post world games

Someday I’ll get back to posting about my own designs, but in the meantime I’ve played Fiasco six times in the last eight days.

What the hell? How is that possible?

Nov 2. Dirty Cops with the gang. We played some really dirty cops in the one. But Westen and James tried to turn it all around at the end. Aaron and I went to prison or died. I don’t recall. But working directly with drug dealers who have blown your cover is really f***ed up.

Nov 5. Three games of Fiasco with Steve and friends. Dirty Cops, Business Casual, and Lucky Strike. Even dirtier cops then last time, Carrie overdose on Methadone to end it all once it was discovered she was hooked on the H. Business Casual devolved into porn. Meh. And Lucky Strike was surprisingly good, considering I didn’t expect much.

Nov 8. Dragonslayers and Lucky Strike. Dragonslayers is an amazing idea with poor ingredients on the chart. I feel like it was purposely made to be campy, when the humor will emerge naturally from the game. Lucky Strike with three players was amazingly funny. Hats off to Westen for playing 100 NPCs equally well.

And it looks like we’re playing again on Nov 12 and 13. Unbelievable.

Last night we tried the playset called Liquidation. The link is here.

http://yarukizero.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/fiasco-liquidation/

I really wanted to like this playset. The concept was strong, but I think the ingredients failed to live up to the creativity of the setting. It does not help that we have one player who continually does the same with the game, failing to understand that the players are supposed to lose, not one-up each other.

But.

That aside, I never once saw anything on the charts really grab me. I felt as though to truly do this as a fiasco reminiscent of Office Space, all of the relationships needed to be work relationships with varying shades of gray and that perhaps people needed to define their roles a little more strongly with entries that were more flavorful than, “You need to find where the money is hidden.” Elements like this leave you wanting, and not in a good showmanship kind of way.

In the end, we had a backroom gambling operation that never panned out and of course the cops were involved in the final moments of the story, which felt contrived. Can we do a fiasco without the cops involved?

I think the playset is in need of some editing, but I’m too excited to move onto some other one’s to be bothered to do it myself. In fact, now I’m inspired to finish the three I’ve been working on.

Later.

I was in Vegas for a few days and I spent an hour shooting a few small arms at the Gun Store way off the strip. I spent over $200 but it was well-worth every penny.

I fired an M1 rifle, M1911A1 pistol, AR15 rifle, a shotgun (I think it was the Remington, but they didn’t tell me and I was too busy shooting to look), and finally the Uzi (both semi-auto and full auto).

Anyway. I had a blast and I started to realize. One, I didn’t realize gun X had so much recoil, or the barrel was that heavy, etc. And then, I realized. Wait. I’m a game designer. Wouldn’t it be fun to make a game based on everything you know about only the guns you’ve personally ever fired.

And you could include information on how they performed for you and so on.

If I designed a game this way, right now, I would design it so that the Uzi was the best gun (it was brainlessly easy to fire accurately). And since my wife fired an Ak-47, the rules would say, “even a girl can use it.” And if you think I’m being sexist, I should point out her gun was pink with a Hello Kitty sticker.

Just saying.

More posts later this week.

I am so bad at this blog thing. If I had a topic that was bugging me, I could write 5,000 words on it in an hour and be posting in without even a read-through. But when it comes to talking about my games or what I’m working on, I turn into an introverted idiot.

While I continue to have people read Dying Memories and push off my publishing of a done-game, I have moved onto the Plague (as well as two card games, a board game, and two more roleplaying games). For lack of a better word, I alone would want to run/play the plague, but my friends have been very helpful in helping me playtest it anyway.

Five games later… I think I have something.

The original concept for the Plague was to toy with the concept of isolation and the effects it has on people. How decisions change when people stop thinking their behavior affects those around them.

And I think I’m onto something, finally.

First off, the game can be played with or without a GM, but it is clear to me that a GM is the way to go. Secondly, I’m still running into the issue of what are “scenes about.” A great deal of the other factors of the game (behavior, interludes, symptoms), all work very well. But scenes are so frickin’ short, I’m finding it difficult to get people to roleplay longer than a few minutes. And for a game that lasts maybe 6 or 8 scenes long, this is a bit of an issue. Scenes should be 15-20 minutes long, not 5.

The present character sheet includes the stats of Anchor (which is how rooted to reality you are), Hope (self-explanatory), and Willpower (you bridge to things, rather than people). Like a standard RPG, these values start at X based on the player’s allocation of points, although frankly I think 7 points amongst the 3 is too much.

There’s also a stat called Isolation, which players cannot control (directly). It works fabulously at the moment. I’m very happy about this.

In the meantime, I’ve conceived on a cool idea for a drama booklet that aids the players/GM with telling the story of The Plague. I’m eager to get cranking on this.

Okay. It’s getting late. I’m going to crank on these charts and post again soon.

The Plague is an experimental roleplaying game about isolation, paranoia, and despair. As an unnamed plague destroys the world outside, the characters have banded together, shutting themselves out from the world around them. Detached and removed from real world events, they have only a few radio broadcasts and the occasional television update to keep them abreast of the changing world. The long wait has begun…

As the story progresses the characters become more and more isolated. Food, morale, and supplies run low. Tensions mount. Instincts take over, survival overrides consideration, and the fight to stay alive begins.

Help will surely come… Eventually. But who among us can wait that long?

We had our third playtest of the Plague and this has been the best session so far. I intend to play again on Wednesday using the same rules. I’ll have better notes then.

Jeff Siadek is promoting his new board game, World Conquerors over on Kickstarter, here.

Alan Pollack has done the box cover, Tim Piotrowski did the map, and I did the card art and graphics. Below is the logo.

And here’s a sample card from the game.

I’ve played the game once, been involved for about five months with graphics, editing, and so on. And now the game is about to get printed. It’s actually really fun. Fun enough for me to post the project on my site, despite being published by someone else.

Check out gorilla games for more information.

Another playtest of the Plague. Much better this time, albeit too many steps and the game fails with just three players on many levels. The relationship matrix needs some work, but the rest of the set-up was bang on. Isolation works perfectly, but the static removal of resources fails. Players need to be prepared for the worst in every capacity, so the event table needs some help and by consolidating it into one chart, I will save a step in game play, albeit the chart will now become more complicated.

Looking forward to the next session.

That’s right. Custom Game Aids for Gamemasters that want authentic looking documents. Hand-scrawled nonsense? Driver’s License? Psychiatric Report? Menus? Toe Tag? Job Application? Passport? Archaic Maps?

Are you serious about the look of your game experience? Then contact me for services and we’ll figure out how best to shake money out of your wallet.

Here’s a sample of the kind of thing I make for my own games.