Station23

 There is a social media craze right now started by Sean McCoy dubbed Dungeon23. Dungeon23 is a framework for creating a megadungeon. You write up one room a day with the idea of having a completed level each month. At the end you have a 365 room dungeon.

The Future of Icons of Paragon City

I do not know what the future of Icons of Paragon City is right now. We took a break over the holidays and will be discussing it soonish. I pushed hard for a weekly game so we could wrap up in the first half of December. The feedback has been positive so far, but I wanted to give people a couple of weeks to decompress before seriously discussing where we go, or if we go anywhere, from here.

The Lessons of Icons of Paragon City

I had this whole series typed up before I made the first post. This section keeps changing as the evaluation shifts. I decided to go ahead and post this so we can move on even though I know this is not the final state of what we have learned from this first session.

The Story of Icons of Paragon City

The run was originally intended to be six sessions with two one off sessions using different characters in the same setting and using the same rules provided by the game master. I missed one of the regular sessions so that was shortened to five. The first one off session was Halloween weekend and saw the players taking on the role of Universal Movie Monster clones funded by an unhappy Council. The other one off we played Worms: Armageddon as not many showed up as it was Thanksgiving weekend, but it was going to see the players as Walmart employees in Paragon City reliving Black Friday in a Groundhog's Day scenario. I guess I like horror themed one off games.

The Origin of Icons of Paragon City

I am a member of some forums where some of us would get together on Saturday nights and play games sometimes. More often than not the game we played was Cards Against Humanity. The game is fun, but you can only cycle through the same cards so many times before the charm begins to wear thin. Roleplaying games and an interest in trying them had been brought up a couple of times, but no one had a real go at running a game for the group as far as I know.

Assimilation of a Subculture

It might not seem like it to a reader of my blog or to some of my acquaintances I have met through gaming, but I become tongue tied when it comes to the topic of gaming with people I do not already know also partake in a related aspect of the various gaming hobbies. Gaming was something I was raised to be ashamed of. It does not help when a very vocal minority actively seeks to prove every bad thing that has ever been said about games and the people that play them. Like any other group of people, it is those furthest removed from reality that grab the most attention from outsiders.

My first brush with Dungeons & Dragons was secretive. I knew beyond any doubt as a young lad that Dungeons & Dragons was not only wrong, but downright evil. Still, it had a certain appeal to it. I would sell off parts of my school lunch to other kids for pocket change. I saved the money for a few months and bought the Rules Cyclopedia from another kid. I read and reread that book over and over and over again and again and again over a period of years. I knew every rule inside and out by virtue of pure repetition.

I had to hide the book from my family. It became akin to a sacred tome I had to protect. This was not easy as I was searched semi-regularly and under different circumstances. I would return home from school some days to find I had to clean my room because it was torn apart in a search. That book was the one thing that could have possibly ever been found in these searches, and I was damned if I was going to allow that to happen.

When one spends more than a decade feeling like an outsider and keeping something a secret, it becomes difficult to share that secret with others not already in on the secret. It's a little embarrassing actually how things come flooding out when you feel you can talk about the secret. I can gush over various games for hours when I find a fellow gamer. My natural reaction around people I do not already know game is still to clam up and keep games to myself.

I grew up to play a few different types of games. I have played some console games although console gaming is one of the gaming hobbies I am less familiar with. I own a few hundred video games for the personal computer. I play a few different miniature games. Some of the earliest posts on this blog were for a Facebook game. I like Magic the Gathering, but do not have the income to keep up with the game and support my other hobbies. My current favourite card game is Sentinels of the Multiverse. Board games are awesome. There are more types of board games than I can keep up with let alone individual board games. I have written my own MUD once upon a time. Role playing is awesome and something I am almost always up for.

The social stigmas are much different about gaming of all sorts than they were when I was growing up. For one thing, there are more gamers than people that do not game. Whether it be card games, board games, role playing games, party games, video games, or what have you, people are downright hungry for both interactive media and the social interaction available through gaming. There is also a greater diversity in the ethnic background and the sex of people that game now compared to my youth. Increased diversity in the gaming audience leads to increased diversity in game developers as well. Increased diversity in game developers means increased diversity in gaming experiences available to the consumer which feeds into increasing the diversity of the audience again.

Recently there have been many articles such as "The End of Gamers" or "'Gamers' don't have to be your audience. 'Gamers' are over." I think such titles state the reverse of what is happening in an attempt to draw attention. Many of the articles I have read have either tried to embrace a minority by declaring no one outside of that minority a gamer, or tried to distance themselves from a minority by declaring that they are not part of gamer culture even though they partake in gaming and enjoy the history while sharing aspects extracted from games socially.

The label of gamer may come to lose all meaning, but it is only because we are approaching a point where it would be easier to have a term for people that do not play games of some sort than to have a tag for people that do. To quote Syndrome from the Invincibles, "And when everyone's super, (evil chuckle) no one will be." We live in a time when there are gamers raised by gamers that are raising gamers.

Gamers, like many people that were once considered outsiders, are now part of the mainstream. There are some gamers that are desperately attempting to hold on to their outlier status. They typical methods for accomplishing this include driving other people away, defining what is not a real game, or burying themselves in some niche within the various gaming hobbies. If somebody enjoys a different type of game or even game experience within the same games as them then they might declare that person to not be a real gamer. The further away the type of gaming moves from their niche, the easier it is for them to label somebody as anything but a gamer. The less like them a person is, the greater the chance that person is to be a 'Fake Gamer'.

Gamer culture will still continue. The history of games will still be there. We will continue to build on that culture as we move forward. There are more people included within the game culture bubble now. Hopefully, as more people pick up games we will continue to see a wider array of games for us to experience. Gaming as a whole is no longer a niche subculture. Yes, there are many types of games that still are, but they bleed into Western culture even if many people are not aware of the nooks and crannies where those games live.

I view gaming and those that partake in gaming in a generally positive light. I have seen a lot of good come from gaming. This is not to say that people that play games are better people than those that do not. Gaming provides a platform of common interest that I have seen many people utilize to build communities and to help others. There are many charitable events held every year that are tied directly to gaming in one form or another. This is not to suggest that negativity is not present. It very much is. It is thankfully a minority of gamers, but it is a very vocal and brazen minority.

I would like to apologize to anyone I ever made uncomfortable or caused them to feel unwelcome when it comes to gaming of any sort. I personally am still adjusting to the current times when society at large considers it okay to enjoy gaming. I am so accustomed to living in the corner that I am hesitant to venture further into the room where the rest of the gamers are mingling and helping to introduce others to gaming. The corner might be cramped, but I know this corner. The corner is safe. The rest of the room, or people coming into my corner brings the unknown. Fear travels hand in hand with the unknown. This fear is a silly thing. I am working on conquering that fear, but I am not there yet.

Fifth edition preconceptions

This is second post in the Lurking series. This post's topic is...

"What s/he (Nymie the Pooh) thinks about the upcoming 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, and which edition is its favorite. (Note: Pathfinder is also an acceptable edition.)"

I have been through a few renditions of the beta rules. I have also looked through the free starter pdf available from Wizards of the Coast. I have not played the game. I will be joining in a 5e game next week.

I like what I read. I have not looked at the rules in depth nor have I any practical experience. The concepts I am reading sound great. I can not really speak to fifth beyond that.

As for versions, the edition I played the most was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons second edition. I played so that much DMing AD&D 2e reached the point where it was the easiest game I ever ran. There was a time friends would invite me over to play. After arriving I would find out that not only was I DMing, but they had already made new characters I had never seen at a level they wanted to play in a setting of their choosing. My familiarity with the system was at a level where I could get the information from them then start on a fresh cigarette. The game would be up and running before I was done with the first cigarette. I quit smoking 16 Sep 2002 so that gives you an idea of the time frame I am talking about here. Yes, I forget my own birth date. No, I do not forget the day I quit smoking.

Alternity is my favourite edition. It's my article, deal with it. Alternity was my bag for a couple of years. There were way too many skills in that game, and there were fiddly bits, but overall I liked it. For those not acquainted with Alternity, it was a science fantasy game written by Bill Slavicsek and Richard Baker. The publisher was Wizards of the Coast but they were still placing the TSR logo on products at that time. There were other noteworthy names that contributed to Alternity, but this is a post about D&D editions, not Alternity itself. I believe Alternity is important not only because it is a decent game, but also because it bridges the gap that was created late in the lifespan of AD&D 2e while preparing some of the ideas to come in third. Many contributors to Alternity were also contributors to third edition.

Third edition is my favourite edition if Alternity is not permitted by the made up rules I may or may not hold myself to. If WotC had not made the rule set available for everybody to sell content for, third would still fall where it does form me. Third was a good transition from previous editions. In spite of the vast amount of time I spent with AD&D 2e I can see it was a hot mess. I had a lot of familiarity with the system and even I do not remember today how exactly THAC0 works. I know I could figure it out and pick it up again, but there is no need. THAC0 however is just one example, and probably the most obvious one, of why third wins me over when compared to previous editions.

I have not played much Pathfinder. Most of the local Pathfinder players I know are playing Pathfinder Society. The concept seems neat, but I like the idea of the party being able to tell whatever story they want. The idea that a character I have been leveling in one game can be slotted into a game somewhere else and taken around the country like that is a novel one. I can't help but wonder though what kind of impact my character has on the world when those decisions are out of the hands of anybody sitting at the same table I am at. How is this different from a video game where the quest hubs are at set locations? One of the local GMs runs the same packet four times a week as he goes to different locations. I admire him as he is a super nice guy and I do not think my frayed sanity would continue to hold if I attempted to do the same.

Fourth edition is the version I have played the least discounting Pathfinder. I have spent more time with the latest version of Gamma World which was based on the same rules as fourth edition than I have playing real fourth edition D&D. I do not think it is a bad game. It has it's problems such as the time combat encounters require once a few levels in. Like many, it does not give me a D&D vibe. It reminded me quite a bit of games like Warhammer Quest and Descent. Many say it reminds them of video games. I guess I can see that. My friends used to refer to Warhammer Quest as Diablo the Board Game. I think it was mostly how time was handled in relation to powers. Warhammer Quest also had actions that could be used once per turn, once per encounter, or once per dungeon instead of day. The time spent in combat once monsters started to become hit point sponges was the main reason I did not seek out games specifically to play fourth edition.

Since Pathfinder was permitted, I am going to expand on that concept a smidge. True20 is a reworked version of third. I give the edge to third here, but if you like third edition it might be worth your time to take a gander at True20. I like all three versions of Mutants & Masterminds. I was on a small team that got approval to use the license in an Norse mythology themed supplement. About a week after we got the okay to use the license Green Ronin announced second edition would be released at that year's Gen Con two or three months after the announcement. There was a lot of back and forth amongst us as we tried to figure out how we wanted to handle it. The group fizzled as we were not looking forward to redoing the work we had already done, and would not know what would need reworked for a few months. Second edition was very strong however with a very active community. Third edition is the furthest removed from traditional D&D, but still an amazingly versatile system. I highly recommend it if you enjoy d20 systems and want to try your hand at a super hero game. It really is a great choice. If you can find it, there was a fantasy supplement for second that is fabulous. I think both second and third editions of M&M are better than D&D third, but they build upon D&D and would not exist without D&D.

Those are my general impressions on some of the editions preceded by a short blurb of me talking out of my elbow about fifth edition. I think it is the best edition by Wizards of the Coast since third. It has the potential to be the best edition from the little I have seen. Whether it topples third or Alternity for me remains to be seen. If you would like to try fifth edition then you could do much worse than to read this article about getting started by Scott Martin over at Gnome Stew.

I wish Wizards of the Coast luck and I hope their product line remains both profitable and manageable.