Rogue Games Tabbloid -- March 28, 2009 Edition

28 March, 2009

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

ROGUE FEED

as many as they could.

[Lost Works] History of Empire City, Part 5

At 10:05 AM the next shock hit not only the city, but a watching world, as Tower 2 collapsed under the stress of the plane’s wreckage and the heat from the jet fuel fire. At 10:28 AM Tower 1 collapsed, and Empire City’s skyline was forever changed. Later that day at 5:20 PM 7 World Trade Center collapsed as a city tried to process what had happened. In the end the damage was staggering.

MAR 27, 2009 11:23P.M.

This is the last section dealing with the history of Empire City. Of all the

1 World Trade Center, 2 World Trade Center, 7 World Trade Center, 5

history sections, this, I think, was the weakest. The reason, is that I did not have the words I needed to flesh it out. Also, I really was not confident enough in myself to tackle the then still raw emotions from 9/11. Plus I had the limits of what was already in the SAS rulebook. There was some background in there, but not enough to fully ground the pseudo city in reality.

World Trade Center, and the North Bridge had collapsed. Partially collapsed were 6 World Trade Center, the Marriott Hotel, 4 World Trade Center, and One Liberty Plaza. Structures suffering major damage included East River Savings Bank, Federal Building, 3 World Trade Center, St. Nicholas Church, 90 West Street, and Bankers Trust. While the Millennium Hilton, 2 World Financial Center, 1 World Financial Center, 30 West Broadway, Winter Garden, and the N.Y. Telephone Building suffered structural damage. In total the attack caused $34 billion in property damage, and the loss of 13 million square feet of office space.

After this section, we then move into the description of each of the five boroughs. Present Day – 2000s

A year later, the site cleared of rubble it stands as a reminder of the attack. Though plans are under way to rebuild, the city is on edge. Terrorism is now part of her fabric, and not a day goes by that many wonder when it will happen again. From an anthrax scare that rocked not only Empire City, but also Washington, DC in October 2001, to the increased amount of security on bridges, in tunnels and in the transit system, the city has changed. Even with all the tragedy the city saw, Empire City pushes forward.

No matter what troubles Empire City faced, she survived them all. By the late 1990’s, the city seemed ready once again to turn a corner. The economy was flourishing, tourism was up, and crime was down. Hordes of young dot-comers and venture capitalists flocked to Silicon Alley seeking to create a technology boom rivaling all others. It was a time of mega mergers where New Economy companies bought Old Economy corporations with nothing more than stock notices. Empire City was booming, but just when everything was going well things changed.

Since the attack the city once again faces budget problems. The federal government has helped fund the clean up and rebuilding, but costs are high and the city is finding it hard to pay for it all. Added to this is many companies forced to implement deep job cuts, making an already big unemployment problem, bigger. Faced with all this the current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has had to deal with the fallout. Though the city survived, and is slowly recovering, the wounds have healed and the city has grown stronger.

First, the economy began slowing, and companies worth millions on paper found they had no money to stay in business. Fueling this was daily news reports of large corporations rigging accounts so board members could make larger profits off the backs of their investors. Companies who found soaring profits in the 90s found profits and demand for their products falling. This led to massive job cuts, and a growing unemployment rate. Already bruised, Empire City suffered what many thought was the fatal blow.

Posted in Games Tagged: Empire City, Games, Lost Works, thoughts September 11, 2001 the sun was shining in a clear blue sky. It was a typical Tuesday morning and people were making their way to work. This changed at 8:45 AM when a plane crashed into Tower 1 of the World Trade Center. While witnesses were still trying to comprehend what happened, a second plane crashed into Tower 2 at 9:03 AM. For the next hour, Empire City tried to come to terms with the event, while the cities real heroes (Firemen, Police, and Paramedics) came to the rescue. With both towers burning they entered with the only thought of rescuing

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

28 March, 2009

ROGUE FEED

point, the focus of the game shifts away from the dungeon and toward establishing and maintaining a “barony.” If you read reminiscences of the earliest campaigns in the hobby, such as Blackmoor and Greyhawk, you’ll see that this was the case.

On the Loss of D&D;’s Endgame MAR 27, 2009 03:00P.M.

The Expert Rules present this shift in focus not as an “add-on” or accretion to the Basic Rules but as a natural development of them. Exploring and taming the wilderness, building a castle, and ruling a domain — these aren’t alien to D&D; they’re a major part of what the game was intended to be about. This only makes sense, given the origins of the game in wargaming and yet they’re topics that got short shrift even in AD&D, never mind later editions. In this sense, I’d say that, for all my issues with the presentation of Cook/Marsh and Mentzer, they’re truer to OD&D than were their various descendants. I can’t stress this point enough, because I think it’s a vital counterbalance to the tendency to see D&D, especially old school D&D, as solely about acquiring ever more power in the service of venality. Not only do I think that tendency does a disservice to D&D‘s origins, but I also think it exaggerates the themes of pulp fantasy to ludicrous heights. While not every Picaro will eventually settle down, many will, particularly if their players wish to continue playing that character beyond a certain point. The Expert Rules showed how to do that; they were where D&D‘s endgame was fleshed out and revealed it as the logical extension of all that had gone before.

You’ll find lots of gamers who will sing the praises of the Basic Rules published in the early 80s (either 1981’s Moldvay version or 1983’s Mentzer version) — and rightly so — but it’s rare to find many who express the same affection for the Expert Rules, whether the Cook/Marsh or Mentzer version. I personally find that a bit odd, because, for me, the Expert Rules are one of those places I can clearly point to and say, “This is what D&D is all about.” I’m certain that strikes at least a few people as odd. The Basic Rules introduce not only the rules of the game, but also its default setting: the dungeon. If anything is “what D&D is all about,” it’s the dungeon and surely the Basic Rules do a far better job of describing that environment and what it’s like to play in it than do the Expert Rules, which muddy the waters with all this talk of wilderness adventuring and building strongholds and creating magic items and the like. Right? Well, I’m one of those oddballs who takes seriously the notion that Dungeons & Dragons, despite its name, is actually about more than dungeon delving. After all, OD&D devotes a goodly amount of its sparse verbiage to adventuring in the wilderness — so much so that the term “sandbox” is every bit as significant for old school play as is “megadungeon.” Indeed, OD&D makes it pretty clear that, after a certain

I hesitate to say that the Expert Rules are where Dungeons & Dragons “grows up,” because that implies a childishness to dungeon delving that I

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

28 March, 2009

don’t think is appropriate. Nevertheless, the Expert Rules are where D&D grapples with the nature of what it means to have reached high level — to have “grown up” mechanically — in a fantasy world. Certainly characters could continue to remain aloof from the world around them, remaining outsiders forever on the make, but how satisfying would that be for their players? The Expert Rules offer up new options of play, things that characters could take up in order both to expand the scope of the game and to ensure that beloved characters can continue to be played even after it no longer makes much sense for them to continue adventuring. These are the rules for King Conan of Aquilonia, as opposed to Conan the wandering Cimmerian. I am ever more convinced that the progressive deformation of the original Gygaxo-Arnesonian vision of the game is due to the loss of D&D‘s logical endgame and its replacement by vapid alternatives. Only by restoring that endgame can Dungeons & Dragons again become the game it was meant to be.

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