Firstly let me clarify the situation over this blog: The Black Orifice is a shared blog site for myself and my writing partner Nigel McClelland. Whilst we share the site we are independent individuals with our own opinions, and to some extent our own IP (although much of what we do, and undoubtedly the best of what we do, is shared. So, whilst Nigel and I "work" together through this blog, we have our own separate ideas and opinions and use the blog to voice them. To think of The Black Orifice as a "company" is wrong. What the Black Orifice actually is is perhaps a little harder to define. Firstly it is a website that NIgel and myself share to talk crap, air our opinions and host out games for download. Actually, I've siad firstly, but I think that's about it. What's important is that you don't see opinions expressed on either blog as being any kind of company line. Opinions expressed by Nigel in his blog are his own, as are opinions expressed in mine. When we started this blog we weren't particualrly thinking about producing much in the way of games, rather wanting to blog about our hobby, write reviews and share our thoughts and feelings with anyone who might be interested in reading about them.

However, we are both creative people who enjoy our hobby immensely and enjoy writing stuff for it. We started the blog when we'd just grown so tired of the "industry" that it had destroyed our fun in gaming - writing Etherscope was a large part of that, but the commercial failure of Gateway was the straw that broke the cammel's back. At that point we swore that we'd never do anything to wreck our enjoyment of gaming and the pleasure we got from playing and making our own games. At first this meant giving our games away for free to download. However, there's nothing like the feeling you get when you see your own work in print, even if its just a vanity print, like I did for Midgard. Midgard is actually an important milestone in the development of the blog. Most other stuff that we've done had been fairly simple short pieces of support for existing products, whether it's Gateway, Etherscope or Savage Worlds. Midgard was a complete game, and one I really wanted to see in print. Lulu gave me the opportunity to produce that finished product, and doing so gave me enormous satisfaction.

At this point I was quite into the whole give it away for free philosophy, and so decided that I had to sell it at cost - that seemed the fairest way to go about it, giving Midgard a cover price of only £1.82. However, at a convention last year I was "involved" in a discussion (perhaps spectator too is more accurate) between Rich Stokes of the Collective Endeavour, Angus Abranson of Cubicle 7 and Dave Salisbury, the proproietor of Fanboy3, one of the UK's leading (and my local) game store. (To be fair to Angus, he was about as much a participant in the conversation as myself, and shortly made a polite exit - I merely mention him here as I'm a terrible name dropper... did I tell you I went to school with Anna Friel?) The conversation was about the relative merits of small independent publishers getting their games into distribution (yes, Cubicle 7 have done a lot to support this recently , and Angus did mention the plans they had to do so before making his polite exit). From my point of view, Dave made a convincing case for distribution, with RIch arguing that he felt the effort invovled didn't produce enough reward. However, I was left with the impression that if you want your game to be read and played by as many people as possible you should really be in distribution.

At the time I thought I was better off staying out of the financial rat race altogether, but the more i thought about my games and what my goals are, or should be, the idea of getting my games out there to as many people as possible grew, and, having been convicned by Dave's arguments, realised that that meant getting something out into distribution. I have been working on Sion: Deliverance in one form or another for a number of years, and since PEG decided to make the Savage Worlds licence free, I had been decided to use Savage Worlds as the system. It took me a while to complete it to a workable standard, and a while longer to get everything through licensing agreements, but just recently the game was approved. Nigel (until recently) had been a bigger fan of Savage Worlds than me and was keen to join in writing stuff for Savage Worlds, so it seemed like we were going places, with Sion well on the way and Savage Etherscope in the works. However, one of my goals in starting the Orifice was to write my own systems, and writing for Savage Worlds wasn't something that sat entirely comforatably with me anyway. Yes, I love playing the game, and enjoyed that it allowed my to recycle some older material in Extreme and Shadowflux and generate a bit of interest, but for my bigger projects, like Sion, there was always a thought niggling away at the back of my mind that I should be writing my own system for this game. There's also the issue with the Savage fan license that you can't sell things (even at no profit for yourself), and so I couldn't just do what I had done with Midgard for Sion unles it has its own system.

So when we were told that we'd have to change the name if I wanted to publish Sion as a Savage licensed product and NIgel reacted... like he did... it led to a number of conversations between Nigel and myself about what we wanted to do and where the Orifice was going. Nigel made it very clear that he wouldn't be willing to change the name - we both feel that we sold ourselves out a bit to get Etherscope published (not that there's anything about Goodman Games that we were directly upset by, but the process took us to places we never would have gone to and although we didn't realise it at the time, have ended up haing a serious deleterious effect on our creativity and enjoyment of what we're doing). That left me with the decision to either go it alone and start up on my own, and work without Nigel's input, or to give up on Savage Worlds licensing. I don't want this to sound like Nigel held me to ransom, he really didn't. He respected that it was my decision and that it wouldn't stop us being friends, just that he would not have anything more to do with writing and developing material for Savage Worlds.

Hopefully by now you can see the reasons for why I have chosen not to continue down the SW path. For me its not about the name, or even about Nigel's rant (which I see might make people think negatively of us), but its about what I want to get out of the whole process of writing games. I just want to have fun writing and playing games. Without NIgel's input that just wouldn't be the same. At the end of the day I'm about as tied to the name The Black Orifice as I am to writing Savage Settings, so its not a road I am so keen to tread that I'm willing to sacrifice the enjoyment I get from writing and designing games. For now, I have manage to get Nigel inspired again in writing our own game system, so after all the mess and misery, I think we're now back on track and closer to our original goals when we started the Orifice.

Cheerio for now,

Ben

Whilst what I have to say is perhaps - no not perhaps, definately - more measured that Nigel's coments, I do agree with much of what he said. So much so that I am seriously considering scrapping my plans for publishing Sion and just putting it up as a freebie giveaway. May be if anyone actually reads this, you might want to make some posts and let me know which side you think I should come down on.

Here's the situation as I see it. Firstly "The Black Orifice" is cheeky, and it is a double entendre - perhaps even cheekier if you consider that we put a logo that says "a Black Orifice Production" on our books. But it is a DOUBLE entendre - Orifice is a synonym for hole, so you could see it as "Black Hole", which seems perfectly valid for a RPG producer. Its not even like its a particularly original pun - it's only one letter different from the well respected back office shareware software "Back Orifice"! Okay, perhaps we're playing a little game, being riske in order to help draw oursleves a little attention, to help os stand out in an otehrwise uniform marketplace. Hell we're not the first to use that strategy when naming our "company" - I mean where do you stop? Is "Reality Blurrs" suggestive of taking hallucinatory drugs? is "Kram" suggestive of multiple penetrative sexual intercourse? Is "Nevermet" suggestive of swinging? Is "Third Eye" suggetsive of a penis? It just depends how much you're willing to read into things. What really galls is I've already posted (in good faith) my announcement on the PEG boards, that I've posted numerous times on those boards using the Black Orifice name and no one has (to my knowledge) complained.

My first impression is that it's pretty pathetic to even bother about something like this in a grown up world - hell, I teach 11-16 year olds and I'd accept with a wry smile if such a pun was used in a student's work. To be frank it shocks me that Pinnacle would be so bothered about such a harmless little pun to prevent a product that they have previously praised from going to print. Okay, I can understand that they want to protect their image and good name, but I don't see how this really would damage them. Rather I would have thought if anything there's a net gain for them - perhaps I'm being cocky in assuming that my little product is going to be well received, but I am certain Pinnacle have benefitted from having licensed products for Savage Worlds keeping a steady trickle of SW products on the latest release shelves in your FLGS. They've approved the product - not just that even, praised the product - so surely the very small possibility of damage to PEG from a licensee being called "the Black Orifice" is more than mitigated by them having a high quality new licensee supporting their system. I think this kind of oversensitivity is a relic of the "D&D is the work of Satan" period of the 80s. I think roleplayers are mature enough to deal with this fairly mild double entendre.

But then on the other hand I have to think whether or not I'm being just as pathetic if I don't just change the name. I've put a lot of time and effort into Sion and I would dearly like it to be available as a physical book, dearly like it to be on the shelves of gaming stores so that others might see my work and play their games in my world. Is a simple change of name not a small price to pay? Or would I be selling out?

If there's anyone out there comments to help me resolve my dilema would be appreciated.

CHeerio for now,

Ben

When we started up the blog we were quite disenheartened with the whole business of being a "professional" writers. It was probably all of our own making, but a number of different events had conspired to mean that we had fallen out of love with writing RPGs. Whilst things might appear to be a bit off-and-on over the past few months, I think "the Orifice" has certainly served its purpose. Nigel and I are writing again. The decision that we made, which has enabled us to get back our enthusiasm for writing, has been to give stuff away for free.

When we started the Orifice up the idea was to strip things back to what we loved doing. To stop worrying about unit sales, reviews and award nominations. The idea was that we would just put stuff out when we'd got it done - not to bother with things like editing and marketing that were driving us mad. The theory being if we put stuff out for free people might download it and read it and, if they liked the material, run it or integrate some ideas into their own games. How much of what we have done is actually being used we can never, I suppose, be sure, but I think we are getting a fair few downloads.

After our intial zeal for producing free material, a bit of realism and commercial thinking has crept back in. I guess it kind of started with the POD of Midgard. There's just something more satisfying about having a quality hard copy of your book in your hands than even something printed on my home colour laser printer can achieve. At that point we started to think about what is the best way to get our products seen by as many people of possible. The answer, so Dave at Fanboy3 tells us, is to get into distribution. And so we have started to think about a few products we might produce that we could make commercially viable enough to interest distributors. The money isn't our main concern here, but getting a product into distribution will mean it will have costs that need to be covered. And whilst the retailers, distributors and printers are all taking some money out of our efforts, it seems like we would be cutting off our nose to spite ourselves not to make a bit of money for ourselves too. Having looked into the process before now the sort of money we'd be talking about wouldn't massively affect the price of the product anyway - the casual gamer might be surprised to know how little of the cover price actually ends up in the writers', or game company's, pockets.

This, then, brings me to Savage Worlds, and the Freebie Settings. Savage Worlds suits us in so many ways. As mentioned in a previous blog post, a generic system allows us to put out a setting very quickly. With Savage Worlds this is especially the case - the system is so versatile it takes very little to embody your setting with a few rules tweaks, edges and hindrances. Also, it's a system that seems to have a good following, making it a good starting point for any commercial venture, as the D20 System was when we started up ten years ago. The freebie settings allow us to kill two birds with one stone. Whilst I would hope putting them out is bringing us new interest from the Savage Worlds fanbase, it also provides an avenue for our wacky and weird (and some of our fairly traditional) setting ideas, enabling us to put out the setting with as little effort as possible.

I'm probably not doing myself any favours, commercially speaking, putting these settings out so quickly one after the other. I'll end up getting through my backlog of half written dead projects and then end up with a big wait for the wacky idea, or get tied up with a bigger project like savage etherscope, and end not putting anything out for months and everyone forgetting we exist.

I'm just a slave to my own exciteable personality - as soon as i get an idea I just want to work on it all day long, and as soon as i get the job done, even to the poor standard of editing in these freebies, i want to get it out there. But then thats why we started up the Black Orifice, so that we can work quick and fast, put things out for free and not worry about endless dull proofreads, editing and rewrites. I tell you if we could find someone who enjoyed editing as much as i like page dressing and we both like writing, and who would do it for free, we'd conquer the world (or maybe just do what we're doing now without the typos and internal contradictions!)

I think Savage World's slogan: Fast, Furious, Fun sums up my attitude to writing as well as it does to gaming, showing why Savage Worlds is a perfect vehicle for my style of writing.

Cheerio,

Ben

I have to say I was not disappointed.

For those who are not yet aware of tDAR, it is a post-apocalyptic pulp setting (for Savage Worlds, as mentioned above), written by Kenneth Hite. Mr Hite is not an author I have had much prior experience of, but Nigel speaks very highly of his Trail of Cthulu, so I was expecting something well done based on his reputation alone. What I was less certain of was that the setting would be something that suited me…

Why? I love pulp. But I have never been able to find a pulp game that I have wanted to play. I’m not sure why – I mean, I love White Wolf’s Adventure!, and have created numerous characters for it, and even a piece of fan fiction, but I’ve never been inspired to actually run a game. I was trying to explain to Nigel, when I mentioned that I’d ordered tDAR, why I felt pulp games were in need of a good setting. I don’t think I did a good job, but having read tDAR I think I now understand why I think this is the case, and why Adventure!, no matter how much I love the system, doesn’t have the requirements for an inspirational setting for a roleplaying game.

I don’t know whether this is just my personal preferences of if I’m tapping into something more profound on the nature of roleplaying games. I think it also ties into why I don’t usually like licensed RPGs (ed - he says this after getting very excited while awaiting his copy of Dr Who). I think the thing that draws me into a setting is its secrets and the new places and ideas it lets me (either as a GM or a player) and my players explore. In a licensed RPG it is often the case that much of the setting is already widely known. The same thing can happen with “new” IP games too, just not as often. When I used to play oWoD Vampire I regularly ran into players who knew more about the setting that I would have liked (or indeed than I knew myself). For me it is this that usually inspires me to go a step further and write my own setting. My dissatisfaction with Vampire led me to write ShadowFlux (soon to be available as a freebie setting from the Black Orifice) and watching Firefly led me to write Sion: Deliverance (currently in playtest). Previous Pulp settings that I’ve read have done little more than add a few OTT villains and the odd mysterious island in the pacific or plateaux in the deep jungle to an otherwise historically accurate setting. I think this is a particular problem for a pulp game, where exploration is one of the key themes of the game. It’s no good if the GM and players already know what’s out there before you even start to read the setting. Perhaps I’m being a bit sweeping here and a bit overly critical of other pulp games, quite a lot of which I’ve not actually read, so I will get back to the point in hand…

Which brings me back round to what I like about tDAR, and why at some point in the future I hope to run it.  But it also allows me to talk in more detail about my initial misgivings. When tDAR came out I was put off by the post apocalypse part of the setting mix, and got the impression that it was a bit more post apocalypse and a bit less pulp. For some reason the setting date, 1948 – being post WWII – also worried me. For me, pulp is really 1920s and 30s, and the 40s feels too late. And this is coming from someone who wrote a Victorian setting set in 1984! I was a fool. None of my misgivings were founded. Above anything else, the setting is very pulp. Yes an apocalypse has happened, and yes, the world has been seriously changed as a result. Yet there’s still a British Empire, there’s still a USA and Nazis, and Stalin and his evil communists. The nature of the apocalypse in fact creates a legitimate reason for all the pulpy madness that you might want – giant snakes, ape-men, magic, weird science devices made from the flesh/blood/skin of Jormungandr itself. The setting is fantastically well researched, with many historical facts inspiring some of the most unusual ideas, and the background of Ragnarok from Norse myth slotted smoothly into the whole background. Indeed, Mr Hite informs us, even the very idea that the Nazi’s were interested in trying to bring about Ragnarok was an historical fact!

In more detail the setting can be seen to break down into a number of different “components”. Each different component provides inspiration games of different sub-genres of the mix. If you want to run a very post-apocalyptic game, set it in the Poisoned Lands of central North America. If you want to go Nazi bashing, head off to Argentina or Antarctica. There are many more different ways to run a tDAR campaign, and each style is presented with a couple of pages of notes and plot hooks to help you put together your own campaign. There’s even a short skeleton campaign where a couple of lines give the inspiration for a series of adventures – or perhaps even and adventure serial. Whilst this is not in as much detail as your classic plot-point campaigns in a typical savage setting book, this format does allow the author to cover the quite wide range of campaign styles you can manage with tDAR without taking over half the book. Personally I’m not a big fan of plot point campaigns – I feel they take over a large swathe of the book and f I don’t like the campaign or want to run something a little different this is just dead space. tDAR’s approach is much more friendly to my type of GM, who is happier (indeed, inspired into) putting in a bit of work to flesh out their own adventures that I know will work with my players, rather than putting together fumbling through something someone else has created.

Looking back over this review, there’s one word that I seem to keep using: Inspire. I think tDAR is inspirational. Whilst the artwork isn’t perhaps the best you’ll see in an RPG, it certainly captures the pulpy feel of the setting – after all, if you’re artwork’s too good, it just wouldn’t feel like pulp! This is a very stylish product, from the setting content to the art, but perhaps most importantly, in its writing style. Ken Hite has a very distinctive writing style he uses in this book. I don’t know whether it is his style or if he was specifically trying to capture a pulpy style of writing, but it certainly captures your attention and draws you into the setting.

To add a bit of balance I suppose I should also say what I was, perhaps, a little disappointed with. On this score I come mainly to the game mechanics. Whilst there is the requisite smattering of flavourful new hindrances and edges, there’s nothing in the way of new game systems. I’m on a savage worlds kick at the moment, and I’m hungry to buy and read, and possibly play, as much SW as I can. As a result I like my savage settings to give me some new game systems so that I can blend them into my own settings or other games to get better mileage out of my purchase. tDAR keeps things fairly vanilla SW. It’s not a big problem – this product sells itself on its setting – but I would have liked to see a bit more in the way of new system ideas. Finally, whilst I very much like the light touch campaign-style/skeleton campaign approach, I think perhaps a solid fully-fleshed out adventure for each type of campaign might not go amiss – it would certainly help GMs who wanted to run a quick one-shot.

Overall, though it is a stylish, inspirational and fun setting that might finally see me run a pulp game, and well worth its tiny price tag!

We have a small group of five of us who we, until recently, gamed with on a weekly evening session of about two and a half to three hours. It was proving unsatisfactory as it meant that it only took two people to be mssing for a session that it became unplayable. It started to get the the point where we were unable to play regaularly and became very frustrating. We were also finding the social side of the meeting was starting to slip as the game took over as we tried to squeeze as much play as we could. In addition, we've also found some of the gaming itself starting to slip, as I (at least) struggled to get games fully prepared for a weekly session, of there ended up being so long between planning the adventure and actually running it that I'd forgotten some of the details of it by the time I came to running it.

However, we have had, about once or twice a year, a "special" session, where we start at lunch time and play through until late, on a saturday so that the late night doesn't interfere with anyone's work or study. These specials have provided some of our best roleplaying experiences of the last few years, including the first ever sessions of Etherscope and my soon-to-be-released Savage Worlds setting, Sion: Deliverance.

The decision that we made was to ditch the weekly short session in favour of monthly "specials". We've had two now, one for December and one for January, and both have been execellent games, and well worth the wait. These specials have allowed us to expand out our group, inviting people from further afield or who wouldn't normally have the ability to get to the gaming session on a weekday evening due to being confined to public transport options. The gaming is better, allowing more time for planning and a much more immersive gaming session. And the social event is better, too, with more time for a chat during breaks in the game, and as I provide transport for half the group, some good chats in the car on the way home, too!

All in all it's been a very definite change for the better. I don't know what everyone else's gaming situation is like, but if you have the opportunity to change as we did I would very much recommend it!

That's not to say I think that philosophy has no merit - I love Qin, and think Midgard is perhaps one of the best things I've done, and is certainly great fun to play. I would also stand by the beginings we have of an Etherscope system. However, I also think that there's plenty of merit in a universal system that you can use to adapt to whatever game you like. It gives your players less problems in learning new rules systems, and as a games designer it allows my to concentrate on the setting and a few key new systems to capture the flavour of my setting, rather than building the whole thing up from the very bottom.

I recently found that a couple of systems I had been working on ended up looking very similar, yet were for compleyely different games. At that point it struck me that for some projects I don't want to spend time working on the system in depth. As such I have turned to our gaming group's current universal system of choice, Savage Worlds, for a quicker way in to many of the settings I have running around in my head.

So - what does this mean for our Black Orifice fans? Well expect a few more Savage Worlds products to be coming forth from here in the future. It might be quick new system tweaks or a short setting idea with a few associated Edges or Hindrances, not entirely dissimilar to the 99c setting we did for Gateway. We might even do some conversions of existing games that we are big fans of too (I've been putting down a few ideas for a Trinityverse conversion)

Anyway, a few things are in the works. Watch this space...

Ben

Cheerio,

Ben

However, followers of my blog will no that when I read SIFRP I just had to play it. Hence I've developed an advanced timeline for the setting to allow my players to play in a world without the bagage that goes along with the events in the novels.

Here it is, should anyone be interested:

A Song of Ice and Fire: The New Winter
An alternative setting for the Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying game, set 250 years after the end of the novels.

Beginning with speculation…
To be able to get to the future the present needs to be resolved. Here’s my guesses as to what will happen. I’m keeping it vague in many aspects as the New Winter setting is so far in the future that such events will have limited effect on its outcome.

How it all Ends
Danerys returns and reclaims her kingdom with the support of the Martells, her dragons and her army. Firstly she recaptures King’s Landing, easily defeating the Lannister remnants, executing all remaining Lannisters and stripping them of their lands. When they see the tide turning against them the Tyrells switch allegiances again and Danerys allows them to keep their lands. Next she turns her attention to Euron and defeats his fleet. When Melissandre realises her mistake in thinking Stannis is the King indicated by the comet she abandons him and joins Danerys, leading Stannis to rethink his position and chooses to submit himself to Danerys’s judgement. She makes him take the black, but on hearing what Melisandre has done in Stannis’s name she executes the witch and declares the religion of Rhlor an evil that should not be tolerated. Peter Baylish holds out in the Eyrie trying to claim non-involvement but Danerys want his blood, she sends an assassin she picked up in the Free Cities, Arya (unaware of her past) to kill Peter. Arya finds Sansa and brings her back to King’s Landing.

Meanwhile, Bran and his companions (by now including Tyrion) have uncovered some great supernatural threat heading towards the Seven Kingdoms. They manage to warn Jon and the Nightwatch (now including Stannis) but they are too weak to face the onslaught. Danerys comes to the rescue with her dragons, but in the heat of battle they start to follow Jon’s commands (fulfilling the prophecy from Danerys’s dream where her brother Rhegys tells her of his son whose “is the song of ice and fire”). After the battle the Reeds reveal that Jon is Lyanna Stark and Rhegys’s son and Danerys realises that if this makes Jon the true heir to the Targaryen line and threatens the legitimacy of her rule. However, she has grown close to Jon during this time and decides to marry him and rule the kingdoms together.

The Reign of Jon and Danerys Targaryen (0-50 years on)
There follows fifty years of peace and prosperity under the new King and Queen: “The Longest Summer”. Whilst Jon is joint ruler of the Seven Kingdoms Danerys remains empress of the lands she conquered before returning to Westeros. After Jon’s death, Danerys retreats into a long period of morning, and whilst she remains well loved in Westeros, her imperial territories begin to make mutterings of breaking away.

The House of Ice and Fire (50-180 years on)
Jon and Danerys begat a dynasty that ruled for a further 130 years. Below are the details of their descendants’ reigns.

Eddard I (50-57 years on)
Despite a happy marriage, Jon and Danerys only produced one child, Eddard. Eddard was already an old man when his mother finally died and he became king. Eddard married his cousin Lyara Stark, whom he loved greatly. Their union was, however, childless. When he became king he was encouraged to seek a new wife. Lyara was divorced and he took a young Martell as his new wife. His rule only lasted a few short years before he died, although he did leave behind a sole male heir, Jaehaerys.

Jaehaerys III (57-98 years on)
Jaehaerys’s rule was characterised by religious turmoil. The church of Rhlor had been growing in strength throughout the empire, calling for freedom and much of Jaehaerys’s reign is spent dealing with this turmoil. As a child King his rule was badly advised as the connections within the empire were attempted to be shored up with marriage to Kanra (Queen 58-68 years on) the daughter of a powerful family within the imperial holdings, the Jogo family. He also legitimises the Church of Rhlor in Westeros, coverts and marries in a Rhlor ceremony. However, this merely legitimises the Jogo’s hold over the eastern territories and they begin to secretly establish their own rule. In addition, the Staks in the north reject the Church of Rhlor and declare their independence. Once again there is a King in the north, and one that has strong family ties to the Iron Throne. When he comes of age Jaehaerys begins to realise the mistake he made in marrying a Jogo and converting to Rhlor. He dissolves the church of Rhlor and marries Serah Tyrell (Queen 68-79 years on), divorcing Kanra (now an old woman), but retaining her and her daughter, Raeyana as hostage. Serah Tyrell provides him with a daughter, Bethan, but is then caught up in a treason plot led by her father and is executed. Finally, Jaehaerys marries Raychel Stark (Queen 82-97 years on), seeking to gain an alliance with the King in the North. His marriage to Raychel seems to be a happy one, and they have a son together, Eddard. When Raychel dies, during the delivery of a still born son, Jaehaerys is overcome with grief and dies soon after, leaving the young Eddard as king. With his death, Kanra’s brother, Kono, declares himself emperor of the eastern domains, finally splitting the empire apart.

Eddard II (98-103 years on)
The child king, Eddard II hunts down the Church of Rhlor with a zeal, and bolsters the defences in Dorne to protect against a Jogo led invasion. However, in his zeal, he also has his dragons destroyed, believing them to be servants of Rhlor. King at eight, Eddard was dead before he turned fourteen and never married.

Raeyana (103-112 years on)
Also known as “Red Raey”, Queen Raeyana’s rule was unpopular and tyrannical, as she forcibly converted her population to the worship of Rhlor, killing those who refused to give up their worship of the Seven. She married her cousin, Kono II, reuniting Westeros with the empire, but their union was childless. Dorne and the Iron Islands ceded from the seven kingdoms during her rule. Eventually she was poisoned, but no one was brought to trial for her murder as Bethan was swept to power with popular support.

Bethan I (112-180 years on)
Also known as the Old Queen, Bethan’s rule was prosperous and peaceful, but began with blood. She assumed the throne with great popular support from both the nobles and the smallfolk of the four kingdoms remaining under her rule. However, when the Emperor sent a massive fleet to invade, she raised a ragtag fleet of her own and defeated the easterners. Following this her greatest threat seemed to come from the North. The kingdoms of the North and the Iron Islands were at war for much of Bethan’s reign, but when the North won the victory, but at the cost of their King, Jon IV, they crowned his niece Kara, who had been warded to the Jogo dynasty in the east. As a devout worshipper of Rhlor, and the next in line to the iron throne, she worried Bethan’s advisor’s greatly. She was also unpopular in the North, where she was an absentee monarch. Her son Jon, though was brought up in the North away from her influence. As Bethan grew old, a plot was hatched to capture Kara and try her for treason, to ensure that Jon would succeed Bethan rather than Kara. There are rumours that Bethan tried to stop the plot, but eventually Kara was executed for treason in King’s Landing. Bethan lived for a further twenty years, however, during a time of great peace, but one that ended the House of Ice and Fire

House Stark (180-212 years on)
With the death or Bethan I came the end of the rule of House of Ice and Fire, with eth Starks now gaining prominence, reuniting six of the seven kingdoms.

Jon II (180-202 years on)
Jon came to the throne after great anticipation. He was already King in the North and well versed in politicking. The empire was again growing interested in Westeros and began to send spies, saboteurs and assassins to the Six Kingdoms and Dorne to make way for an invasion. However, Jon managed to root out enough of the threat to defeat the infiltrators, but the same could not be said for Dorne, which succumbed to the Empire early in Jon’s reign. Jon’s reign is considered the autumn period following the summer of Bethan’s rule. Jon died leaving two sons, one became his heir and the other the lord of Winterfell, taking the name Winstark.

Rickard I (202-221 years on)
Jon’s eldest son, Rickard, was a decadent king who eventually plunged the nation into war, pitting brother against brother. Rickard never had much time for the Seven or the Old Ways, but he liked money and his lavish lifestyle. When he found his coffers running dry after too many lavish parties he put a tax on the church, which proved a greatly unpopular move, with many smallfolk and religious zealots forming ragtag armies to fight him. Under normal circumstances Rickard might have been able to easily crush this uprising, but with no money in his coffers many in his own army began to rebel and some ambitious noble families saw an opportunity. The result was Chaos, only ended when Rickard was captured and executed by the Zealots.

The Kingless Winter (221-224 years on)
With the kingdoms in chaos following the execution of Rickard I, Jon Winstark rallied much of the kingdom’s noble families against the Zealots and recaptured the iron throne. Rickard’s son, also named Rickard, had been warded at Winterfell when the troubles began, and when he came of age Jon led his rally under the Banner of Rickard II and restored his nephew to the throne.

Rickard II (224-242 years on)
Rickard II shared a sense of the grandiose with his father, but tempered this with the solid Stark sense of commitment and responsibility. He was extravagant but had a flair for dealing with smallfolk and was a much loved. Whilst some prosperity developed during his reign, the whole seven kingdoms were stricken by a great plague during this period. During a particularly hot summer towards the end of Rickard’s rule a series of wildfires swept the kingdoms, killing many, but purging the plague from the kingdoms. The plague also allowed Bors Yronwood to rebel against the Imperial rule in Dorne and crown himself Prince of Dorne.

Bethan II (242 years on – start of campaign)
The Purging had a great effect on a young Bethan, who had been diagnosed as suffering from the plague. She was cured by a Rhlor priest, who she has retained to this day as her advisor. She saw the wildfires as a divine gift from Rhlor and converted. Her rule has been unpopular, as she seeks to convert the Six Kingdoms to the worship of Rhlor. Whilst previous monarchs who worshipped Rhlor had been tied to the Empire in the east, during this time the Empire is weak and factional, with the Church of Rhlor weaker still. Bethan’s own version of Rhlor worship is different from that in the Empire.

Now
With Bethan’s rule plunging the kingdoms into a dark and dismal winter period, many nobles are secretly plotting to overthrow her, but lack an heir. The closest they have is Bethan’s sister, Danerys, who has married Bors Yronwood in Dorne, but many of these nobles fear putting their lot in with an unknown foreign power, the history of Dorne as part of the Seven Kingdoms long forgotten.

I guess you can see some of the influences from history. They're not as well mucked about with as in GRRM's storyline, but then I guess he's got more talent.

Cheerio,

Ben

 Firstly you'll find the final, complete version of Midgard, in various formats, and including new downloadable cast stone and character sheet. The full version of the rules (i.e. not the printer friendly version) has to be split into three parts. Firstly there's the Player's Handbook section, covering character gen, traits and basic and combat rules. Secondly there's the Gamesmaster's Guide, looking at rules for running NPCs, villains and monsters, and the setting chapter Rob Land bullied me into adding to it :). Finally there's the adventure. Anyone looking to play Midgard at Games Expo should probably avoid this, as its the adventure I'll probably run.

You'll also find another new Etherscope expansion pamphlet. Black and Grey Programs covers some more deadly scope systems that we introduced for the War for Haven campaign.

And in the future here's what you can expect to see soon:

• New Scope-type advanced classes for Etherscope,
• The opening adventure in the War for Haven campaign,
• Sion: Deliverance, a Firefly-inspired scifi setting for Savage Worlds

We'll probably also continue to develop more stuff for Etherscope, but d20 and our new system, and I've also started working on a new system for my favourite D&D setting, Dark Sun.

More later,

Ben

My previous experiences with conventions have largely revolved around running games. As I'm much mroe of a natural GM than player, I will be looking to run a number of games over the weekend, but I'll be also be hoping to get involved with playing some new games. I've booked myself on a game of Hellas and a Savage Worlds Necropolis game (Tripple Ace, publishers of Necropolis and a number of other Savage Worlds settings).

It took me quite a while to come up with the games I wanted to run - I even put a poll up on RPGnet to help me decide what to play. There's so many games I'm interested in it was a tough choice. In the end, guided by the poll, I chose to run a Midgard game, a Qin adventure of mine that Cubicle-7 are going to publish (more on that later) and an adventure for my firefly-esque savage worlds setting, Sion: Deliverance, that has already had one successful convention run-out and GAME08 last november.

I'm also looking forward to meeting some of the industry peeps visiting the convention. As I've mentioned above, Triple-Ace will be there and as a fan of Sundered Skies and very interested in Necropolis I'm looking forward to their game and hoping for a chat with some of their creative team. Eberron creator Keith Baker will also be there, and I've already had some email correspondance with him and looking forward to meeting him. Finally, Cubicle 7 will also be there, and I'm hoping to be able to get a game of Dr Who, but I also sent a Qin adventure to Angus Abranson a few months ago and he liked it so much he going to publish it as a PDF. I will no doubt take the opportunity to chat with angus about more writing further down the line.

Cheerio for now,

 Ben

Here's what to expect:

• I've finished Midgard! Our playtesting has reached its conclusions and I've finished off the product as a full release. I suppose I want to talk about how the playtesting went (excellent, btw!) but also those of you who already have the previous version may like some release notes to point out what's changed. I've also yet to add the latest version to the site (which will probably have to be split up to avoid webjam's upload limits :( - but for now you can download it from Lulu
• I've also got Midgard ready to print, and set it upon Lulu. I've ordered a stack of copies for myself and gaming buiddies that I might be able to persuade to buy a copy, but anyone else can download it for free or buy it at cost from Lulu (I'm sticking to my free philosophy as much as possible by making it available at cost - I make no money from it whatsoever, and I think it's pretty much a bargain at $5.98/£4.26!). I'll have thoughts to post soon about my experiences with Lulu, anyway.
• I'm going to be visiting Games Expo in Birmingham this year (only a month away - getting excited). I'll be running 3 games and playing other stuff in the otehr sessions, so if anyone's going to be there let me know and I'd be happy to meet up. Not only do have the convention itself to discuss, but I'm also going to be running my savage worlds setting, which I think deserves a bit more work putting into it so that I can put it up on here.
• I'm also thinking about entering the 24h RPG competition over at 1km1kt.net. I might share some of my ideas and progress on that when I get going.
• And finally I'll have some more gaming reports and reviews to add over the next few weeks as I try out a bunch of new games I have on the horizon.

Anyway, cheerio for now,

 Ben

Lets first have a look at the different steps involved in the system.

Set up the conflict

The GM goes through the following steps to prepare a conflict for resolution:

1. Determine nature
2. Determine time scale
3. Determine range scaling
4. Describe scene

Start the conflict

The players and GM characters go through the following steps before the main sequence of conflict resolution begins:

1. Check for awareness and surprise
2. Determine stating ranges
   1. GM determines starting ranges
   2. Move any ambushing characters to Hidden
   3. Move aware characters 1 step

Conflict round sequence

Each round of conflict goes through the following steps

1. Determine base initiative score
2. Calculate acting initiative
3. Resolve actions in initiative order:
   1. Resolve any “zoom in” conflicts
   2. Describe/roleplay action
   3. Make roll
   4. Resolve effects
   5. Describe/roleplay effects

Set Up Steps:

1: Determine Conflict Nature

Conflicts must be described as being essentially a physical, mental or social conflict. Whilst it may be possible to attempt other types of actions (i.e. try to punch someone during a social conflict), doing so damages yourself (i.e. if you throw that punch you will take composure damage to do so). Conflicts are also limited to being either in the Prime reality or Etherspace, and have different effects and limitations as a result.

2: Determine Time Scale

The GM must also determine the amount of time each round represents. Conflicts can be describes as Fast (each round represents is a few seconds), Quick (each round represents about a minute), Tactical (each round represents about 10 minutes), Strategic (Each round represents about an hour and a half), or Logistic (each round represents a day). Within each conflict it may be possible to “zoom in” on particular exchanges to resolve more immediate effects.

3: Determine Range Scaling

The range effects that apply to player characters involved in a conflict are described in terms of distances from their target. There are four categories of range: Close, Near, Distant and Hidden. The GM must decide what these ranges actually mean in terms of the conflict. This can involve a different physical scaling such as determining a physical distance, or it could be an abstract measure, such as familiarity with the target. The Hidden range never requires describing, as when hidden characters are revealed they must move into one of the other three range categories. Whilst hidden a character cannot be targeted other than to be revealed.

Physical scaling options:

Restricted Ranges: for some reason the targets or PCs are restricted in their ability to move, and ranges are very short. Close range represents only about 2-3 inches, near range about a foot away and distant anything beyond about 5 feet.

Battlefield Ranges: A typical physical combat range, where close represents a typical melee fighting distance, say 5 feet, near represents anything up to a typical movement distance within the time scale (say 30 feet in a Quick conflict). Distant distances are anything beyond that yet still within range of perception.

Chase Ranges: Where the conflict is more about fluid movement than direct interaction between characters, use the chase range option. Close range represents characters, or the vehicles they are piloting, being alongside each other. Near represents being quite close, but one character behind the other. Distant represents any distance further away than the distance moved within a single round (time scale dependent).

Global Ranges: This scaling is perhaps more of an abstract measure, useful for logistic scale conflicts. Close represents someone in physical perceptible range, Near represents someone in the same city, region or domain (if in the scope), Distant someone in as far away as even a different country or scope city.

Abstract Scaling Options:

Familiarity Ranges: useful for certain psychic effects and some social intrigues, representing how familiar someone is to the character. Close represents someone very close to the character, such as a member of their immediate family or close friend, Near represents someone the character knows to some extent, such as an acquaintance or enemy, whilst Distant represents someone unknown or only met once or twice.

Status Ranges: more useful for social conflicts, especially logistic or strategic ones where the actions are representing a plotting at a greater physical distance. Close range represents people who walk in the same social circles: people from the same town with similar levels (within one) in the same Standing gear as their highest standing gear. Near range is where characters share a standing gear, no matter what level, and distant is anyone without shared standing gears.

4: Describe Scene

The GM needs to describe the scene to the players, setting out the parameters of the scene in the description. They must also tell the PCs what the nature, time and range scales of the conflict are.

Some example scene set ups:

A Car Chase: You are chasing the escaping zepcar through the busy rush-hour lanes of the Great Metropolis, starting in central Manchester, heading out towards Salford. This is a prime, physical, quick, chase scale conflict.

A fight with Agents in an Etherscope domain: Whilst hacking into the secret military domain you are spotted by agents who rapidly advance on your position. This is an Ether, physical, fast, battlefield scale conflict.

A war of words at a “society” tab-jammer’s party: You spot the young countess across the ballroom and know she will be out to destroy your reputation. This is a ether, social, quick, battlefield scale conflict.

A plot to bring down the Novgorod Crime Syndicate: On the mean streets of St Petersburg you begin to work up through the street contacts and low-level dealers, threatening, bribing and murdering your way to the top of the Novgorod hierarchy. This is a prime, social, logistic, status scale conflict.

Starting the Conflict

The following steps need to be done before the conflict begins.

1: Check for Awareness and Surprise

At the start of a conflict you need to make a roll for the participants to see whether they are fully aware of the situation, or some characters might be attempting to ambush others in some way. The rolls required can be quite varied depending upon the situation the characters find themselves in and the method they are attempting to use to catch their targets unawares.

Awareness: When any conflict begins all characters must make a general skill roll to determine how aware they are of the situation before it begins. Every character makes an appropriate roll for their awareness of the situation. This awareness score remains with them for the rest of the conflict.

Ambush: Where one or more characters are attempting to set up some sort of ambush at the start of the conflict those characters need to make an appropriate roll, depending on the situation. This roll will be opposed by the targets of the ambush with an appropriate counter skill roll.

2: Determine Starting Ranges

Finally, before the conflict can begin, you need to determine the starting range positions between the different characters involved in the battle. This step involves a number of sub steps:

a) GM sets starting ranges

The GM sets the starting range between the different characters involved in the conflict.

b) Ambushing characters move to Hidden

Any characters who successfully made the roll to ambush at the start of the combat are immediately classed as being in the hidden range category.

c) Move Aware characters one step

In descending order of number of successes on the awareness roll, characters are able to move one step towards or away from characters who have not yet had their awareness move. The character with the best roll can move one range category towards or away from all other characters, whilst the character who came second can alter their position in relation to all other characters than the first character, and so on. The character with the lowest awareness roll will not be able to alter their range against any other character. The GM can provide restrictions, especially in a physical range category conflict, to ensure the logic of the scenario isn’t broken. For example, a PC who wants to move to close range against one target must also move to close range against another target if those targets are standing next to each other.

Conflict Round Actions

Each conflict round goes through the following steps:

1: Determine Base Initiative Score

At the start of a round all characters in the conflict determine their base initiative for the round. This score is equal to their current Condenser score for the type of conflict: the physical condenser for a prime reality physical conflict, the ether condenser for an Etherspace physical or any mental conflict, and the society condenser for any social conflict. This will typically provide characters with an initiative score between 6 and 24, although it could go lower when characters take damage.

2: Calculate Acting Initiative

Characters can choose how many actions they want to take during the round and at what initiative they want to take them. Characters can split their total initiative score between different actions. For example, a character with a base initiative of 8 could choose to act at initiative 7 and 1 instead. These scores become the character’s acting initiatives. When taking multiple actions, each action must be separated from the next by at least 5 initiative steps.

3: Resolve Actions in Initiative Order

Count down initiative scores from the highest acting initiative. When a character’s acting initiative score is reached it is their turn to act. If multiple characters are acting on the same acting initiative use their awareness scores for the combat to resolve the dispute, rolling off the same awareness roll until a winner can be declared where things remain tied. When it is a player’s turn to act they may choose perform an action appropriate to the situation they find themselves in. The basic actions allowed will be provided later. This step is resolved in a series of sub-steps:

a) Resolve zoom-in conflicts

A character may wish to focus their action down to a quicker timescale, for example, a character involved in car chase may wish to jump over to the other vehicle and fight one of the villain’s henchman on the roof of the truck. Doing so starts a new conflict where the timescale drops one level and the five rounds of that conflict are played through before the action returns to the main conflict sequence. Not it is possible to zoom in further within individual conflicts to perform quicker and quicker actions.

b) Describe/Roleplay action

As the player chooses their action they must describe or roleplay out what they are attempting. This is particularly important in social conflicts where the actions invariably relate to some form of communication. In strategic and logistic conflicts the roleplaying aspect could be a scene in itself.

c) Make the roll

The character must then make the roll. The roll made, and difficulty of the roll, will depend on the action attempted. The player rolls the dice and works out whether the attempt is successful and how many bonus successes the character may spend.

d) Resolve the action

The character declares whether the action is successful or not. They might also have generated additional successes above and beyond the difficulty of the roll. Their chosen action will have a number of different extras that the character can spend these additional success on to alter the effect of the action. For example a Push Back attack allows you to move the target 1 range category towards or away from the different characters involved in the conflict, but you can spend extra successes to move them two range categories, or to damage them as you push them back.

e) Describe/roleplay the effects

The character must finally describe or roleplay through the effects of their roll, describing the effects of their success or failure accordingly.

Firstly, let me nail my colours to the mast: I am a massive fan of George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series. I love the politics and intrigue, and the grim darkness of it all. I love the medieval fantasy setting with its low-level magic and iconic noble houses.

However, I’m not a massive fan of Green Ronin. Don’t get me wrong I love Mutants and Masterminds (but only the 2^nd edition). I don’t know of any other Superhero RPG that is both flexible enough to allow you to create just about every type of superhero concept you can think of, whilst still remaining essentially fairly well balanced. It’s perhaps not as much fun to play as Champions, but it lacks its many flaws. However, practically every other Green Ronin product I’ve bought has left me largely unsatisfied. Whilst their products are invariably beautifully turned out, with excellent artwork and graphic design, the games themselves are often quite bland.

And it was with the same underwhelmed-ness that I was hit with when I read through the previews of the Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying Game (which from hence on in I will call SIFRP). I can’t remember enough about the quickstart they released as a preview to say anything constructive, and it isn’t really the point of this review so I’ll move on quickly. Just keep the idea in your head that I really wasn’t keen. I thought “Oh no, here’s Green Ronin sucking all of the life and flavour out of what should have been a really good game.”

And it was because of this feeling of disinterest that I chose not to buy it. Even when Dave (owner of my FLGS) and Rich (member of my gaming group) told me it was good I didn’t believe them. On flicking through it I was further underwhelmed. Which brings me to my first criticism of the book: the graphic design. The British versions of the novels have truly classic covers. They are simple yet moody and really capture the darkness of the books. I’ve heard a number of people criticise the cover of SIFRP, but for me it goes well beyond just the cover. The cover is a good picture, actually. The trouble is it could be for almost any fantasy game. It doesn’t really capture the flavour of the novels. The interior design, however, doesn’t even go this far. The choice to use bold colours to box things off and colour-code the sections strikes me as a massive dumbing down of what isn’t a game for simpletons or teenage newbies. This is a game that would have been perfectly adequate in B&W, but the extra expense spent on making it colour has been wasted on a Duplo colour scheme and inferior quality artwork. They would have been much better spending the money on getting top quality B&W artwork than some of the shoddy colour ones that make it into the book. Don’t get me wrong many of the pictures are good, but there’s enough that aren’t to make you cringe. There’s one picture, for example, where I don’t know whether one of the characters in the picture is supposed to be Tyrion or Jaime Lannister (for those of you who have read the books you will know how ridiculus that sounds), or just some random person.

Anyway, I’ve got all my moans out of the way so that I can concentrate on why I am definitely going to be playing it. Rich lent me his copy to try and persuade me to run it. It was kind of an unwritten pact that I conceded to at least giving it the once over because I wanted him to play Fading Suns, for which he really didn’t like the system. So I started to read SIFRP, and slowly the game itself started to win me over.

So, where to begin? Well, let me start by talking about something that turned me off the original game and tell you why I now think it’s a good system: Abilities. At first I thought “it’s a game with only skills, no stats,” but on further reading and analysis of how they actually go about it I can see that the Abilities are in fact something of a halfway house between stats and skills. There are just 18 abilities, but then each one has specialisations within it that allow further definition of characterisation. And its not a case of no skill=no chance as one might assume with a skills-only system. Like stats, you get a starting score of 2 in every ability. Whilst 18 seems quite a large number of stats, if we think of them as such, I’ve come to the opinion that this is actually very appropriate for the flavour of the novels. Often a character can be big and strong, or nimble and quick, but without training they are useless in a fight. Similarly the most cunning people aren’t always the best educated, or the most deceitful aren’t always the most charming. In a game with stats and skills, it is likely that such abilities would be linked by a stat and so it would be difficult to be good at one without having some natural capability in the other. Whilst I think for most games this approach is desirable, I can for SIFRP the Abilities approach taken is spot on.

Now let me go into some of the things that stood out for me as making SIFRP such an outstanding game:

Firstly there is the house creation system. Perhaps nothing truly unusual here for anyone who has played any strategy games, but what is really good about it is how it ties in to the both character creation and gameplay. The Players must all start out as members of the same house, which they create as a team before they start to generate their characters. The stats for the house determine the PCs position in the world and will affect how the GM (or narrator as SIFRP refers to them) runs the game. However, it also determines some of the options available to the players. Do they want to play the heir to the house? If so they will need to spend some points on enabling that to happen. The status of the house also sets maximums for character status, so you can’t just dump your points into status and set yourself up as the Warden of the West.

Secondly, there’s the intrigue system. This system works a little like combat but for social situations. You take actions that “attack” your enemy and damage their composure. When they run out of composure you can apply the effects you set out to achieve, which could involve convincing them of a truth, becoming friends with them, or something much more sinister. Before even encountering SIFRP I had the idea to do something similar for the new Etherscope system Nigel and I are writing, so it’s good to see other people having similar ideas. I’d have to see this in play to see how it works properly, but it certainly reads like a great system, and covers an absolutely crucial part of the novels.

The combat system is also pretty good. On first read it appears to be a fairly straight forward “Green Ronin Combat System”, derived and simplified from 3^rd Ed D&D, as used in M&M, True 20 and WHFRP. However, there are tweaks on this that provide all the options and variety that will (potentially) make the many different fighting styles mentioned in the books equally useful. I really like how the weapon damage system works, using an ability to determine the damage – it might be agility, athletics or even animal handling (for lances) that determines the base damage (whilst the Fighting ability determines the chance of hitting). Armour is also pretty nice, with heavy armours making you easier to hit, and really slowing you down in terms of movement, but stopping a awful lot of damage. There are some things I’m, not keen on, such as the “processional” initiative system taken from the D20 system, but at least I know this will work pretty well and the rest of the system seems really quite good.

Finally, there’s an excellent mass combat system. Not just a scaling up of the normal combat rules, nor a separate system similar to miniatures wargames rules, but a system designed to be integrated with PC actions. It takes the best concepts from wargaming and integrates them into a game that allows the PCs to play their own individual roles within the battle, allows the general to have tangible yet not complete control over their troops, and scales beautifully from individual to unit combat within the battle. I’ve seen numerous attempts over the years of making a roleplay-friendly wargaming system, but SIFRP goes well beyond that to create a truly integrated warfare-roleplay system.

Overall it is far from a perfect product, but the system is perhaps only a dull-as-dishwater initiative system short of it. In closing I have a few short concerns: The dice pool mechanic used means that high ability characters will almost automatically at difficult tasks. My instinct says that this is appropriate to the style of the game, but it might just take away any element of risk, and hence fun, there could definitely do with there being a few extra narrator-characters in the adversaries section – there’s a good few creatures, but SIFRP strikes me as a game where you will spend most of your time dealing with human threats – and a bit more background info on Westeros would be ideal.

Firstly we're using a steam engine analogy for the core of the character system:

Characters have a Boiler which is a pool of essence points, not entirely dissimilar to Chi or other similar things in other games. Your boiler stores Steam Points, and has a capacity equal to the highest engine score in each of your three categories (see below).

The boiler feeds in to Engines, which are your main Ability Score Equivalents. The are divided into three categories, each with two Engine scores: your Prime engines are Finesse and Power, your Ether engines are Intellect and Spirit, and your Society engines are Intrigue and Standing. Engines start with at least 3 points (poor) and go up to 6 (outstanding), (with 4 being human average and 5 being good). However, your engines will be regularly boosted by steam points from your boiler. You need to achieve bonus successes in an action to be able to boost your Engine scores with steam points, and the maximum that any engine can be boosted to is double its initial value.

Each pair of Engines also feed into a Condenser. Which acts as wound track for each of the different situations you might find your self in. Your Prime condenser does more standard wounds, your Ether condenser handles mental damage, which can either be to your Scope avatar or for representing insanity effects. Your Society condenser represents your character's social position and capabilities, and it "wounds" represent your status in which ever branch of society you belong to dropping away. When you are "hit" by an attack of one variety or the other you lose points from your condenser. The final six points are wounding effects which are slow to recover and cause action penalties to your dice rolls. The other points are Buffer which have no effect on how your character acts. Spending steam points to improve your engine scores immediately improves your Condenser score. If you take wounds but then improve your engines and thus improve your condenser score, you merely add more points to teh buffer, rather than heal the wound - the penalties remain but the new buffer points can be removed before you take any further wounds. Each condenser has a final step representing some form of incapacitation: Dying for Prime, Frought for Ether and Excluded for Society - in this state you can no longer perform actions of the specified type. Different types of attack, on whichever of the condensers it hapens to be, might have the Lethal trait. Lethal wounds recover slower than non-lethal ones, and also can knock you into a final state: Dead, Insane, or Ostracised which effectively removes your character from the game.

You also have Gears, which are the different things that your character can do. There are five types of gears: Skills, Combat Manoeuvres, Ether-Schticks, Occult Powers and Cybernaughtics.

Here is a provisional skill list:

Finesse Skills: Acrobatics, Fencing, Martial Arts, Pilot, Shooting, Stealth,

Power Skills: Athletics, Brawl, Endurance, Melee

Intellect Skills: Bureaucracy, Engineering, Exploration, Medicine, Mystic Philosophy, Natural Philosophy, Scope Use

Spirit Skills: Alertness, Charm, Resolve, Scope Atunement, Will Power

Intrigue Skills: Empathy, Etiquette, Gossip, Intimidate, Tactics

Standing Skills: Academia, Civic, High Society, Industry, Military, Street, Wealth

Dice Mechanics:

When you make a roll you will use an Engine and a Gear (usually a skill). You roll a number of d12s equal to your current Engine score (could be up to 12 with steam point expenditure). You add your gear rank (between 0 and 8) to the roll. Any dice that, including this modifier, come up 11 or higher count as 1 success towards the action. Each action will have a set difficulty Dif 1 is very easy, Dif 2 is a typical action, dif 3 is a typical challenging action, Dif 4 fairly hard, Dif 5 difficult and Difficulty scores above five reserved for the most extreme actions.

Anyway, that's about where we've got to for now. Comments much appreciated. Also, note that names may be changed if we can think of some cooler ones, and the skill list is provisional, so may change too.

Cheerio for now,

Ben

#tumbleweed rolls across the street#

Just a quick message in case there are any Midgard fans keeping an eye on the site: I've posted a new version of Midgard up on the site, download from the links on the front page.

For those who have been involved in our playtest discussions I've made all the changes suggested in the discussion thread. Not sure whether we'll kep them all for now, but we'll see how it goes. If you want to see some release notes, of a sort, have a look at the playtest discussion trhead over in the forums.

I'm afraid to say, though, this is likely to be the last time I will be looking at Midgard for a few months at least. Those in my group know the reasons why, for the rest of you, lets just say its for "personal" reasons and leave it at that. But Midgard is not yet fully playtested and I will get back to it at somepoint later this year and get it fully polished up!

In the meantime, any UK-based university students might be interested to know that I will be running Midgard games at this year's student nationals in Manchester. Ask your uni RPG Soc for details!

Cheerio,

Ben

However, not so with Midgard. I have begun the early stages of playtesting, having run through a few scenes in my school club and at a convention, and done some character creation with my regular group, but I have never begrudged skipping back into the document and making the highlighted changes.

Some of you (who am I kidding, its probably only my group who actually read this blog :) ) may have already noticed the four new or updated midgard links in the files area. There's a new and updated version of Midgard available, along with independent character sheets and cast stones and a printer-friendly version of the rulebook.

So what's changed?

Firstly, when Nigel and I were creating his character we decided to change the Warrior and Cheiftain skill lists to make them more rounded. Warriors now have some choices. Warriors now must take shields, but then only two from Axes, Sax and Spears, and then get a choice for a secondary skill from Might or Alterness. Chieftains have had their choices switched around a bit, allowing them to pick 1 from Games or Sidr, 1 from Tactics or Command, and two from Riding, Swords or Archery.

Secondly, and big change in the way the game is named. Following Rob Lang's fantastic review I realised he'd actually got a bit confused over how the dice pool mechanism works, probably due to how the stones on the cast had some of the same names as the character's god rune stats. In the history of the game's development, the stones and dice mechanic were worked out before the God Runes were decided upon. In light of this I've dropped the references to Freyja's, Heimdall's and Tyr's Aetts on the casting stones and simply called these past, future and outcome stones, as they are in a five-stone rune cast. Hopefully that will clear up any confusion. Whilst it's a big change in nomenclature its not actually a change in how the game works (although perhaps it is a change in how you perceive it works).

Finally, in response to Rob's comments in the review about the nature of Luck I have changed its mechanics (full mechanics found in the combat chapter). To ensure that the effects of luck remain simple and minor (no arms dropping off here) I have specified that the bonus is simply provides a carry-over effect, as specified in the main rules section. The advantage of luck being that a quick action spent being lucky can provide you with a bonus (theoretically) to any other cast that may follow. I've also added a new rune power (or rather replaced a rather dull one) with a new luck-manipulation power. You can find this power on the Fehu tree.

oh, and I also made a printer-friendly version in response to a comment on Rob's blog.

So that's all for now, download it and have a read. Any comments please post them below.

Cheerio,

 Ben

I think the reason that Nigel and I work well together is that we're each others' harshest critics, so I was a bit nervous as to whether my game would come up to his standards. And when he told me he had a very clear character idea it just made me more nervous - would the game cope with whatever Nigel had come up with to break it. Fortunately Midgard was up to the task! Given Kane was asking a few weeks ago for some such example I thought I might post a report of the endeavour here to give something of an idea of how to go about character creation.

Nigel's character idea was for smething of a legal champion - someone who fought primarily in single combat for the honour and protection of others. It wasn't an idea I'd thought of when I was writing Midgard, so it was a great way to test the system.

Step 1: Birthright and Legend

After going through the birthrights, Nigel was keen to take either Heimdall or Tyr, given his concepts links to both offensive and defensive combat, and to law and siplomacy. In teh end he stumped for Tyr, deciding that the attack in combat was more important to the concept that the defence - he wanted to specialise in smashing shields.

For his legend, the choice was obvious - warrior was clearly the key concept. However when he got to the skill list I recieved the first criticsm - Nigel felt too many of his skills were irrelevant and that he would be increasing them solely for the purposes of increasing his Legend score. So we changed the Warrior legend to require 2 skills from Axes, Sax or Spears, Shields, and either Alterness or Might. I think this is a more practical approach, and brings the warrior legend more in line with other legends that have choices built in.

Step 2: God Runes

To continue the joint emphasis on Heimdall and Tyr, Nigel chose to max out Heimdall at 6 but leave Tyr one short of max to keep the two close together. Its also the lowest combined score that puts his defence at 5. With the remaining god runes, Nigel was unsure how to distribute his points - he wanted to be fairly evenly spread, but his remaining points would give him one rune at 5 and the otehr two at 4. He played around with combinations until deciding to make Odin the 5 stat, prefering the extra courage this provided him.

Freyja 4, Thor 4, Odin 5, Heimdall 6, Tyr 7

Step 3: Qualities 

Nigel's Defence is his best quality, given his Heimdall and Tyr scores add up to 13, giving him a maximum 4 base, for a defence of 5! Weapon skill is also reasonable, with the 7 from tyr and the 4 from Thor combining to give him 11, which is a base (and therefore weapon skill) or 3. His courage cast is 5 (his Odin score) and his bonus is +2 (half Thor). His base for calculating his Wyrd is 9, giving him a base of 2, and his health comes to 10, giving him a base of 2 again, which calculates to a health of 5. He's a good fighter and very difficult to hit, and fairly brave, but has a relatively small Wyrd pool and is perhaps a little on the light side for a viking warrior, but Nigel figures he doesn't intend to be hit often, so thinks he can take it.

Defence 5, Weapon Skill 3, Courage 5d+2, Wyrd (base 2), Health 5

Step 4: Skills

At this point Nigel decided he didn't want to spend his points on skills before he knew what rune gifts he wanted, so we skipped ahead first. I think this is probably the power-gaming way that Nigel builds his characters, and it didn't make me feel I needed to switch around the character creation order in the book. So as not to disrupt the sequence I'll give you the skill choices he made first and then go on to the rune gifts.

Firstly Nigel wanted the Legend 3 status and the rank 3 gifts this gave him access to. As a result he put 8 points into his four Legend skills of Sax, Axes, Shields and Alertness. He also felt he should have Law and Diplomacy to represent the social side of his character's role in resolving disputes. After putting one point into each of these, he realised he had three points left, so decided to pick on of these two new skills to increase to 2nd rank, and find another skill to buy at first rank to buy to broaden the concept. As we trawled through the skill list, he decided that Sidr would be a good choice, given its relationship to status as well as knowledge of the gods, and he also felt it symbolised his honour to some extent. The decision between Law and Diplomacy was more of a power-gamer's decision. One gift Nigel was eying up was Sealed in Blood, which uses diplomacy (although in the book it says Trade - but given I ditched the trade skill and merged it with diplomacy the gift description should refer to Diplomacy not Trade). Given that he's a male character, Nigel also gets one rank of Sailing and Farming

Sailing 1, Farming 1, Sidr 1, Law 1, Diplomacy 2, Sax 2, Axes 2, Shields 2, Alertness 2

Step 5: Rune Gifts

On his first trawl through the gift list, Nigel picked out a number of trees that had powers that suited him: Dagaz in particular had the shield spliiting properties he wanted to specialise in, and Algiz had the shield using gifts. He was also keen on the Gebo gift Sealed in Blood, as mentioned above.

However, as we went through the list he spotted that your rune gifts also determine how he regains Wyrd based on personality-roleplaying. At this point Nigel also spotted Ingwaz, and liked the look of the virtuous courage gift.

As with anythingm though, it came down to the points. He decided to get both Shield splitter and Penetrating attack on Dagaz, making that his primary rune with a total of 5, which captured the main focus of his character's combat style, deciding to ditch breakthrough defences as he felt he probably wouldn't have great problems hitting things with his high Tyr and good combat skills. He also bought Sheild Defence and Block and Breech, deciding that sheilding others wasn't priority and ditching the rank 2 gift. Finally he decided to wait for the Gebo gift and start with virtuous courage, wanting to boost his courage above the moderate level his god runes gave him.

And his Wyrd could now be calculated, giving him a Wyrd pool of 30 (Wyrd base 2 x Legend 3 x primary rune 5)

Algiz: Shield Defence (1), Block and Breech (3); Ingwaz: Virtuous Courage (2); Dagaz: Shield Splitter (2), Penetrating Attack (3)

So, that was Nigel's character. We also created one for our long-time gaming buddy Mark (whilst he shouted instructions whilst WoWing). I'll probably post Mark's character soon aswell, but for now, that's all.

Cheerio,

 Ben

Qin is absolutely my favourite game, not just at the moment, but quite possibly of all time. Qin is always going to be the game that enabled me to get GM-craft right.

What follows is a bit of preamble to let you know where I’m coming from. Feel free to skip over it to the nuts and bolts of the review below

I’ve been running roleplaying games since I was 10 years old, and designing new systems for such games since I was 15. As you can well imagine, my early attempts were, at best, juvenile. I can remember at 17 getting a copy of an AD&D (2^nd ed) supplement called Creative Campaigning. This was a book with lots (it appeared to me at 17 years old) of good GM craft ideas. Now it’s been a while since I’ve read said book so I don’t want to get into an argument about whether it was any good or not, after all, this is supposed to be a Qin review. Anyway, back to the point, and how this ties in to Qin: At 17 I made attempts to introduce what I’d learned from Creative Campaigning into my games. They failed. And so for many years I left such ideas on the shelf and ran a lot of quite basic linear adventures, with fairly flavourless systems, like D&D and GURPS dominating. I think a lot of people who played my games liked the stories but tended to feel a bit led. However, since writing Etherscope, I’d started to hear about different ideas about how to play and it sparked my interest in developing GM-craft in my own games. I’d experimented a bit with cut scenes in one session of a WFRP game just before I was due to run the Qin game, and it went so well I decided to pull out all the stops for the Qin: cut scenes, flashback events, non-linear story progression, and visual aids. It worked a treat – Nigel still rates my Qin games as his best roleplaying experience ever! As a result Qin will always have a special place in my personal gaming history.

Anyway, on to the nuts and bolts of the review.

For those of you who don’t know anything about Qin, it is a mythic-historical game set in the warring states period of Chinese history. I don’t know a great deal about the history, but perhaps this is the first point of excellence about the game – it’s section describing the world, the different nations, factions, society and culture, are wonderful – informative, clear and inspiring. But don’t get bogged down here, because Qin is not just an historical setting, it’s also mythic, and the mythic elements are very nicely blended into the setting. It has a chapter on the world of martial arts, the shadowy world on the fringes of the civilised, legalistic domains. It is these fringe areas where magic is strongest and mythic creatures roam. This is an excellent idea for a roleplaying game – it makes the setting adaptable to a variety of different styles of play, even within your campaign. Lets say you want to run a courtly intrigue game, you can, or if you want to run a monster-slaying epic quest you can do that too. You can even take your courtly characters out of their comfortable palace and have them fight the monsters in the forests if you so desired. This is the perfect game for playing what Nigel refers to as “old school wuxia” (which I know nothing about) and the more recent martial arts-house style (Crouching Tiger, Hero, etc) games, and has plenty of scope to vary between your preferred subgenre, or genres, thereof.

The system for Qin is also really nice. I’ll begin with character creation, as this is one key area that very nicely captures the genre. Character creation is essentially a fairly simple structured point-buy system similar to what you might see in Savage Worlds or storyteller/ing system games. You get 14 points on your core aspects, based on the five elements of Chinese philosophy: earth, fire, metal, water and wood. These are nicely themed to cover a range of different stats you might find in other games, whilst also telling you something of your character’s personality. What’s interesting here is that you have one aspect, metal, that is completely devoted to combat, so no having to split your points if you want to be able to both shoot and hit things. You might think that this might lead to everyone having maxed-out metal scores, but the system is much cleverer than that. You must keep your scores in balance to achieve greatness. By finding the difference between your metal plus water and your fire plus wood you get your balance score. A low balance score is great and means that you will likely have lots of health and plenty of Chi to fuel your powers. A high balance score means you are sickly and unable to channel Chi to fuel your kewl martial arts. There are also other calculation based on combinations of aspects that mean that if you want to be good at something there is always a price. This is something I really love about the game, not only does it put pay to min-maxing, but also helps create the classic martial artist as a paragon of all attributes.

The skill system is fairly basic, but has an exponential costing scale that makes higher levels much more expensive than lower levels. However, having high skills is also very useful, particularly in a combat skill (see below for why). In practice (with our group at least) this means players tend to pick one fighting skill as their main skill and buy it to level 3, and then just pick a bunch of other skills at level 1. Whilst this seems a little odd, I again think this captures the feel of the genre, and I’ve certainly not seen a character created that didn’t feel right for the game.

You also get to spend points on magic, taos and fighting techniques. These are the various cool stuff your character can do, and these are the key thing that makes your character into the martial arts monster you wanted. Techniques are similar to D&D feats and give you cool tricks with your weapons, Taos are close to WoD disciplines, and magic works in a fairly common way (you spend  points to know a spell and spend your Chi points to cast it). All of these are really nicely flavoured, and there’s plenty in the Taos for non-combat characters: you can develop your social skills, stealth, investigation, metal prowess, etc. Again many of these Taos require different aspects and help you find the right balance point for your character. For example, if the stealth Tao requires a decent score in Fire, whilst the stealth skill itself uses Water, so you can’t get away with a sink stat in Fire if you want to be an assassin.

The basic dice rolling system is also nicely flavoured for the genre – it even specifies that you should roll one black dice and one white dice for the yin and yang of your action. Your dice result is the difference between the two, with doubles being critical successes (or critical fails for double zero). You then just add your aspect and skill levels to the result to find your overall score.

Now, for a martial arts game, it’s important to have a good combat system. Qin certainly meets that criterion. Combat rounds are divided into a number of exchanges. Characters act in a number of exchanges equal to one plus their combat skill, but lose actions if they choose to make an active defence. A liberal application of Taos and fighting techniques make this a quick and very descriptive combat system. I like combat systems that are blow-by-blow, so that you get a really good idea of what’s happening and that give players plenty of options to describe different manoeuvres in combat. These systems can often drag, requiring too many rolls and too complicated systems to describe the different actions. In Qin this is not the case, as there is plenty of room to manipulate things with your taos and techniques, whilst still only requiring one roll per exchange – damage is handled within the yin-yang dice roll for the hit without requiring an additional dice roll. It’s a perfect system for the genre.

There’s absolutely nothing in the system that I can fault – it’s the perfect system for the genre as far as I’m concerned. Add to that not just how well described the setting is but also the stunning presentation and you have possibly the greatest roleplaying game ever created. But, if you read this review and are convinced to go out and buy Qin, and indeed fall in love with it as I have, prepared yourself for frustration! Qin is a French game, and whilst it has an English translation partner in Cubicle 7, the rate of production of supplements for it is very slow. We are still awaiting the first supplemental release in English after 16 months!

So, I'll review two of my favourite games at the moment: Witch Hunter: the Invisible World and Qin: Warring States.

Witch Hunter: the Invisible World

Witch hunter is a game of historical horror. You play a 17th century witch hunter, fighting the forces of Satan.

The setting is not quite true to history. There have been some key events that have changed progress of society, enabling Witch Hunter to become the game the designers wanted. I guess its a similar approach to the one we took with Etherscope, just less dramatic. The world is little different from a historical one in its overall feel, but there have been a number of key changes to the politics and society, such as an early beginning to womens equality movements and some differences to colonial expansion (the Aztecs kicked Cortez out, for example). This is one aspect that has come under fire from some, but it is not something that I have a problem with. It's not a period of history I'm overly familiar with, but from my experience of writing Etherscope, I appreciate the skill that goes into this kind of alternative history and understand that I have to accept that it might not be precisely what I'd read up on Wikipedia. Overall I think the designers did a good job on the alternative history as it both creates the right theme for the game, but also (and IMO most importantly) a playable setting.

The setting also has plenty of variety of nasty for your witch hunter to hunt down, and they're all nasty beasts that deserve slaughtering. Practically every creature from myth or legend is potentially there for you to face, particularly if you also buy the expansion. There's even a very nice "threat" creation system that lets you put your own imagination to work. There's an entire secret history about the witch hunter's fight against the forces fo Satan, dating back to Solomon. I can't go into too much depth here because I'm playing rather than GMing, so its nice with a new game to limit my personal knowledge to what my character knows (an as he's an intellectual potato, that's not much).

The system, at first, seems a real shocker - not bad just stolen from a other games, especially WoD. However, on a more indepth analysis the system has really grown on me and I now have a lot of time for it. I might even use it for a game of my own at some point. What at first seems to be an obvious hijack of the storyteller system is actually a blend of said system with elements from 7th sea, D20 and more. And I think they've picked the best bits from each system and blended them nicely into an overall whole that makes sense as a system. It certainly doesn't feel patched together, and tehre's enough difference from storyteller or any other system for it to not feel too grating to play. There are also some pretty unique aspects to the system too. A system for Damnation and True Faith, with sins that can be activated by the GM at crucial points (my character almost shot a bunch of drunk indian teeenagers for calling him a child murderer in one such instance) is a really nice addition, and is different from anything else out there and really captures both the morality issues of the setting and makes for a highly themed personality mechanic.Perhaps the best thing about teh system is the amount of distance there is for characer development. I've got my next 20 or so session's worth of XP preplanned. I think this is really quite incredible for a 1-5 scale point-buy system. I've known games of Trinity where once I've bought up my three psychic powers I've got nothing left do do with my XP, and when I've tried to use storyteller for mundane characters once I've got my 3 or 4 key skills up to 5 ranks I'm stuck. Witch Hunter has plenty of character development distance in it, with most characters only having 1 or 2 ranks in most skills when they start and plenty of room for improvement with their feats (they are feats, no matter what they're actually called), even a mundane huntsman like my character has plenty to do with their XP. There are also some fairly solid character archetypes which give the advantage of class-based systems, yet retain much of the freedom of point-buy - again not entirely original, but nicely applied for how this game works.

But perhaps the thing I like most about it, as a player, is how well supported the game is with pretty decent pre-written adventures. The Dark Providence living campaign also releases its adventures for free download shortly after they've been used at conventions, so when you have a lazy GM (sorry Rich ;) ) there's plenty of material to keep the game running for a long time. Not all these adventures are perfect, but many of the ones we've done so far have had us guessing, and some have even had some really surprising outcomes.

Overall its a good game. Not without its faults, but quite nicely playable and certainly very nicely flavoured!