventures where Investigation is a key component.  In terms of the former, I think S&S is okay at Swords & Sorcery in terms of gritty, lower-powered fantasy (e.g., I lowered and flattered the power curve) but I did stay away from some classic Swords & Sorcery tropes (e.g., all sorcerers are evil).

In terms of the latter, S&S is inspired, in part, by the seminal work in the field of Investigation-based RPGs, Call of Cthulhu.  CoC's mechanics are rock solid, remaining largely unchanged through seven editions and nearly four decades.  Unsurprisingly, given the CoC inspiration, Horror, particularly Lovecraftian Horror, also provides a good deal of flavor to my rules set and has worked out pretty well in actual play.


However, while the basic building blocks seem to be in place, there's still plenty of tweaking and refining to do.  For example, I just completed the first major overhaul to Character Creation/Character Advancement, boosting a bit the power of starting characters.

加油!

Literature Review: "Shadows in Zamboula" (1935)

It's been a while since I've covered anything Swords & Sorcery.  So, this week, I wanted to discuss another one of best Conan the Barbarian yarns, wherein Messr Howard skillfully blends both Swords & Sorcery and straight Horror elements, the classic tale "Shadows in Zamboula":

"PERIL hides in the house of Aram Baksh!"

So exhorts an elderly desert nomad to Conan, trying to warn the barbarian against staying in a suspiciously cut rate tavern in Zamboula, run by the aforementioned Aram Baksh.  However, Conan  is almost broke, having already sold his horse, and has already prepaid for the room so...

I typically prefer the Conan stories with everyone's favorite Cimmerian as a wandering adventurer rather than as a king/general.  "Shadows in Zamboula" falls into the former category, which finds our protagonist once again somewhat down on his luck in Zamboula, a melting pot of different peoples:

"Here, centuries ago, the armies of Stygia had come, carving an empire out of the eastern desert. Zamboula was but a small trading town then, lying amidst a ring of oases, and inhabited by descendants of nomads. The Stygians built it into a city and settled it with their own people, and with Shemite and Kushite slaves. The ceaseless caravans, threading the desert from east to west and back again, brought riches and more mingling of races. Then came the conquering Turanians, riding out of the East to thrust back the boundaries of Stygia, and now for a generation Zamboula had been Turan's westernmost outpost, ruled by a Turanian satrap."

Conan doesn't have to wait long for his next plot coupon as that very night, the local cannibals attempt to ambush the Cimmerian in the room that Aram Baksh cunningly trapped to assist the cannibals but the maneaters end up on the wrong side of a broadsword.  However, before the barbarian can even the score with the innkeeper he has to save a damsel in distress and then open up a big can of whoop ass on some evil cultists.

He also dispenses some frontier justice on Aram Baksh before leaving town.

As befits a ripping S&S yarn, "Shadows in Zamboula" features Howard's vigorous and imaginative writing.  The story leaps from the page with only an economy of words.  Conan murders a bunch of evil doers and also proves to be cleverer than he looks: throughout much of the novelette, the barbarian is seemingly led around by his penis, but in fact is nobody's fool, which leads to a nice twist ending.

A fun, fast pulp fiction romp, "Shadows in Zamboula" is filled with action and has a nice blend of mystery, horror, dark sorcery and a bit of nudity.  A must read for fans of Swords & Sorcery!

RPG Events: NEON Retrofuturism Festival 2018

Last week, I attended the inaugural NEON Retrofuturism Festival!

NEON is, in the organizers' own words, "a celebration of Retrofuturism from the late 20th century."  As a love letter to that period's technology and pop culture, this celebration featured synthwave artists, obsolete tech, hard video games, and tons of So Bad, It's Good movies from yesteryear!  For example, Ninja III: The Domination!

A notable part of this convention was a huge arcade consisting of original restored cabinet games, including Pac-Man, Tapper, Dig Dug and Spy Hunter, only this time they were all free to play, so no need to keep begging Mom for more quarters!

The fun also included a massive selection of 80s and 90s game consoles, including relatively obscure platforms like the Vectrex:

I was amused that I still remembered a bunch of the secret treasure locations for Castlevania!

And, I had the opportunity to run the rules set I'm working on, Sorcery & Steel, for a bunch of strangers!  Specifically, I ran Ravenloft of Cthulhu, a reimagining of the classic AD&D gothic horror module with a bunch of Lovecraftian twists (e.g., Strahd is an eldritch horror rather than a vampire).

I changed a number of things so that even someone who had played and DM'd I6 many times before said he could see where certain things came from but the end results were quite different.  For example, I emphasized Lovecraftian horror rather than gothic horror, so there were no romance elements and Strahd was much more inhuman and unsympathetic.

Much fun was had, and I was happy that the session went smoothly and the game's mechanics were easily understandable by newcomers.  As a bonus, I also found a number of places to further refine the rules set.

A reboot of TempleCon, NEON still has a way to go to fill the shoes of its predecessor.  However, this year was definitely a good start.  If you're a fan of the 80s or a fan of things that love the 80s (e.g., Stranger Things), you should check it out!

RPG Focus: Trail of Cthulhu (2008)

Last year, I took a look at Call of Cthulhu, the grandfather of Horror RPGs, and, last month, I took a look at Investigations in RPGs.

So, in honor of Messr Howard's birthday today (8/20), I wanted to take a look at a different take on Lovecraftian Horror in RPGs: Trail of Cthulhu.

Named after the series of interconnected short stories by August Derleth (who did much to keep Lovecraft's literary legacy alive after Messr Howard's unfortunate demise), Trail of Cthulhu is, like Call of Cthulhu, an RPG focused on the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror fiction.  Published by arrangement with Chaosium, Inc., creators of the Call of Cthulhu RPG, there are a handful of familiar trappings in this game (e.g., Occupations, skills) but it's just window dressing as Trail of Cthulhu runs instead on Pelgrane Press' in-house Gumshoe System.

Unlike Call of Cthulhu's d100 mechanic, playing Trail of Cthulhu only requires a single d6 for Gumshoe's target roll over mechanic.  Also, there are no ability scores for Investigators, only skills.

The supposed "killer app" of Trail of Cthulhu is the absence of rolls for Invesgiation skills.  Namely:

"Gathering clues is simple. All you have to do is: 

1. Get your Investigator into a scene where relevant information can be gathered,
2. Have the right ability to discover the clue, and
3. Tell the Keeper that you’re using it. 

As long as you do these three things, you will never fail to gain a piece of necessary information. It is never dependent on a die roll. If you ask for it, you will get it."

ToC's boosters argue that this is a revolutionary mechanic because the failure of a single roll can derail the entire session/game/campaign!

However, I consider this "No clue roll" mechanic to be highly overrated and the above argument to be hyperbole.  For example, the argument doesn't take into account that typically there's more than one PC with a relevant skill to acquire a particular clue and that typically the GM will allow multiple rolls.

In addition, such bottlenecks that this "killer app" is meant to address are usually the result of poor adventure design.  This issue can easily be overcome by the Alexandrian's Three Clue Rule (i.e., if there are enough clues, missing one in particular should not be fatal to gameplay).

Additionally, as the Alexandrian notes:

"[The "No clue roll" rule] is a mechanical solution to the problem. But while it may result in a game session which superficially follows the structure of a mystery story, I think it fails because it doesn’t particularly feel as if you’re playing a mystery. 

[Robin] Laws’ fundamental mistake, I think, is in assuming that a mystery story is fundamentally about following a “bread crumb trail” of clues...But, in point of fact, this type of simplistic “A leads to B leads to C leads to D” plotting is not typical of the mystery genre."

Furthermore, ToC is a very New School RPG in the sense of expecting the GM to cater to the players and tilting the odds in the players' favor by reducing the overall challenge.  This is as opposed to the traditional GM role of an impartial referee.

This game does have a vocal group of fans.  However, in terms of actual play, I personally cannot recall seeing a listing for Trail of Cthulhu on Roll20.

Board Game Review: "Royal Game of Ur" (~3000 BC)

This week, I want give a shout out to one of the most popular board games of all time that also happens to be almost completely forgotten nowadays: The "Royal Game of Ur":

The Royal Game of Ur, also known as the Game of Twenty Squares or simply the Game of Ur, is a two-player turn-based strategy game where the players race to be the first to move all their pieces through and then off the game board.  However, this is easier said that done in this simple but elegant game that can become surprisingly intense.

On the player's turn, they roll four dice to determine how many squares they can move a single piece.  However, the dice are d4s (a triangular pyramid with four triangular faces), and not the d4 that are commonly used in RPGs today: two of the four vertex corners are marked with a white tip.  The number of white tips pointing upward equals the number of squares they can move a single piece.  This means a player can move 0 to 4 spaces, with the results distributed on a bell curve.

The game board consists of 20 spaces arranged in two rows of 6 and one row of 8 (looking like a deformed "I").  Each row of 6 is controlled by one player only and the row of 8 is shared.  Players must send a game piece through both their controlled row and the shared row before they can move the piece off the board.

The Royal Game of Ur, so named because it was first rediscovered by the English archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley during his excavations of the Royal Cemetery at Ur between 1922 and 1934, was first played in ancient Mesopotamia during the early third millennium BC and was popular across the large parts of the ancient world among people of all social strata.  In addition, boards for the game have been found at locations as far away as Crete and Sri Lanka.

This game is probably a direct ancestor of the backgammon family of games and was popular until late antiquity. At this point, it have may evolved into backgammon or may have been eclipsed in popularity by early forms of backgammon.  However, the Game of Ur was also brought to the Indian city of Kochi by Jewish traders, where they were still playing a recognizable version into the 1950s.

Modern replicas are available for purchase with an easy internet search.

If you'd like to see this five millennia old game in action, played by Irving Finkel, a curator at the British Museum, who rediscovered the rules of the game by translating in the early 1980s a clay tablet written c. 177 BC by the Babylonian scribe Itti-Marduk-balālu, check out this awesome video!

RPG Design: Active v. Passive Defenses

Last year, I discussed the importance of considering Tactical Depth v. Complexity in RPG Design.    This week, I wanted to touch on an important related design issue that is sometimes overlooked, Active v. Passive Defenses:

By "Active Defense," I mean any system where the PCs can take action to defend themselves, typically parrying or dodging.  Examples of RPGs with Active Defenses include Call of Cthulhu, and oWoD.

By "Passive Defense," I mean any game where the PCs have one or more defensive stats (calculated using the character's ability scores and/or their gear) representing their ability to avoid harm in one or more ways.

The most famous example of Passive Defense in RPG is D&D's Armor Class, which represents the difficulty to actually land an effective attack on the PC and which is calculated from the PC's Dexterity and/or their gear.

Other examples of systems with passive defense are nWoD and Savage Worlds.

There are, of course, RPGs with *BOTH* Active and Passive Defenses.  For example, REIGN allows parrying and dodging (Active Defenses) and has Damage Reduction stats for armor (Passive Defense).


So, what's the big deal about Active v. Passive Defenses?

As I mentioned before when discussing Weaponry, many RPGs make combat is a key or even central element of gameplay.  There are many, many, many different approaches to modeling Combat in RPGs, but a key design decision is whether a particular approach is more Tactical or more abstract.

Combat, as it is usually portrayed, is fast paced. However, game mechanics (e.g., Initiative, attack rolls, etc.) by their nature are slow paced.  Thus, in terms of Tactical Depth v. Complexity, the more crunchy a game's combat mechanics, the more complex and slower that game's combat becomes.

Unless a game is very narrative, most RPGs have Active Attacks.  But when the designer also adds Active and/or Passive Defenses involving rolling, a game can really slow down.

Some people love really Tactical games (e.g., miniature war games).  However, myself, I prefer faster paced combat, as it can be the more dramatic and the emergent narrative of the game session flows quicker and more easily.

Movie Review: Hundra (1983)

Last year, I gave a shout out to one of my favorite cheesy 80s Swords & Sorcery romps, "Red Sonja".

This week, I wanted to take a look at another 80s Swords & Sorcery yarn featuring a sword-wielding female barbarian that, by contrast, had far too much bad to be So Good, It's Bad, "Hundra":

The set up is fairly typical for an 80s barbarian flick (e.g., The Beastmaster (1982)): Hundra (played by Laurene Landon) and her tribe are living peacefully when their village is suddenly attacked without warning by raiders, who slaughter everyone except the main character.  Now, Hundra is off on a quest for vengeance.

The particular twist here is that Hundra's tribe is all-female, and Hundra is the most all-female of them all, having never been with a man and being loudly misandrist (e.g., she berates her faithful dog for being male).  So, when she travels to the tribe's old wise woman after the massacre, she is taken aback when the latter tells her that she must breed to repopulate the tribe!

Of course, pretty much all men in movie are terrible, if not downright rapists, so, as you might expect, many of them die on Hundra's blade.

I wanted to like "Hundra" but it's just not good: the acting is terrible even for a low budget 80s Italian-Spanish production.  Laurene Landon is the only one who's even competent and while she makes for a striking and statuesque figure, Landon plays things far too straight for the film to have camp value.

Also, the fight scenes are poorly choreographed and the "humor" is often tonally jarring and out of place (e.g., random farting noises).  And the film is far too rapey for a rollicking swashbuckler.

So, if you want to watch a Swords & Sorcery with a strong female lead, go watch Red Sonja again (I've done so dozens of times and still find it quite amusing).  If you still have some spare time and are a completist of Swords & Sorcery films, maybe think about this movie.

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TV Review: "I, Claudius" (1976)

Decades before there was "Rome," "I, Claudius" set the gold standard for quality historical drama.  So, this week, I wanted to give a shout out to one of the greatest TV series of all time:

By turns gripping and chilling but always compelling, "I, Claudius" brings to life the wicked schemes and dastardly deeds of those vying for power over the mighty Roman Empire.  Based on the best-selling novels "I, Claudius" (1934) and "Claudius the God" (1935) by Robert Graves, Emperor Claudius narrates an "insider's story" of the early days of the empire, from 24 BC until Claudius' death in AD 54.

After the death throes of the late Roman Republic, being beset by devastating civil war after civil war, peace has come to the Empire, or at least for the common folk.  For Augustus and those who seek to replace him, it is different story, being a time rife with an orgy of betrayal and murder, as well as actual orgies.

Based on history but not strictly factual, "I, Claudius" vicariously brings to life names and places from dusty pages of history textbooks, with a degree of creative license.

As with "Rome," "I, Claudius" focuses on the personal political scheming rather than massive battles to stretch the budget.   Indeed, there are no fight scenes of any kind.  Oh well.

However, the series does excel on the scheming front, covering dozens of characters and their changing fortunes over a century.  From aging Augustus to brutal Tiberius to depraved Caligula to the Hobbit of Emperors (i.e., Claudius being the most unlikely person imaginable to become First Citizen) to even more depraved Nero, the show vividly airs the dirty laundry of the Julio-Claudians.

Moreover, the lengthy, set-bound scenes give the series a distinctively theatrical quality which plays to the strengths of the cast, a veritable who's who of great British actors of the period, including  the great Brian Blessed as Augustus and Siân Phillips as the deliciously evil Livia.  Plus, there's evil rapey Captain Picard with hair!

So, if you are a history buff, a fan of political scheming dramas or just want to see Patrick Stewart wearing a wig, this show is a must watch!

RPG Game Play: Investigations

Over the years, as my tastes as a tabletop RPG GM have moved away from High Fantasy and toward Swords & Sorcery, my games have tended to become deadlier and more Old School for PCs.  Consequently, my games have also moved away from emphasizing combat and toward problem solving.  A type of problem solving that often comes up is Investigations.

So, this week, I wanted to take a look at Investigations in RPGs.

In terms of preparing an Investigation adventure, whether PCs are uncovering a conspiracy, solving a murder or finding a MacGuffin, the first thing to do as a GM is to have a firm grasp on the background and the details.  While preparation is always important for a GM, when running an Investigation adventure, it is even more so since there's a good chance that the Players will be coming up with ideas and approaches that you hadn't considered (despite that preparation) and you really need to keep the details in your head while thinking on your toes.

Whew!

Next, for a successful Investigation adventure, it really helps to have a gripping plot/scenario to grab and to hold the Players' interest.  Feel free to shamelessly rip off ideas from your favorite books, movies, TV shows... BUT do try to mix things up enough so that your Players don't realize what you are doing.  So, you want to be "Episode IV: A New Hope" (1977) (which took a LOT of ideas from "Hidden Fortress" (1958), the epic jidaigeki adventure film directed by the legendary Kurosawa Akira) and not this:

After you've worked out the plot/scenario for your Investigation, next you need to set up clues.  Lots and lots of clues.  Never underestimate the likelihood that the PCs will reach a dead end.  Thus, Justin Alexander's Three Clue Rule is a good general rule of thumb.  Furthermore, if the PCs are really stuck, consider dropping hints and even clues until they can get moving again.

Additionally, I like to also add interesting the NPCs and challenges that the PCs will face during the Investigation.  This isn't strictly necessary, but, for example, a great and engaging villain, such as Strahd von Zarovich can elevate a good adventure to a great one.

In terms of challenging the Players' minds, Investigations can be a great option if properly planned and executed.  And, as I mentioned above, they can fit in with a variety of genres.  So, if your band of murderhobos is tired of murdering their umpteenth tribe of green skins, consider throwing an Investigation at them.

Movie Review: Mongol (2007)

This week, I wanted to give a shout out to another overlooked Historical Adventure gem, "Mongol":

"Mongols need laws.

I will make them obey...

...even if I have to kill half of them."

Also known as "Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan", "Mongol" unsurprisingly covers the early life and rise to power of Genghis Khan (under his given name Temüüjin), who conquered the largest land empire in history.  The story begins with 9-year-old Temüjin on a trip by his father Yesugei, a Mongol chieftain, to select a girl as his future wife.

Although his father wishes him to choose someone from the rival Merkit tribe in order to make peace, along the way Temüjin meets Börte, a girl from another tribe.  Impressed with Börte's pluck, he picks her instead.  Shortly thereafter, disaster strikes when Yesugei is poisoned by another group of rivals.

This begins a sequence when Temüjin is periodically on the run and captured.  During this time, he becomes blood brothers with another young boy named Jamukha and Börte gives birth to two children of questionable parentage.  Eventually, Temüjin raises an army to unify all of the Mongols, and meets his blood brother, now a powerful warlord in his own right, for a final showdown.

While Genghis Khan is the national hero of Mongolia (where he is still revered to the present day), his reputation in other parts of the world is... mixed.  However, rather than portray Temüüjin as a cartoon villain or sociopathic mass murderer, director Sergei Bodrov instills sympathy and humanity, which is easier since the film depicts the period prior to Genghis Khan's major genocides and atrocities.

In any event, "Mongol" is a sweeping epic historical film, with beautiful cinematography, stunning landscapes, and powerful battle scenes.  There's plenty of carnage but the film is also balances with quiet character moments that give a sense of Temüüjin as a person and family man.

Blending action, politics, romance, and brotherhood,  "Mongol" is both a grand and an intimate movie that is successfully both entertaining and dramatic. 

So, if you're looking for a David Lean-style Epic that's also a not-over-the-top action flick, this may be the film for you!