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THE EIGHT TRACK MIND #18
Ramblings on RPGs, games, SF, and other things
January 1996
Virgil Greene
email: klyfix@aol.com
Well, another year, and this time it's a Leap Year! Whee! Off hand, the only significance that has other than the additional day is some old custom about women being allowed to ask a man to marry them or some such archaic and absolute thing.
Of course the more serious significance of 1996 for Americans is the Presidential Election. We approach the New Hampshire primary in February and by the end of March the GOP nomination should be pretty much settled. The surprise of this contest has been the sudden appearance of Steve Forbes (aka Malcolm Forbes Jr.) as a contender, passing Gramm and Buchanan and settling into a pretty solid second place behind Senator Dole. His campaign is a bit goofy to me; I saw one of his ads where he condemned his opponents for spending taxpayer money on their runs and burst out laughing. Is he saying that only rich guys who are willing to spend $25 million of their own money should run for President? I suspect his success may cause a re-think on the part of folk who advocate eliminating limits on campaign donations; candidates backed by the rich would have tremendous advantages. :) I still think Dole will get the nomination and that the President will win re-election and that the Demos will regain one house of Congress. While I'll be pleased that the Newtlings won't be leading us into the next century, I can't say that the Demos will provide ideal leadership either. I see the decline in average wages, the loss of higher paying jobs, and the lack of vision for a better world and for a greater future for humanity (yup, getting mankind out of the cradle and into the Solar System is part of that) as our long term problems and I really don't see answers from the Left or the Right, the GOP or the Demos here. Oh well, maybe World Leadership will pass on to some other nation or group of nations that develops that vision. The US seems to be rather uncomfortable with world leadership and may happily slide into comfortable isolationism.
It does seem that an RPG (yes, lets get On Topic! :)) set in a realistic near-future might be kind of boring. I don't think it's realistic to guess that we'll have much in the way of space colonies and/or space based industry in the next twenty years. I also don't see a cyberpunkish hell future either...hmm, wait a minute. Figure a future where the US government is minimalist, providing little in the way of services while concentrating on paying off the Reagan Era deficits. The future US with minimal regulation or controls on business becomes the operating center for almost all multinational corporations. The upper class is the major shareholders of the corps. The middle class is the employees of the corps; mostly well educated specialists. These folk live in nearly self- contained communities (arcologies perhaps?) with almost all their needs provided by their employer in very nearly a serf and liege relationship.They are maybe 10% of the population. The vast poor masses do drudge work for the upper classes if they are lucky or struggle to survive in an ignored underground economy if they aren't. That's not that implausible, actually and would be pretty likely if a GOP majority of Newtlings controls both houses of Congress and there's a Newtling President (not Dole) for an extended time. See the above as a ramble and take it with a grain of salt. :)
Official Topic
Predictions
I see role playing games staying around for years to come, but perhaps in different forms. I note that the troops stationed in Bosnia went through role playing exercises to learn how to deal with a peacekeeping mission as opposed to the old job of training to blow away as many enemies as possible. That's as much role playing as the stuff we do in our games, and with a far more serious purpose.
I think that "hack and slash", "kill the monsters and take their stuff" style gaming will shift mainly into other forms than paper and pencil table top gaming. I've seen it said that the way to deal with a "munchkin" power gamer is to buy him some Magic: the Gathering cards. :) Well, there are now trading card games that are intended to be used in (sort of) role playing scenarios. Dragon Storm from Black Dragon Press (designed by Gatekeeper Press) and Ruinsworld from Medallion Simulations and A&B Entertainment mix the RPG and CCG concepts. Dragon Storm, judging by the ad I've seen, appears to be a campaign oriented game with a GM but with GM and player cards for play. Ruinsworld, judging from a preview in Scrye #12, seems to be more in the spirit of Talisman; while the players form an adventuring party and fight monsters and all that, they set winning conditions for themselves before the game starts. It's role playing in a sense, but with individual victories. The collectable dice game Throwing Stones (Gamesmiths) features a role playing game option in a separate book. I think these will appeal to hack and slashers. This isn't a bad thing actually; there's a lot of fun in that sort of gaming. :)
While I think that nothing can really replace old fashioned face to face gaming, it does seem that a lot of role playing is taking other forms. Look at how many IR contributors are involved in play by email games. I suspect that there's bucks to be made in utilities for PBEM; note Dave H's comments in "The Skeleton Key" in the last IR on managing the vast amount of campaign info [David had noted that data management was one of the biggest problems in running a Play By Email game]. Live Action Role Playing is getting pretty big it seems; note that there are live versions of Vampire: the Masquerade and Castle Falkenstein. These are two ends of the spectrum. At one side, we have PBEM where the players don't meet to play except perhaps in teleconference and there's therefore little in the way of set game times. At the other end, we have LARP where a game is an Event; a major undertaking with props and costumes and other trappings. Eventually we'll have Virtual LARP; a fusion of the two.
I'm not sure what the next great RPG theme will be. The recent biggies have been Dark Fantasy with players as angst ridden monsters and Victorian Fantasy like Castle Falkenstein and perhaps older games like Space 1889 and Cthulhu by Gaslight. I suspect that there will be some exploitation of some lesser known myths and legends. Note that there's been GURPS Aztecs and GURPS Voodoo source books; I suspect that there'll be settings involving African and Australian Aboriginal legends sometime.
I believe that the attempts to develop "diceless" games, where dice and other random result determiners aren't used, will fail overall. From what I gather (admittedly limited info) this sort of thing is popular with GMs but not with players. It's basically GM's fiat gaming where PC success is as much a function of manipulating the GM as role playing; I would suggest that a GM may not see it that way if they are being successfully manipulated. I don't buy the notion that it frees the players from the rule of dice; instead of rolling against a skill to achieve a success you have to convince the GM that what you're trying to do will work and hope that it fits the GM's storyline.
I think CCG's will die off, leaving maybe three or four standing if that many. Wizards of the Coast could have taken their mass of Magic players and got them into RPGs; heck, they could have developed a CCG RPG. But they've instead dropped their role playing games. Best thing they could do now is invest the M:tG profits in stocks and bonds. Greg Stafford of Chaosium noted in Duelist #7, "Every trading card game, no matter how poor, sells out it's first limited print run. No card game except Magic, no matter how good, sells out its second print run." The Mythos CoC based CCG is being produced to pay off some debt and is only planned to have one print run for the basic set and the expansions, it was noted. I think Stafford is being very wise.[I think they did end up with additional printings.]
I don't see any new breakthrough systems, as opposed to settings, in the foreseeable future. People bought _Shadowrun_ and _V:tM_ and other successful games because of the neat settings, not because of the mechanics. I think CCG RPGs might manage to find a niche, but they won't revolutionize gaming. Of course, for all the advances in gaming since original _D&D_, AD&D with the silly levels and spell book memorizations and rigid class separations and all that is still the leading role playing game. There's not been a new system that surpassed AD&D in sales or players despite superior, more sensible mechanics. Perhaps a majority of players find a system they like and stick with it rather search for the Perfect System. Why learn a new system if AD&D (or whatever) works for you?
Hmm, now for our RPG gaming two hundred years from now. Picture us (yes, us) "downloaded" from our dying bodies into a sort of computer module; our consciousnesses maintained permanently. Picture some really huge and realistic games in cyberspace; the wealthy amongst us as PCs and those of us who "died" poor working as NPCs so that we can buy time outside our modules to pursue our own activities. Picture some cyber folk permanently living "in character"; never leaving a fantasy world they had the resources to create. Could be fun.
REVIEWS
Made in GoatsWood Scott David Anioloski, editor Chaosium
This collection of stories is noted as "a celebration of Ramsey Campbell" and consists of tales set in Campbell's "Severn Valley" "Cthulhu Mythos" setting in England. I must confess that I'm not overly familiar with Ramsey Campbell's work and have read a total of three Mythos stories (one in this book) by him. So I will assess the book on an individual story basis.
The first story, "A Priestess of Nodens" by A.A. Attanasio is a nice take on one of the more obscure and nearly benevolent Mythos entities. But it notes that even a benefit from such a being may have a dark side.
"Ghost Lake" by Donald R. Burleson is a decently horrific take on Campbell's Mythos tome The Revelations of Glaaki, or perhaps more correctly the origins of the tome.
"Beauty" by Fred Behrendt tells why one may not want to revisit one's childhood home and friends if it happens that one grew up in the Severn Valley. A bit gruesome.
"Unseen" by Penelope Love deals with an unfortunate discovery at an archaeological dig; a mask of Byatis.
"Fortunes" by Keith "Doc" Herber is a decent short story, but could have been set anywhere.
"Cross My Heart, Hope to Die" by J. Todd Kingrea combines the normal horrors of childhood bullies with dark gods. I found it a bit disturbing.
"I Dream of Wires" by Scott David Aniolowski is apparently based as much on songs by Gary Numan ("Cars" and "Praying to the Aliens" are the only ones I know) as on Campbell's setting. I didn't really get it.
"The Turret" by Richard A. Lupoff seemed like a variation on "The Shadow out of Time" by HPL and had an unsatisfying ending.
"The Second Effort" by John Tynes posed a fascinating question; what is the real relationship between the entities noted in forbidden tomes like the thirteenth book of The Revelations of Glaaki and the writings themselves? One of my favorite stories.
"The Queen" by Diane Sammarco deals with Campbell's Insects from Shaggi. It's an interesting story, but has the flaw of having a supposedly Overpowering Evil that can be defeated by an average individual.
"The Undercliffe Sentences" by Peter Cannon seemed to be a parody of another work or character when I was reading it, and when I read Michael Lavoie's review of this book in the last IR that was confirmed. As I'm not familiar with the original story I missed half the joke.
"The Awakening" by Gary Sumpter is a fair story.
"Random Access" by Michael G. Szymanski is a well written tale about those Insects from Shaggi and modern technology and human ingenuity.
"Free the Old Ones" by C.J. Henderson is the story most like a Call of Cthulhu game; cultists endangering the world and a small group of people to oppose them without the support of the authorities. Pretty decent, and I can see the title on bumper stickers just like in the story.
"The Music of the Spheres" by Kevin A. Ross takes a unique look at the "Nemesis" idea of the dinosaur's destruction and what happens when Nemesis is discovered. A good story.
"Growing Pains" by Richard Watts was more distasteful than horrific.
"The Beard of Byatis" by Richard M. Price was old-fashioned feeling story, but that's not a bad thing, pretty good actually.
"The Horror Under Warrendown" by Ramsey Campbell is a pretty good treatment of the "village with a terrible secret".
Overall, it's a good collection. It's also the first of Chaosium's "Cthulhu Cycle" series that actually has a good looking cover; the art is pretty good. Now someday, I'll learn how to review and I'll be able to review a collection more efficiently.
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
John Clute and Peter Nicholls
St.Martin's Griffin edition
This book was a winter gift giving present from Peter Maranci (yes, the editor) and occasional IR contributor Lois Folstein. Every SF fan should get a copy of this thing; there's loads and loads of fascinating stuff in here. It covers pretty much every SF writer that's had a book published, and that includes such odd names as Douglas Hurd the British politician. :) It also covers major books, comics with an SF connection, SFTV, and SF movies and lots of other stuff. The one flaw is that it was compiled around 1992 before the great burst of SFTV so you'll find no listings for Babylon 5, post STNG trek, or The X Files. I'd also note that the entries have a bit of commentary on the virtue of the writer or book or dramatic presentation, but not so much as to be aggravating. There's also a CD ROM edition from Grolier Electronic Publishing that features film clips and video interviews with authors and other enhancements; I've not seen that in action however. I would encourage anyone with an extensive interest in SF to pick either version. If your taste is for fantasy, you're out of luck here; it only covers a few works and authors that could be considered to have influenced SF or that have SF elements.