Guest Poster - James Raggi IV - On Potential Inclusivity/Morality Clauses in RPG Licenses (OGL, ORC, etc)

I woke this morning to a Facebook PM from James, and after I responded he asked if I had the time to read the following text, the script, if you will, of his video planned for today (linked here and below). I read it out loud, so I could get Rach's reaction, and we both agree it was damn near perfect. I told James such, but I insisted that he also share a text version of it, to get it to the widest audience possible. I am honored that James chose The Tavern for this purpose. Tenkar

Hello. My name is James Edward Raggi IV, I am the creator and publisher of Lamentations of the Flame Princess, a tabletop role-playing game.

I'm here to talk to you about declared or possible inclusivity clauses (also referred to as morality clauses, or political exclusion clauses) as part of upcoming game licenses. Specifically, I'm here to tell you why they are a bad idea for creators of the licenses, publishers who will use the licenses, and for the fans and customers of the games using the licenses, even if you agree with all of the positions the clauses would promote.

I know that proponents of inclusivity clauses mean well. They want to create an environment where good people, and good things, can thrive, without the pressures and stresses of having to deal with the bad things, and the bad people.

But things aren't so simple.

If you're not familiar, I recommend you research the Hays code governing motion pictures from 1934 to 1968, and the comics code which governed the comics industry from 1954 to 2011, and the TSR writing guidelines of the 1980s and 1990s in roleplaying. All of those codes were, like inclusivity clauses today, designed to promote what were at the time thought of as good values in creative work, and prevent bad things from being disseminated through the creative work governed by their codes. (for shits and giggles, let's also consider the Book of Erotic Fantasy controversy of 2003 I think it was)

How are any of those codes looked at in hindsight? Do you think they helped progress the art forms they administered? Or did they retard them? Do you think they helped marginalized people find and express their voices? Or did they help to silence them?

Do you really think such a code or clause made today will in the future be judged any differently? Do you? Sure, you might think you're smarter than the people of the past, but what about the people in the future? Is your inclusivity clause going to ultimately be seen as a good thing, when all of these previous efforts to accomplish the same great and good things have failed?

Because there is one complication that will make future perceptions very important. The current controversies and conversations about gaming licenses involve whether licenses are perpetual, whether they are revokable. How are you going to convince people to adopt a new license to invest all their creativity and their business investment and livelihood in, without addressing whether the license is revokable?

And if you do what is largely right now considered the good thing and make your new license irrevokable, then whatever you specify in any inclusivity or morality clause, that's forever. Are you really up to the task of defining that, not even for all time, but even for the next five, ten, twenty years, to be more realistic about it?

You don't know which way the winds are going to blow, not in the halls of power and influence in our culture, and not on the ground amongst the people. The New Deal era gave way to McCarthyism, which gave way to the free love 60s, which gave way to the recessionary and inflationary 70s, which gave way to the Reagan/Thatcher 80s, which gave way to the Clinton years, which gave way to the Bush years, which gave way to the Obama years, which gave way to Trump. Now we're two years into the Biden years. What's next? 

What do you do if Ron DeSantis, with his "stop woke" policies and his "ok groomer" supporters, wins the next US election? What happens to your license and its administration if not only political power, but the cultural zeitgeist becomes more conservative? How would you feel if your inclusivity clauses in your irrevocable licenses are used to protect the sensibilities of the most white, Christian, regressive class, and the majority of your customers support this? Do you really think such a thing is impossible over just a few years time, given the history of the last century? 

And while Wizards of the Coast will have to wholly own their Open Gaming License, this new ORC thing is being put together by a consortium of publishers, and last I heard the plan was that the license would be owned and administered by a third party. So whatever controversies and conflicts arise surrounding that license, it will still forever be associated with the companies and people that created it, but who will not control it. 

You might think that's fine, you're in good with the people who will administer the license... but things change. It doesn't even take a cultural shift. Just imagine some rich person who wants to rid their precious gaming hobby of "wokeness." You don't think there's an Elon Musk type out there willing to burn a fortune to "fix" gaming the way Musk wanted to with Twitter? What happens to your relationships, those connections, when someone is buying companies, buying influence, with millions or even billions of dollars? Do you really think such a thing is impossible, given the history of just this past year?

Do you think the presence of an inclusivity or morality clause in a license is more or less likely to trigger such a situation?

But even without cultural shifts, or billionaires enforcing their will, I believe these clauses will be publicity and administrative nightmares for anyone implementing them.

If you implement these inclusivity/morality clauses, you are setting yourself up to be the arbiter of what exactly is racist. What is sexist. What is transphobic. You get to tell activists "no we don't think that is really racist," or you get to tell publishers to destroy their work because they've done a bad thing. And you get to do that over, and over, and over, and over, forever.

Because these arguments are out there. If you're putting this license together, you've seen the arguments. And obviously if you're wanting to implement such a license, you want to prevent your work from being used to facilitate racism, sexism, transphobia, whatever -isms and -phobias are out there now or will become a thing in the future.

But you know, you absolutely know, that there are people out there who have definitions of these things that are far more expansive than that of the general public. Or more expansive than your personal definition. What are you going to do when these people come to you demanding the cancellation of someone's license? What exactly do you think is going to happen when you say no? You are going to have to say no to these complaints at some point or another, aren't you?

Is this a mess you really want to deal with?

Or what about the other side, the people who will get their licenses cancelled, or will have to go through the hardships of destroying work they believe in and have invested in? You don't think they're going to make noise? You don't think there will be a loud and active community to take their side? What do you do if the good and progressive thing to enforce is contrary to what the larger community thinks is OK?

Are classic conceptions of elves and dwarves and evil orcs and such evidence of white supremacy and bio-essentialism, or are they classic fantasy tropes that all should be able to employ?

You want to own the final say on that controversy?

I don't know what any potential morality clause in ORC would look like as far as administration and appeals processes, but the OGL 1.1 that leaked from Wizards of the Coast states that they have unilateral power to decide such things, but that they are open to being convinced they made a wrong choice based on "community pushback and bad PR." They're inviting twitter mobs to influence them.

Why would anyone think this is a good idea?

And it only gets more complicated the more you look at it.

A lack of diversity in a work is sometimes cited as racist, sexist, etc. all on its own. But writing outside your demographic can be considered insensitive or appropriation. You know this is a thing. And you know by implementing an inclusivity/morality clause, you are inviting people to use you to enforce their thinking on the matter. How much of this do you really think is your job to decide on, for everyone else?

How will your inclusivity clause work for statements or actions outside of the actual products? If someone says something against popular opinion on Twitter, if despicable statements five, ten, twenty years ago are unearthed, if someone takes a picture with a person deeply unpopular with much of the community... what are you going to do when people come to you with this proof of transgression against inclusivity and demand you do something with their license? How do you judge this? And again, is all the blowback from every individual judgment directed at you something that is productive for you to deal with?

What do you do if there's another competing license out there with an inclusivity clause, and they decide to enforce something that you've passed on. Do you want the publicity of not fighting racism etc. as well as your competitor? How do you navigate that without your hand being forced?

What about retroactivity? I'm going to give a ridiculous example but I'm sure you'll get my gist. Let's say some lauded RPG writer goes all Kanye West tomorrow. And they make part of their new Hitler-loving brand their little pet pug dog. Let's say that pugs become the new dogwhistle (if you will) for the bad people class because of it. Sure, you may want to police new instances of pug-related gaming material for your license... but what happens when people start complaining about prior pug material released under your license? Or released not under your license by someone now using your license? How are you going to enforce that, or not enforce that, with a minimum of uproar and headache?

We're starting to get ridiculous now, but the point is there are an infinite number of edge cases for people to get very invested in, and very invested in you, as license manager, being on their side. There is no way for you to maneuver through these controversies in a way that doesn't get their shit all over you. This is what inclusivity clauses will get you.

Again, even if you somehow perfectly craft and word it for today's cultural environment, the only constant about the cultural environment is that it changes.

Nevermind who exactly the person will be that is in charge of making these decisions. I would think nobody in their right mind would want that responsibility once all the edge cases show up in their inbox. And I wouldn't trust anyone who really wants the job.

Would you?

And then there's one final argument, the one that I think will be least sympathetic to the people putting these licenses together, but I think it is a useful practical argument.

Varg Vikernes is the perfect bogeyman for both gaming and heavy metal. He's not an edge case, there is no question that his views and his actions are reprehensible. Yet here he is, in the shadows of two scenes I care very much about. I'm afraid of taking up knitting for fear of finding out he's into it, ya know? But he's published a role-playing game. Can any of you say, off the top of your head, without looking it up, whether or not he used any sort of license in publishing his game? OGL, Creative Commons, Nazi Free-Use License, any damn thing. Do you know?

If you don't know if the actual worst verifiable example has used a license, what in the world is any of this about?

If he has used a license... how has that fact affected anyone? Anyone at all? Is anyone associating him right now with anyone that created or uses that license? Is anyone currently using the OGL somehow bound or associated with anyone else also using the OGL? I don't get the purpose of this at all.

If he hasn't used a license... well, how has that stopped him from doing exactly what he wants to do? Has any victory over racism or racists been won because he is using a different way of rolling the dice in his game than you use in yours? What exactly is trying to be accomplished through an inclusivity license?

So then, to wrap up, I will again state that I expect any inclusivity or moralities clauses will have no practical benefits for anyone implementing or using them, but they will create conflict and controversies.

Are these controversies being connected to your companies, having created these clauses, going to improve the performance of your businesses? Are they going to facilitate a welcoming atmosphere for potential new players or customers, or in convincing new publishers to use the license? Are they going to improve the quality of conversations online? 

Are these controversies going to do anything to protect the people these clauses are in place to protect in the first place?

I think the answer to all of these questions is no.

I think we should leave political and moral questions about creative content to the individual creators to navigate with the public, and not create choke points for some to enforce their views upon others.

Thank you for listening.

And now for a more personal note concerning all of this. This is pure speculation, more imagination, but imagination is what we are supposed to be doing around here, instead of... this license stuff. It isn't out of the realm of possibility that an OGL or potential ORC inclusivity or morals clause becomes widely adopted. What if it became the wide industry standard? Sort of the way ratings dominate the movie and video game industries.

In that way I'm sort of putting myself in the place of EC Comics right before the Comics Code took over. It's not good.

And... let me talk about this book (Blood in the Chocolate). It was released in December 2016, and in the summer of 2017 it won a gold Ennie award. A little ol' Lamentations of the Flame Princess publication won in a public vote over offerings from Chaosium, Pelgrane, and Green Ronin. Holy shit, right?

Three years later, another publisher refuses to enter the ennies because of this win, claiming it's all sorts of bad things. The author of the book even denounced his own award-winning creation. Just last week in January 2023 somebody described it as a Nazi entry point into the hobby. I still think of it the same way I did when it won the award.

You think you're doing the right thing. You think you're going to continue to do so, and you're going to have the good and popular responses to whatever comes.

Well good luck to you. Because I know how fast things can turn.

Be very careful what you set into legal stone.

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Got Some Unexpected Help Figuring Some Stuff Out

 

We're pretty much all dorks/geeks/nerds here at the Tavern (except for Rach...she's an angel...[I got your back Erik!]).....and I'm willing to bet that most of us goofs like more than just RPGs.

Now I don't consider myself a Star Wars geek, but I do enjoy the films....for the most part. I really didn't care for the last trilogy we got and at the point of coming across as sexist (too late... I opened my mouth so therefor I am wrong) I really didn't care for the character of Rey. My problem though, was I could not tell you why I didn't like Rey, I just didn't. Now I really try not to be some pseudointellectual type and me trying to get up in my head as to why or why not I don't like something really isn't going to work unless I can point to something concrete and obvious......or I have it pointed out to me.

Now the title alone would normally dissuade me from watching the video, but it came up automagically in my cue 'cause I watched something about "Charismatic Intelligence" with Hollywood types and this rotated in. I won't go into the finer details here but the author/narrator's words hit home because she was able to point out something really obvious, but beyond my grasp to understand without the help.

Now since my mind wanders like no other I started to wonder if there was such a thing as "womansplaining" since I had to have a woman point out the painfully obvious to my clueless self. There is, it's called "femsplaining" and this video was so not it.

No this video was just a good explanation on a few things I couldn't wrap my head around because.....I hadn't tried?......I lack the sufficient mental capacity?......I didn't care to explore the concept further?

Most likely the latter because if you don't like something, why spend more energy trying to figure out why? It's either obvious, or it's not and knowing either way doesn't matter if you don't want to spend more resources (time & energy) on it.

Now there have been some RPG games I haven't liked, but usually it's quite obvious to me. The rules are too crunchy/fiddly for my tastes (Rolemaster) or I don't care for the amount of effort it takes to make a PC (D&D 3.5). Doesn't mean I won't play those games, but I'd rather play something else if given the opportunity.

There was a time when HackMaster was becoming a game I didn't enjoy playing, but I had no clue as to why and again I was fortunate to have another woman point out the painfully obvious to my clueless-ass self. Back when HackMaster 4th edition was waning, but 5th Edition wasn't available yet there was the "secret" 5th Edition playtesting. Now the majority of the D(evelopment) Team at KenzerCo are engineers and while they're all great guys......but holy hell can they over-engineer a RPG....and this is coming from a guy who likes a fair amount of RPG Crunch.

HackMaster 5th Edition is heavily skills based and the design of the skill system was basically that skills started at 100 and went down as they improved. You rolled a % and wanted to get over your skill number. High was always good and adding bonuses to your die roll was literally adding a number to your die roll. Sounds good right? I think there are several systems out there that use a similar mechanic.

Nope......did not like it. Honestly I don't think anyone outside of the D-Team liked this skill system, but for the life of me I could not figure out why I didn't like it. Then Shabby, a fellow friend/gamer/playtester pointed out the painfully obvious: If you have a 90% in a skill, that percentage is your chance of failure, not success.

 As players we want to succeed, so I don't want to hear the GM tell me the chances of failure, but my chances to succeed! One is just inherently negative and the other is positive. Yes, a 90% chance of failure is technically the same as a 10% chance to succeed, but don't tell me I'm going to miss on a d20 roll of 1 to 18. Tell me I'm going to hit on a roll of 19 or 20!

The playtesters managed, probably with a HUGE amount of convincing by Shabby, to "fix" the skill system in HackMaster 5th edition to the point where I'm a fan again. While I know now this wasn't "womansplaining" I'm personally glad to have been helped out on these two occasions to figure out that I like character development and positivity in my gaming systems......

.....now if I could only get some help with some other shit I can't figure out.....but that would also require me to care more than I do. Life's too short to dwell on media and games you don't like...... 

My Brief Run-In with Dave Arneson

 

Although I've been a big volunteer for a game company squaring-away the "big" convention tournaments, I've only attended GenCon two or three times. I've always been much more a Origins fan.....far more "bang for my buck" and GenCon is just too much, well for me......"too much".

Regardless, I have attended a few times and most importantly for the purposes of today's post, I attended in 2008. I managed to be able to stay after the con closed and helped KenzerCo tear down their booth, something I was able to do quite a few times at Origins. The lead-in pic is from the Steve Jackson Games guys letting me try on the Munchkin head.....despite several extremely poignant warnings and attempts to dissuade me from doing so. It was as hot, sweaty, and post-con nasty as you'd expect a big mascot head to be.....but also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me.

That wasn't the only once-in-a-lifetime opportunity during that convention.

Now I'm not sure how many Tavern patrons are aware, but last week (April 7th) was the anniversary of the passing of Dave Arneson. We all seem to remember Gary Gygax's passing, but we have his children running a memorial game convention every year that helps all of us remember.....

Anyway, GenCon 2008 was Dave Arneson's last GenCon with us and I briefly got to meet him at the KenzerCo booth. He was being pushed around in a wheelchair and it just seemed he knew it was his last big con. That seems sad, it did in the moment, but at the same time I have to give the man credit 'cause he was (literally) rolling with it. He was going around giving other game designers/artists these little baggies with d20's and a note in them. I was gifted one of these and they were two Gamescience d20's and the note was on a Westin Hotel sticky notepad:

"Rubbed in the hair of a live game designer

-Dave Arneson"

I've never rolled the dice and being a KoDT/HackMaster fan, the whole "fame rub" on a game designer (there is a long story arc about this in the comic) makes this a special memento in a couple of ways.

Now while I have seen The Secrets of Blackmoor, but I personally don't think I quite "get" Arneson's full contribution to this hobby we all share. I know there are some books I probably should pick up someday that might help, but I already have a few "history" books on the early days of this hobby I haven't gotten around to reading yet as it is.

Review of The Vast in the Dark – a Zine About Exploring Dark and Alien Megastructures of an Infinite Realm (Guest Post)

I'd like to thank Doug for submitting this review. As I've stated many times, but I can never state often enough, The Tavern is yours and it is significantly better when members of the community participate in its content - Tenkar

Review of The Vast in the Dark – a Zine About Exploring Dark and Alien Megastructures of an Infinite Realm by Doug Kilmer

I’ll start this review with a thank you to Tenkar’s Tavern for showcasing the Kickstarter ZineQuest (note - The Tavern's YouTube series of Fireside Chats for ZineQuest 2021 can be viewed here) I would never have been aware of this movement, or the great products that were offered this year, without the heads up. I purchased way too many products for my wallet and so far don’t regret one.  

Charlie Ferguson-Avery’s The Vast in the Dark is one of the best.  Published by Feral Indie Studio, it is not only an incredibly useful toolbox, it drips with an original atmosphere and dark character, which is hard to achieve in this now mature industry literally full of thousands of settings.  

From the back cover:

The sky is black as night. A tectonic rumbling can be heard overhead: the ruins sprawl out with a fractal madness. And a vast sea of colorless sand stretches out into the darkness.

That writing alone gets my attention.

The electronic version of The Vast in the Dark is available here for a minimum contribution of $5USD. As identified above, the product is the result of a successful Kickstarter project in early 2021 that has already delivered in full. The electronic product is 28 pages long, including front and back cover, insides of covers, table of contents, and two pages that are predominantly art. The remainder is a toolbox for the creation of this alien environment. The writing is fairly tight and concise, and it is simple and clear to read.  The booklet makes great use of evocative art that reinforces the brooding atmosphere, and the layout is functional and minimizes wasted space.

While technically system neutral, the author recommended systems include DCC, OSE, Pathfinder, Knave, White Hack, and Black Hack.  So obviously, this is going to have an old-school vibe. As a backer of the Kickstarter, I also have a saddle-stitch print version, which is a handy 5” x 8” and fits well with my Old School Essentials books.

What it has…

As I mentioned, this is a toolbox to adventure in a “crumbling alien wasteland.” At its heart, it is a sandbox for hex crawling.  Definitely OSR-ish, hence the system recommendations. Within the limited page count is everything you need to randomly generate an ancient wasteland of some past empire. The ruins of megalithic structures littering a sandy waste, dotted by conclaves of other travelers caught in the dark clinging to existence.

The Vast in the Dark is not meant to be a full setting, but rather what I will call a “side setting.” This product can pretty much be bolted on with any setting. I think it is best used as a diversion from your main campaign, possibly a jaunt on the other side of the veil or being caught up in the planes. Three to four games sessions ought to do it; enough to frustrate your players, make them appreciate escaping this place, and definitely memorable fodder for your players to talk about in years to come. 

Yes, the Vast has that level of potential to turn ugly and hopeless for the party. Walking out of here without some form of permanent mark probably won’t happen. And it shouldn’t in my opinion.

There is no wasted space in this zine. A brief explanation of the setting, rules on exploration in the Vast (e.g., navigation, becoming lost, and quirks that your character can take on due to being too long in the wastes), and an inventory system. The zine also provides a modicum of the mundane necessities of life (e.g., food), a lodestone-based (one of the few setting resources) currency system, and some discussion of the Vast’s society. There are even three representative factions that can be found while wandering the wastes.

The zine also provides a quick and simple exhaustion system.  This is key to playing in this environment, as it reflects the slow wear and tear of struggling to survive in an alien environment.  Characters gain levels of exhaustion when they miss a night’s sleep, are severely wounded, push themselves beyond the norm, and go without food. These build up and can result in an illness or injury, which puts tasks using the associated ability at a disadvantage until rested or healed. Truly reflective of the dark and gritty of the Vast, and definitely will be a challenge to even veteran players of old school systems.

Cool, but not the real treasure.  

The Good…

The random Vast generation tools are the true value. The method starts on the macroscopic level developing regional terrain maps, and then works inward to local scale hexes, and lastly ruins.  The regional and local mapping uses a die drop method to generate the locations of ruins, pillars, and empty wastes. Pillars are enormous constructs made of lodestone that seem to be holding up whatever is above beyond the sight of the ground. Like the ruins, they can also be inhabited.

For ruins, a simple room-by-room grid-based mapping method is provided that can be used on the fly. Example types of rooms, features, treasures, and encounters are all in the booklet. It comes with an associated time tracking guide for room exploration. All very old school.

The Not so good…

I only have two minor criticisms, both of which are admittedly not valid given the limited page goals of zines: not enough original monsters; and, just not enough content.  That’s it. This product definitely leaves you wanting more. I look forward to a companion in the future. Maybe something that fills in what is on top of the pillars.

The lack of unique creatures to encounter is really the only gap in this booklet.  The uniqueness of how the Vast is presented justifies the need for original creatures. There are certainly a plethora of monster manuals that can be pilfered for non-standard creatures, but I want the author’s vision on this as well.

Rating…

On the old five-star system, have to give this a near-perfect 4.5 out of 5.  At $5 for the pdf, this is one of the best values I have come across in years.  Personally, I can’t wait until my players cross the veil and realize they are not in Kansas anymore.

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube,  or wherever you listen to your podcast collection.  

So You Want to Attend Your First Convention?

So you've decided to attend your first game convention?

First off, congrats, you should have fun....

Second, I really hope you didn't pick GenCon or Origins for your 1st ever game convention, but if you did I hope it's Origins. Actually both cons are great, don't get me wrong, but they are the big boys and can be overwhelming for a convention newb, with GenCon clearly coming in top for being "too much" as far as cons go.

I'd recommend a smaller, hopefully local game convention. You can support local dealers, maybe find players for future gaming, and definitely find out about other smaller local conventions. A local gaming convention is more likely to be in driving distance and just generally cheaper to attend. You'll have more room to pack stuff and more money to spend should you want to......

....but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you have to fly to the convention. Why? Well mostly because that's my main experience, but also because flying to a convention is more restrictive and if you go to the bigger conventions odds are you'll be flying unless you like doing a looooong roadtrip.

Right off the bat, once you decide to attend a convention, break out your calendar. Get your registration as soon as you can and note when you can sign up for games and rooms. Neither is as important for smaller cons, but it will be for the larger ones and you might as well get in the habit as rooms for GenCon & Origins and games can fill up in the 1st hour of registration. No, really.......get your calendar, figure out the necessary dates and register for what your want, when you want it. If the convention has an advance schedule, figure out your priority for gaming. Your 1st choices for a game might be full, so having backup plans are good.

When should you arrive to a convention? I recommend you show up the day before and leave the day after if you're flying. If the con is a Thursday to Sunday affair, odds are it'll start up Thursday afternoon and wrap up Sunday by noon. If you can get good flight in Thursday morning and out Sunday afternoon, good on you, BUT....don't forget others will be trying to work that same schedule, you'll have no flexibility if flights have issues (seriously I recommend morning flights before & after con days so you have all day to get there and/or back if there if flights get delayed), and do you really want to try to get in a game right after a spot of travelling and the fun involved with that? Some cons will have an early check-in available and maybe even some early pick-up games.

Once you have your dates figured out, your travel plans in place, and know where you're staying.....oh you don't know that yet? Well I generally recommend staying at the convention hotel for a smaller con and anywhere but as the con gets bigger. The big conventions usually have multiple hotels, but there may be one or more directly connected to the convention space and others a short walk away. It might seem convenient to stay at a convention hotel, but as the convention grows that convenience dwindles. Anyone who has had to wait 20-plus minutes for an elevator at the con hotel realizes that a 5' or 10' walk to their hotel might be preferable....because you might have to wait that long to get back down to the convention as well. Other hotels within walking distance might be cheaper or have better amenities as well.....

OK, so NOW you should have the big-picture travel stuff figured out and you might want to drill-down for the finer details. Does the convention center and/or your hotel have a restaurant......will it be convenient for you to eat there (convenient and affordable) FYI they generally aren't as they are catering to business travelers with company accounts and/or per diem. One con I went to their restaurant was a higher-end Steakhouse. You'll want to figure out your eating options before you arrive on-scene. I generally plan on one a nicer meal out every other day and something else for the rest and avoid room service  at all costs (pun intended......room service is usually expensive and decent quality, but meager. $15 for a muffin and orange juice...no thank you). Thankfully these days delivery, including food service delivery, is an easy option. These services will widen your choices considerably.

You might also want to look up your options for grocers/general merchandise near the hotel. It might be well worth your while to walk or take a taxi/uber to the grocery store and stock up on sodas/snacks. Even when flying I tend to pack some easy snacks, maybe a breakfast or two (tops) worth of instant oatmeal, some dried fruit, and a bag of beef jerky. It's good to keep with you in case your travelling goes longer than expected anyway and it can buy you some time when you first get to the con and are trying to get your feet under you. Knowing where you can go to get some OTC medicine or another notebook or some such is comforting at the least.....

You really don't need too much when flying to a con when it comes to clothes and gear. Whatever you'd normally take to a regular game (dice, pencils, notebook, PC sheets, minis, and rules) is just fine. Since I never go anywhere without a computer I keep extra copies of everything where I can access it.....and these days a tablet can go all day, so PDF stuff is a viable option. You shouldn't be working up a huge sweat at a con and since you'll be showering every day at a minimum (you ARE showering every day, right?.......seriously, don't be THAT GUY!) you can probably get more use out of your clothes than you'd think. Fresh underwear for everyday and if you need another shirt, just buy a convention shirt when you get there.....you'll want a souvenir anyway.

Speaking of which, at your 1st con you are going to want to buy stuff. Most vendors, the convention, whatever can take credit cards, so you'll only need cash for little stuff, like food vendors, tipping, vending machines, etc. Odds are you'll be buying stuff at the convention and lugging it home. Two useful things to know, well maybe three. I recommend packing an extra bag in your luggage.....something that can be checked if needed. As long as your extra swag is under 50 pounds and you're willing to pay the extra $25-$50 for an additional checked bag.....just drag that stuff home with you. Stopping by a post office or UPS/FEDEX on the way to the airport is an option, but the hotel probably has a business center where you can go online and arrange for a pickup. Hotels have stuff picked up and dropped off all the time and some of the larger ones are regular FEDEX stops.

One thing I do like to bring with me to a con if I'm flying is a simple art tube. I have one I made from a PVC tube that barely fit into my one bag (which I don't use anymore.....might need to make a new one). I use this specifically to transport any art/posters I pick up from any artists at the con. It really sucks trying to find a tube to protect my expensive art purchase at the con. The hotel won't have any lying around and good luck with that on a Sunday as you're packing up.......you might get one as a shipping tube from that local FEDEX/UPS assuming you planned ahead......

Really the only other things I'd toss out there that if you have a favorite something you need to have, like a certain pencil or notebook....pack an extra one. Go ahead and bring a reusable insulated mug while you're at it. Every con I've been to has ice water easily available and if you need something flavored, those little squeeze bottles of flavoring are just a couple ounces (you can fly with them!). Stay hydrated!

When you get back from your con, do yourself a favor and note what you didn't use/need, what you wish you had brought, and make your own travel list for the next convention.

Not Erik Story Time: Players Interjecting Humor Wherever they Damned Well Feel Like It

Erik's back in for another stint with the surgeon so I'm filling back in with a little story-telling session.

Now I don't expect folks to remember the last time I filled in, but in one post I talked a bit about HackMaster 4th Edition and how many thought it was a joke game (it wasn't) because of some of the comedic elements (easily removed/ignored), but I mentioned, and still ascertain, that players are players and you can have the most serious game in the world and they'll still interject humor where it doesn't exist, and in some cases needs to be.

I was running a game of HackMaster 5th Edition, using the Garweeze Wurld setting, which was made for 4th Edition and is the backdrop for the Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine.The new edition of the game is rather magic light and the old was really magic heavy. In the very last Wurld Tournament for HackMaster 4th Edition the Gawds were destroyed as well as all magic and allegedly the whole planet. I just advanced the timeline something like 10,000 years and the planet wasn't destroyed, but the loss of magic changed most everything. In the new campaign magic was slowly coming back into the world as new Gods were reaching out. The thing is, for most people magic wasn't even a fairy tale.

Anyway, enough supposition. This was a serious game and since I was playing with adults there were some adult themes and stuff I'm probably never going to type about and normally would NEVER condone in a RPG game, well at least a public one.

The players weren't quite the normal murderhobos, having established themselves as competent "troubleshooters" for their village. They've proven themselves capable a few times already and when a badly injured rider came into town with reports he was tracking an band of orcs.....well the party was going to go investigate. Orc raids were a seasonal problem and it was a little too early in the year, but the village elders activated the militia (conscription was a thing) and asked the party to investigate...tomorrow. The party was already wiped from the day's activities and needed to rest and get some suicide daggers from the blacksmith before heading out.

Remember those adult themes? Well Orcs in HackMaster were really a bastardized race that procreates pretty much through rape. It's pretty messed up, but it was a known thing (not something I made up!!!) and the party were all females, and were warned in-character.

Anyway, the party got up 1st thing in morning to head off where the orcs were last seen and then found out that one of the PC's parents, a retired Knight, had headed out the day before with some militia, specifically because he didn't want his daughter facing orcs, even though it was against the Elder's wishes (rank has its privileges...)

The party rushes to catch up and while the earlier group has a good 14 hour lead, they are able to make good time since they were able to easily follow the slower group's track once they went off-road. The party catches up just as the battle is underway and the battle is not going that well. The party manages to turn the tide and it is clear that the orcs are going to lose, but not before the Half-Orc leader, unbeknownst to anybody is a Cleric. The Cleric's final parting gift was a Cause Wounds spell, which was enough to bring the Knight down to zero hit points.

This Cleric got away and there is some more big back story, but basically this was the introduction of what was to be a recurring villain in this campaign. The secret that magic was back in the world and true clerics existed was a HUGE deal. The players already knew there was magic, hell, they technically had a magic user in the group, but seeing clerical magic....evidence of the new Gods, was big. I'm doing my best here to solemnize the significance and let the implication wash over the players, like I'm some bad-ass world-building story teller or shit......

......and then one of my players snickers and says that the orc did a "bad touch" on the other PC's father. A little laughter and before I know it this new BBG (Big Bad Guy) has been labeled "Pedo-Orc" Great.....he has a name now....

I ended up making a graphic for the bastard, for shits & giggles, since I was documenting the campaign in a blog.

This....this is the kind of thing I mean about players interjecting humor into your serious campaign. You can't fight it, you just have to deal with it. In the end, we're all just doing this to have fun, right?

A Brief (?) Snapshot of my Gaming History-Storytime

Still not Erik, BUT word is that he'll be back today/tomorrow so this might be my last guest post here at the Tavern. I'd tell you to go follow me at my blog(s), but one is secret, one is not about gaming, and one is well, I really need to get back on it. The remaining is Frugal GM, but I don't do stories, rants, or stupid stuff there.

Ok, let's be honest here, I do stupid stuff wherever I am. I really shouldn't kid you guys or myself there.

Like probably everyone reading this blog & post, I'm a gamer. Sure, you can call me a dork, geek, nerd....you wouldn't be the 1st, but "gamer" fits.....dweeb is right out though. These days most folks, ok single women I try to chat up, tend to equate "gamer" with some guy who sits around playing Xbox all day. You think that's bad, wait until you explain you'd rather spend your weekend at a convention sitting around a table rolling dice and pretending to be a Dwarf!

A One-Sided Discussion Regarding Tournaments (pt2)

So if you read my post yesterday you'd probably think that I really don't like tournaments, and really, that wasn't quite my point. What I largely don't like is how most tournaments are run. To me the amount of work involved on the organization side really wasn't worth what the hosting company gets out of it.

Really it's a basic risk/reward ratio. Sure the company (in my case KenzerCo) really didn't have much skin in the game since the real costs (time, money, and more time.....) were borne by volunteers, but if players/fans go to a convention and have a bad experience, or observe problems, then they might not be so apt to keep on playing. Some players I couldn't care less about (like we had one group of players come in second, bitch and moan insanely on the company forum boards, and made a big deal about never coming back......with the huge amount of crunchy record keeping the game had it was clear these guys hadn't interacted with the company, or other fans, in years so their absence would be felt just as much as their participation was!), BUT......games need new players and generally need to keep old players. The hardcore fans will generally ride the waves.

When I came on to the tournament scene I inherited the situation as-is and nothing was really going to change except the continued requests for power creep to take care of what others thought were "problem groups or players". One of my buddies ran a real one-trick pony Magic User, a Double-Specialist Divinator. If you needed to figure out who, what why.....he was your guy. If you ran a tournament where the objective was only to figure out who killed somebody, this PC would have it figured out before most of the table were able to pick up their dice. Trying to write an entire adventure to thwart this guys was recockulus, but an expectation. The thing is, the guy was literally a one-trick pony. He wasn't going to contribute jack-squat to combat...and the game was called HackMaster for pete's sake!

Anyway I dealt the hand I was given and did the best to my level of ability, which wasn't more than the status quo.....until the new edition of the game was coming out. The KenzerCo D-Team still wanted some type of competitive tournament, but the writing on the wall was that the old way really wasn't going to work.

So here I am having the opportunity to create some real change when it came to HackMaster (well, at least HackMaster Basic.....the beginning of 5th Edition HackMaster). I came up with a short list of requirements for "my" tournament:

• The tournament had to be competitive....for those that wanted to compete.
• Players had to be able to drop-in/drop-out of the tournament rounds should they choose
• Scoring had to be "fair"
• After-tournament drama needed to be minimized/no longer an issue

What I envisioned, and was able to execute, was a three round tournament  that accomplished all these things, well as much as possible.

The very first thing I did was layout the general format of three rounds, but instead of an elimination tournament, each round was different. Round one was what we called a traditional Roll-n-Run where players had 30' to create a character from scratch (This version of HackMaster was still kind of crunchy and 30' could be a challenge). Want to play, but really don't want to learn to roll up (or bother with) a character? No problem, here's a huge stack of 1st level pregens....take your pick. Round two was a pre-gen only game where the pregens were actually leveled-up versions of those 1st level pre-gens from the previous round, making it easier for new players that had also played earlier. Round three was a home-PC "only" round where you could play with the same PC you have hopefully been playing with for some time, as it was a higher-level game. No PC, again no problem....here's those same pre-gens leveled up some more.

That took care of my 1st requirement, and pretty much the second requirement as well. Play one round, play all three rounds if you want. Now there was technically still a potential issue with new, inexperienced players wanting to sit down and play the higher-level Home PC game, and they were welcome to do so. One way around keeping this from being an issue was to have that round listed as only for experienced players. The other way was by having a GM ready to run a group of inexperienced players as their own group. If they had shown up to the previous two rounds, then they wouldn't have needed there own group. That 1st year we did have an entire table of newbs, but they just wanted pre-gens and didn't care for the tournament, which was fine, they still got to check out the game and leave happy.

Now for scoring fair........that took me a while to get my head around. Previous scoring was how well the group did and the best table appointing a Most Valuable Player (MVP) who would be the winner. Heck some groups had decided who their MVP would be before they started play, should they win, so the wealth of Serialed Number Items would be spread out in the group. My initial thoughts were to break scoring into three broad parts, and try to minimize some of the potential cheats/tweaks/undue influence from people trying to work the system. The three broad scoring areas were 1) progress as a table (how the group did), 2) how the players thought the other players did, and 3) how the GM thought the players did. Now #2 & #3 had a LOT of potential for abuse, but I was abe to come up with some tweaks:

• Scoring as a group was easy.....how far along did the group progress, factored in by how many players/PCs there were. A table of 8 players could undoubtedly get farther than a group of 6 players (we did our best to have equal table sizes). That wasn't much of a change from the old HackMaster tournaments, although we did reduce the number of encounters so that every group should have a chance at finishing the adventure, where that wasn't necessarily a thing before.
• In order to reduce playing favorites to an extent instead of having a MVP vote or even a simple rating system (which I'd seen before as well), players had to rank the rest of the table. If there were 8 players, then you stacked and racked the other players from best being #1 to relative worst being #7. You did not rank yourself. This was a bit of a pain, record keeping, but I made a quick Excel sheet before hand that factored in table size so the resulting score could be compared across all players and tables.
• For the GM scoring players at their table that ended up being a lot easier as expected because HackMaster revealed the solution. In the HackMaster Basic book (which is free btw) there are two ratings for the GM to apply to a player's role-playing and have to do with the award of Honor, something I'll not get into. The first rating is for the player's ability to adhere to the PC's race and class. Playing a Violent Priest of the Caregiver (a Pacifist Deity).....yeah, that's going to cost you. The other rating is for adhering to the character's Quirks, Flaws, & Honor. Together it's basically "Did you play the character on your sheet, or just do whatever sounded good at the time?" Granted that is an over simplification, but easy-peasy for a HackMaster GM.

Scoring basically was just adding up the player's score from every round they participated in. Person with the highest score wins. The 1st time I did this nobody was surprised at who won, probably because everyone was involved in the process......

Now a smart reader will notice I hadn't touched the last requirement, which was basically to try and nip potential problems in the bud so we didn't have the traditional post-tournament whining. This was actually easy, but also probably a bit overkill since at this point the vast majority of players were either not interested in the tournament as a competition or not the bitch & moan type......but since we didn't have a problem in this area that's just speculation. What I basically did was simply publish the tournament rules. The rules had a clear-cut defined resolution process for IF a problem occurred and made it clear that issues would be taken care of at tournament and only at the tournament. The rules were posted and each table was given a copy, along with a simple read & sign for all players to acknowledge that they not only understood the rules, but agreed to abide by them.

I really wish I still had these assorted documents so I could share them for the maybe one reader who might be someday considering a tournament. Was this setup perfect? I'm certain it wasn't, but did it accomplish my goals and facilitate players being able to game as much as they wanted during the games we had running at the convention? Yes, yes it did.

Really, the posts for these last two days aren't a gripe about tournaments and definitely not me patting myself on the back for running a successful tournament. Personally I'd love to see more tournaments at conventions. I think most gamers are competitive at heart, even if they are real role-players and just want to have fun. A tournament can put a little bit of different pressure on not only individual players, but on a table as a group and that pressure can change things up a little bit. Depending on the adventure the outside pressure of a tournament might actually heighten some in-game pressures, like if the adventure needs to finished within a specified amount of in-game time.....

Besides, if you have some cool company swag to award to a player, do you simply want a MVP or maybe make the player work for it? I'm kidding......or am I?

Truth though, if I managed to give one person an idea they can use....worth it. 

A One-Sided Discussion Regarding Tournaments (pt1)

If you haven't figured out already I like(d) HackMaster and I've spent a LOT of effort on the game and it's publisher Kenzer & Company. I've done a few things for KenzerCo and one of them was working as their "Tournament Manager". I really don't recall the official title, but I've never been one for titles, unless having one makes it easier to get something done.

Basically I helped set up organized play at the two big cons of Origins (my favorite) and GenCon. Solicited authors, arranged for play-testing, wrangled GMs, and usually had to run a table to three myself. It was a fun, terrible, costly job that went largely unappreciated. Something about spending my vacation time, and a lot of money, attending a convention to work for free took its toll. I considered it a good year if I got to play one game a year at a con.

Yeah.....

My history with tournaments goes way back to 2nd Edition AD&D when I was stationed in Germany. In 1995 and 1996 I got to take place in what was billed as the "National AD&D Tournament". I should have won the tourney in 1995 and I was given the tournament in 1996.....both of these are my opinions (duh) and you can skip this story text easily enough:

In 1995 I made it to the final table of the tournament and I got to play a Magic User, which is probably my preferred class. I can say without a shred of doubt that the only reason my party completed the task at hand was a lot of creative spell-casting, but the winner....determined by MVP vote, went to the elf that had some cheap table theatrics. It didn't help that I really pissed off a husband and wife pair that was at the table. The thing is that along with the randomly assigned PCs, each player got a one paragraph statement of how the felt about each other character at the table. My MU didn't like the fighter Solamnus (or something like that) and was 110% confident the idiot would get him killed someday. The husband was playing who I affectionately called "Salami" pretty much throughout the game.....and I know I threw in "meat-head" once or twice. The player and his wife, took it seriously.....seriously?

The next year at the final table I ended up playing the Paladin....in an adventure revolving around the Paladin questing for his Holy Sword. Again....seriously? The entire adventure revolved around my character......MVP was already titled in my favor before even picking up the dice.

Anyway IF your convention had a tournament in the 90's odds are it was a relatively simple affair. Depending on the number of initial players and the pre-determined number of rounds, you advance enough players to make the needed number of tables and end with one table. Usually advancement is determined by the players, often by a simple MVP vote. This methodology is simple, but easily skewed by the players.

There were earlier tournaments, that I did not take place in, that advanced parties through the tournament rounds and the determining factor of which tables/parties advanced was based on a oint system where if the party took action A they got X points and if they did B they made...or possibly lost, Y points. Party deaths may or may not be a factor in awarding points, but in almost all cases, advancing further netted more points. A badly designed adventure could reward parties that simply pushed harder and not smarter.

When HackMaster was getting off the ground, and really all the way through to the end, they had tournaments. HackMaster was already pretty crunchy and there were a lot of records to keep. Part of the serious parody had to do with being a "Certified" or "Leveled" Game Master. There was an actual test to take (and pass) to be considered a bonafide GM. If you wanted to increase your GM level one thing you had to do was run so many local tournaments. This might be fine if you lived in an urban area, but I can tell you that even in the City of Boise City (literally it's legal name) you could get folks to maybe play, but to get enough folks to meet the two table sized requirement......major PITA. I tried running games, er....tournaments at conventions, at game stores.....we had good games, but not enough to qualify as a tournament.

So tournaments could kind of suck at the local level.......and on the national level I come to find out.

This über-crunchy game with the insane amounts of record keeping did have one potentially cool side-benefit: you could play your home character at a convention tournament. At the two big cons we'd have the "Tournament of Champions" or the "Wurld Championship". Groups would bring their home PCs to the convention and strive to win. Depending on the tournament the winning table and/or winning table MVP would win a "Serial Numbered Item", basically a tracked super special magic item. The idea was great and a lot of people enjoyed themselves, but these HackMaster tournaments had a lot of problems as well:

• If you didn't play as a group, especially a well-rounded group used to working together, you were at a SEVERE disadvantage
• These well-rounded, experienced groups added a steady power-creep and absurd over-reaction in needing to create deadly adventures
• To this day if I hear someone tell me I need to write to counter one specific player's PC or to "hit them sideways" to mess with a certain party, Imma gonna hit that bastard sideways.....with a shovel....which I will use to bury them in the nearest patch of dirt...dead or alive.
• Nothing like travelling cross country to attend a tournament, having to block out HUGE chunks of convention time only to be knocked out of the tournament in the 1st round.
• The competitive nature of these tournaments.......I'm just going to say it....lead to cheaters with PCs that were just jacked. I swear players would find a pushover GM and go fucking nuts. Sorry, but when every one of your PCs has 98% or 99% of potential hit points at 7th level (a statistical anomaly with one PC, but an entire group of PCs? Also, even with the best magic gear in the game, your 6th level non-specialist Magic User isn't casting 37 spells a day.
• Every year, or at least every year I wasn't in charge ('cause I got the head's up) inevitably there would be some problems, some sour grapes, and weeks or months of bitching/griping/moaning how one group was robbed. Of course there weren't issues at the damn convention where they could be addressed, but once groups got home after the con.

Now add in these inherent problems into the joy that is trying to get volunteers on board months before the convention, getting folks to put in 10's to 100's of hours into tournament prep.......it really sounds like tournaments aren't worth it.....

.....and you might be right.

When HackMaster 4th Edition was going away and the new edition was coming in, it was clear the crunchy days and over-the-top competitive tournaments needed to go as well. Tomorrow in pt 2 I'll lay out what I did to change tournaments and maybe it'll inspire someone to run/organize a convention tournament series.

A Little Bit About the 1st OSR Game....

Still not Erik.

When you've got an audience who presumably likes the same things you do, and you want to share something that might be a shared interest....what do you do? In my case I think I'll try to share some things that might not be known to the audience.

In this case I think the Tavern might like to hear a little bit about the OSR, specifically the 1st OSR game....which is probably not what you think it is. Wikipedia talks about the "Old School Revival" starting with the OGL in 2000, and I'm going to call BS on that. Let's look at the dates of some early OSR games:

Labyrinth Lord - 2007

OSRIC - 2006

Swords & Wizardry - 2008

Yeah....well HackMaster beats all of them by more than half a decade! Yeah, I'm calling HackMaster the 1st OSR game. Hear me out. HackMaster wasn't published by TSR/WotC/Hasbro and it doesn't use the OGL.

 I know that too many see HackMaster as a "joke" game and definitely don't see it as an OSR game, which is a shame. Yes, there is a decent bit of parody elements written into the game, but like any game, the real comedy doesn't come from the game.....it comes from the gamers. Murderhobos doing KTATTS generally don't differentiate between systems!

If I haven't lost you yet, hear me out. Now I played HackMaster 4th edition and did transition to the new edition and I should have a clue what I'm talking about as I was a volunteer for a number of years for KenzerCo. I should be a level 5 GM, but I never bothered to apply because by the time I qualified I no longer cared.

Level 5 GM? What? Yeah, well HackMaster was a product of its time and to say it was crunchy was an understatement. At it's core HackMaster 4th Edition (as in it was the 4th edition of D&D.....that was part of the joke, but really what most players thought of it) was about 50% 1st Edition AD&D, 25% 2nd Edition, and 25% home rules. 

Think of it like this. You're in a home group that has been playing D&D for a couple decades. You're all brainy types.....a lawyer and a bunch of engineers and you have an opportunity to print your home game rules for others to play.

In short this is what happened. Wikipedia hits some of the high notes and hopefully I can fill in a few blanks I've learned 1st hand from the D-Team themselves (what we call the KenzerCo folks). Hopefully it'll be obvious where I'm expressing opinion.....that bit about percentages, technically an opinion, but not mine. David Kenzer told me that personally.

Speaking of David Kenzer, HackMaster really exists because of him, even though originally it was just a generic name of a game being played in Jolly Blackburn's Knights of the Dinner Table (KoDT) comic. I'm also not discounting the many contributions to the game from the rest of the D-Team, KenzerCo staff, and other contributors (I've written a game rule or two that got published through the HackJournal).....but I digress.

My introduction to Kenzer was at a con where some rabid fanboy had him cornered and was trying to explain how a particular rule worked despite the fact he was a) wrong, and b) speaking to the guy who literally wrote the rule. Kenzer's response was epic and I wish I could remember the fine details, but he basically told the dork he was wrong because he wrote that rule, and that it was literally his game and if he wanted to make a rule stating that this nerd got a permanent -1 to all his dice rolls in a HackMaster game then it would be so. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Kenzer was not being impolite to the guy, but he was kind of being a bit of a dick.....and believe me when I say that won me over instantly. He's actually a great guy, just doesn't suffer idiocy well because he doesn't have to.....

OK anyway a super important thing to know is that Mr Kenzer is a lawyer and not just any lawyer, but an intellectual property lawyer. KenzerCo was doing their thing and Jolly Blackburn was transitioning from publishing Shadis to breaking out KoDT to it's own comic. He put out three issues before a problem occurred: the printer totally screwed up the printing of issue #4. IIRC there aren't too many issues of the messed up copies out there, but I have one and it is unreadable as it looks like the font was substituted with some knock-off win-dings font. A disaster of this magnitude is the kind of thing that would put the comic under. Luckily Jolly was able to join KenzerCo and they funded the re-print. Now I'd argue KenzerCo is more known for KoDT than HackMaster, which is a shame since they've had a few other hits...and at least one big miss. 

Now I can't recall the exact timeline, but WotC, just barely pre-Hasbro, released the  Dragon Magazine archive in PDF form.....and they didn't have the rights to reprint the KoDT strips. Just a head's up, probably not a good idea to violate the intellectual property rights of a small company headed by a well-known intellectual property lawyer! Eventually WotC was rolled into Hasbro and plans were well underway for D&D version 3.0. 

The way I heard it, the powers that be figured nobody would care so much about 1st & 2nd Edition once 3rd Edition came out, so settling a guaranteed loss in court for rules nobody will miss....seemed like an easy choice for Hasbro. KenzerCo went from maybe having a different publisher make a game for them to having the rights to print their home game. I'm sure Hasbro wasn't too pleased when HackMaster won Game of the Year at Origins, and the game ran strong until the rights/terms of the settlement expired. We had some great tournaments at the big cons, smaller cons, but I'd say the game was a bigger hit with countless home groups that had been playing 1st/2nd Edition in someone's basement for a couple decades. I've lost count how many people told me they loved/played HackMaster with their home group, but would never consider coming to a con to play (which is a shame).

If you like playing 1st Edition you really should see if you can get your hands on 4th Edition HackMaster, especially some of the supplements. The Goods & Gear, the Spellslinger's Guide to Wurld Domination, all of the Hacklopedia of Beasts...all good stuff. Just drop anything that sees too silly, but take a second look 'cause under the right situation even the stupid stuff might work. KenzerCo cannot sell most of the line anymore, but you can still find it out in the wild if you keep your eyes open. I was in a random hobby shop outside of Ft Bragg last December and found a full set of Hacklopedia of Beasts at a good price.....too bad I've had several sets, but down to one now.

Guest Post by Phil Reed - Kickstarter and Steve Jackson Games, A Response to Michael S

I'm always excited to present guest posters here at The Tavern. When that guest poster is none other than Phil Reed of Steve Jackson Games, I'm well beyond thrilled - Tenkar

Kickstarter and Steve Jackson Games, A Response to Michael S

Thank you, Erik, for sharing our recent "Kickstarter Projects Report" with your readers. We try to share as much info as we can (please see our annual Stakeholders' Report), and with Kickstarter, where so many gamers are helping us to create the things, we thought it essential to continue that transparency.

I noticed that Michael S commented on your share of our report and wanted to answer as best we can. In the comment, Michael wrote:

"I would really enjoy hearing how they manage their KS projects from the inside. Do they have dedicated KS staff? How much of the item is completed before they run a KS? How do they manage all their stretch goals?"

Taking each question one at a time:

* "Do they have dedicated KS staff?" We do not. In most instances in the past, Steve and our marketing staff handled constructing and managing active/ongoing campaigns. Since the Munchkin Unicorns project last summer, I've taken on a large percentage of the Kickstarter management -- including outlining and planning -- with assistance from Steve, Susan, and others as appropriate. (Andrew Hackard, for example, is involved in each Munchkin project.)

* "How much of the item is completed before they run a KS?" That varies from project to project, but we try to have the majority of the work done before even launching a Kickstarter project these days. That both provides us will more info to share -- in Munchkin Steampunk: Girl Genius, for example, the team finished all of the cards and prepared them for final review before the campaign launched -- and helps us to avoid the temptation to over-complicate a project.

We don't always have the work completed before going to Kickstarter -- the Hexagram zine project, for example, is still being created -- but we try to have a lot finished. This makes it more likely that we can deliver on schedule . . . or at least close to on schedule.

* "How do they manage all their stretch goals?" Just like everyone else: A mix of marketing and magery. Stretch goals serve to maintain excitement as a campaign unfolds and to improve the final product. The trick is in balancing momentum while, more importantly, not transforming a financial success into a failure.

The majority of our stretch goals are written down and planned before we push the "launch" button -- here is where it helps that most of the work is also done at this time -- but then we're flexible with positioning those stretch goals in the project. We know roughly how much each one adds to the project's expense, so we can shift them around as necessary in reaction to a campaign's performance.

Additionally, some stretch goals are "we must do this," so we try and push those to the front of the campaign. The last thing we ever want to see is that one of our "we really want this to happen" stretch goals fails to unlock. That would lead to more crying than we've seen since the Ogre Designer's Edition project.

Michael, I'm not sure if this properly answers your questions, but I hope that we've provided you with a little more info that helps you to better understand how we approach Kickstarter.

Thanks, Erik, for allowing me to share this with your readers, and for sharing our Kickstarter campaigns on your site! -Phil Reed

Guest Review - Role Gate (Play by Chat Platform)

I've failed as a player in Play by Post in the past. There just never seemed to be a platform that was a good fit and I think you need a strong GM to make it work well. I want to thank Valdus for directing me (and The Tavern's readers) to Role Gate. While it still has a few kinks to work out, I think the potential is damn near limitless.

Now, onward to our guest review - Tenkar

Here in New Orleans, I am a lonely gamer, living in a place where people live out their fantasies not on the tabletop but in the streets. In my 20+ years of searching for a satisfying online gaming environment, I came across a lot of hacks and snake oil merchants. Platforms like Fantasy Grounds sell you a product then string you along with an endless parade of modules and rules. I even went so far as starting my own play by post site which was quickly run completely amok.

Recent online resources have come into the picture. But both Roll20 and Discord, while great for most, tend to demand either a learning curve or sitting in a chatroom waiting for people to play what you want to play, let alone a willing game master.

But RoleGate looks different.

RoleGate.com is an RPG in-browser platform that offers a suite of rpg chat elements. Far more user-friendly than Discord or Roll20, RoleGate comes ready-made for some serious gaming. Running and syncing instantly from any platform (PC, phone or Pad) that has a browser, RoleGate allows players and GM's to chat, threading a dialogue with tabs for characters, game settings, and an index where the GM can divide their game into chapters, acts and scenes.

Yeah but let's face it, all online RPG aids, no matter play-by-post or virtual tabletop, come down to the dice roller right? RoleGate has a wealth of dice combination and options for easy macro codes to roll stats with a simple cut and paste. And more customizable dice are on the way.

So why not just log onto Discord? I did both. On Discord I set up my own room, invited a bunch a people and tried to set up bots for dice rollers, and quite frankly had trouble with the flow of dice macros and making a private room in the channel wasn't the easiest thing in the world. Go ahead call me an OSRIC-Idiot.

RoleGate had everything ready-made, it's all there without any restrictions even on my Basic account- which I upgraded to copper. RoleGate's fantasy economy works on tips given when someone writes or plays well, in the form of coins, the metal (from copper to platinum- sound familiar) corresponds with the tiers of subscription. These tiers correspond to a library of icons for use in chat. 

Schooled in 1980's loose-leaf character sheets or later on, the easy user interface of the classic Neverwinter Nights, I'm not big on the learning curve. RoleGate is an online RPG version of "plug in and play." The community is strong on Reddit and Discord, and if you're willing to GM you can run a game on just about anything. I am running a World of Dungeons campaign.

RoleGate.com is a great playing platform, a great base with many features coming in the future (members can use their coin to vote for suggested features). Whether you are a free basic member, copper or platinum, the platform offers the same gaming features. Think of these coins as just membership 'bling' and does not affect the gaming experience.

So for this lonely gamer, RoleGate.com may be my go-to virtual tabletop, when I'm not slaying paper-mache dragons in the streets of New Orleans.  - Valdus

The Tavern is always looking for reviews and guest posters from the community.