Rogue Games Tabbloid -- September 3, 2009 Edition

3 September 2009

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

ROGUE FEED

Nonweapon Proficiencies: Bonus: Animal Lore and Hunting (see below). Recommended: Bowyer/Fletcher, Set Snares, Endurance, Cooking, Direction Sense, Camouflage, Alterness

[Lost Works] The Hunter Character Kit

Armor/Equipment: Hunters must have a long bow, and can wear only leather armor. Hunter’s also use only sheaf arrows.

SEP 02, 2009 03:55P.M. This was written back in the mid 90s and appeared in a game club newsletter. That is all I got on this.

Species Enemy: standard Followers: any

The hunter is a character kit designed for the Ranger character class. It was designed using the guidelines presented in The Complete Ranger Handbook. Like all character kits, the hunter, is optional. The Hunter

Special Benefits: Stealth-hunters gain a +5% bonus to Hide in Shadows and Move Silently rolls; Hunting-hunters gain the Hunting proficiency free of charge. This skill improves by +1 every three level the ranger earns.

Description: When a noble wants to have a day of hunting, he does not simply gather his friends and other nobles, and trek into the woods. Instead he calls on a hunter to find suitable game, and to flush it out for the noble to kill.

Special Hindrances: The hunter is the protector of the woods and he takes his role very seriously. He is often seen as a zealot when it comes to over hunting areas, and slaying monsters. Because a hunter works for a liege, he must seek permission to go adventuring.

A hunter is skilled in the ways of the animals. Unlike what the name implies, the hunter works to keep the game population manageable. They do not over hunt, and they seek to stop others from doing that. It is not only the hunter’s job to find the perfect deer, but too keep the woods safe from poachers, bandits, and monsters.

Notes: The hunters takes himself very seriously, and he feels that he is the only one able to watch the woods. He will always stop poachers, and will always seek to put an end to over hunting. Over hunting also includes putting an end to hunting predators (wolves and the like). Why would a hunter seek to stop the hunting of predators? The answer is balance. If there are no predator left in the woods, then an over population of deer, mouse and the like will incur. The hunter always seeks to keep everything in a balance, and he will pursue anyone who seeks to overturn that balance.

Hunters are quite and careful, and prefer to spend their days in the woods, and their nights drinking and boasting. They live by their own code, and answer only to themselves. Requirements: Standard

Posted in Games, thoughts Tagged: AD&D 2E, Gaming, Lost Works, Primary Terrain: Forest thoughts, writing Role: The Hunter is the quite watcher of the woods. It is his job to watch his liege’s land and manage his game herds. Hunters insure that the game herds are manageable, and that overpopulation does not harm the balance of the forest environment. Besides animal control, the Hunter tracks down and slays any creature of evil that invades the forests. It is his duty to insure that the forces of evil do not reign unchecked in the woods. Secondary Skills: Forester, Hunter, Trapper/Furrier Weapon Proficiencies: Required: Long Bow. Recommended: Hand Axe, Knife, Short Sword, Sling.

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

3 September 2009

ROGUE FEED

What a shame.

Ritual Purity SEP 02, 2009 09:25A.M. ROGUE FEED So the latest issue of Fight On! is out — probably the best one to date — and all everyone’s talking about is a four-page editorial cum advertisement by Ron Edwards, intellectual godfather of The Forge (and, I am reliably told by telepaths on the Internet, my secret ally in plotting the destruction of old school gaming).

Retrospective: Bushido SEP 02, 2009 08:12A.M.

On one level, the reaction to Edwards’s article is unsurprising. He’s generally been no ally of those of us who prefer older games and older styles of play. Nor does he, by his own admission, have much experience playing D&D, which is (at present anyway) the cornerstone of most discussions of old school gaming. The actual contents of his piece range from the interesting (his reminiscences of the gaming scene in 1970s California) to the laughable (his unsubstantiated assertion that either Geoffrey McKinney or Jim Raggi — or indeed anyone in the old school renaissance — bowed to “Victorian societal values” in their offerings). Once you get beyond that — and I admit that my first reaction was incredulity too — what’s the big deal? Fight On! is the flagship publication of the old school movement and, as such, has always been a very “big tent.” It’s included articles by all sorts of people, many of whom disagree with one another quite vehemently. I’ll readily admit that I’ve not cared for many of its submissions. Heck, I’ll go farther and state that I’m not actually a fan of big tent philosophies in the first place, but, again, so what? There are still 120 other pages in issue 6 and many of them, particularly the two awesome dungeon levels by David “Sham” Bowman and Tony “Wheggi” Rosten. In what way did Edwards’s article, foolishly provocative and blatantly self-promoting though it was, take away from the rest of the issue’s amazing contents?

When gamers talk about “medieval” or “feudal” Japan, they’re usually referring to the Sengoku or “Warring States” period of the mid-fifteenth through the beginning of the seventeenth centuries. This was a period of decentralization and destabilization, as power shifted away from the shogunate to local daimyos, bringing with it lots of military conflict and political intrigue. This makes it well nigh perfect for the kinds of mayhem characters in RPGs create, which probably explains the appeal of the era — well, that and the ninjas.

The real “crime” here is that Edwards’s editorial was a missed opportunity. Despite all the hue and cry, there are a lot of similarities between the indie RPG movement and the old school renaissance, starting with the wholesale rejection of the corporate model of RPG design and the embrace of new methods of distribution. There’s a lot we could learn from each other. Moreover, I consider Ron Edwards’s Sorcerer & Sword to be a fascinating examination of the swords-andsorcery genre. My many quibbles with that book aside, Edwards is clearly a thoughtful writer and a fan of many of the same literary sources the old school loves so dearly.

The difficulty with Sengoku era Japan is that it takes place not only in the past but also in a foreign country. Most gamers haven’t the foggiest notion about Japanese culture beyond what’s been popularized (typically inaccurately) through comics, movies, and TV shows. To create a RPG set in the era that hits all the right notes is thus a difficult task. Many gamers want their historical games to be “authentic,” but don’t necessarily want them to be “realistic.” That is, they’re not content with games that get socio-cultural details wrong, even as they’re not so keen for those details to get in the way of creating the cool character of their dreams.

His Fight On! piece could have been so much better than it was. He could have drawn on his early gaming memories, his love of S&S stories, and his wealth of experience in shepherding the indie RPG movement to offer some useful insights to us in the old school revival. What we got instead was a bit of agitprop riddled with factual errors and used to promote his new game. It’s all so disappointingly pedestrian. Edwards’s piece isn’t a bad piece because it was written by Ron Edwards; it’s a bad piece because it’s so poorly written and nakedly self-serving.

It’s a tough line to walk and, in my experience, very few RPGs of this sort ever succeed completely. One of the rare exceptions is 1981’s Bushido. Published by Fantasy Games Unlimited and written Paul Hume and Bob Charette (who’d go on to lasting fame with their game Shadowrun), Bushido opted for a what might be better called a “mythic” approach to the Sengoku period. That is, the game’s setting, Nippon, is historical Japan — the place names and geography are the same — but it’s not strictly historical, since it’s filled with ahistorical NPCs, events, and, in some cases, supernatural beings. It’s a bit like the Ars Magica approach to medieval Europe, albeit subtler, since Nippon is much more “realistic”

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3 September 2009

overall than AM‘s Mythic Europe. Consequently, Nippon somehow doesn’t come across as nearly as intimidating as it might if it were presented simply as historical Japan, thereby making it a far better RPG setting in the process. As a game, Bushido is very interesting. Its rules are complex, although not as complex as one might expect from an FGU product. Much detail is given to combat, which is both expected for an RPG of the era and for one set in medieval Japan. Of course, Bushido has rules for far more than combat, including skills, ki powers, and magic. As one would expect, the game also treats questions such as honor and status within Nipponese society, as well as how one acquires and loses them. It’s here, I think, that Bushido really shines, at least if my experiences with the game are any indication. Players quickly acclimate themselves to the rhythms and values of Nipponese life once they see that many of the usual RPG problem-solving tactics will get them killed or, worse, ostracized. There’s something truly glorious in observing this transformation in one’s players and it’s a testament to good game design that such a transformation is even possible, let alone likely. I have a lot of fond memories of Bushido, which always struck me as more “serious” than any of its competitors, including TSR’s late entry Oriental Adventures. I often call Bushido the “Japanese Pendragon” and I think it’s apt: both games treat their subject matter with respect, adopting an approach that’s neither too historical nor too fantastical, a middle road that encourages good roleplaying in a culture whose values are often at odds with those of contemporary Western society. That’s an impressive achievement in any era. That it was achieved more than 25 years ago is all the more remarkable. Plus, you’ve got to love any game whose random encounter table includes almost as many different types of “rude peasants” as the Dungeon Masters Guide does harlots.

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