Kickstart Your Weekend: Weirdly World News (Night Shift)

What is in store for you when we hit the $5,000 stretch goal of The Night Companion for Night Shift?

A LOT!

Long-time readers might remember an idea I had for a Tabloid RPG called  "Scoop! The RPG of Muckrakers, Tabloids, and Yellow Journalism."  But there was an RPG with a similar name and purpose out there.  Granted it was never published for sale as far I know.  I still didn't want to compete with a product with the same name.

Prior to that, I had ideas for a different sort of game I was calling "The Front Page" which was also about being part of a newspaper, but more in the vein of Kolchak: The Night Stalker.  It had a more serious tone since it was about normal people, not so much as fighting against the darkness but certainly confronting it.

That game also grew out of my time of working with newspapers in high school and college. In college, I was the editor for a semester of The East Side Story, the campus newspaper for the east side of campus, and I had been the editor of our High School newspaper. This was a time when these sorts of things were still in print.  It was a lot of fun and I even very, very briefly flirted with the idea of going into journalism. 

At the $5,000 stretch goal for The Night Companion, I am going to bring you the "Weirdly World News."

In WWN you will play the part of a normal human, more or less*.  You are not the Chosen One, or some road weary hunter, or powerful witch.  You are just a reporter working for hire for the Weirdly World News the Nation's Greatest Newspaper! So your character can be anywhere in the country. You can travel to any place you like to get your story, as long as you keep your receipts and don't go over your per diem.   Your Editor (the GM) helps you find the story, you figure out what to do when you get there.

Whether you stop the threats is up to you.  The goal here is to provide a very low level, no magic, "normal humans" vs "the monsters" sort of game.  

Of course, not all monsters are more powerful than you.  Are the reports of strange nearly-human creatures (goblins) living in the sewers of Sheboygan true?  Well, that sounds like a story to me! 

And some are more powerful, but they are really human. Like poor Wilbur above, not his fault that an evil cult of an Elder God needed his body for...reasons.

*Now I say this, but one of my playtest characters was a vampire working the...huh...the Night Shift, at his local newspaper.  I based this character on Stuart Townsend who played Lestat in "Queen of the Damned," Dorian Gray in "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," and Carl Kolchak in the updated, critically panned, and short-lived, Night Stalker from 2006.

Originally I wanted to use the Fudge system for this (not FATE) but I never really got it all the way I wanted.

With Night Shift and the Night Companion, I can finally get this out to you.

You can play the Weirdly World News just like any other Night World.  You can even mix it in with any other Night World that features the Supernatural-is-Real-but-Hidden aspect.  So it works great with Ordinary World (in fact it is the opposite side of the same coin) or any of Jason's Night Worlds.

You can play it straight, say like the newer Night Stalker where the enemies are powerful, evil and you are way, way outmatched.  Or with an air of comedy. Sure the vampires, werewolves and whatever are all still dangerous, but they are NOTHING compared to dealing with accounting and that $20 you overspent!

I imagine most folks will want to play this with the harder edge.  Night Shift is the best system for this and I have tried it in a few now!  You have no magic, no powers, and everything you are against is a lot more powerful than you.  

I have also played this as independent reporters like bloggers (wonder where that idea came from) submitting stories to WWN.  At GaryCon I ran a version of this called Spector Detectors! where everyone was part of a "U-Tube" ghost hunting show. 

So, there is a lot you can do with this.  The stretch goal lets us pay for some more art.

Who knows.  Maybe YOU will hear the awful squeaking in the night of the legendary Rat Baby!

#RPGaDAY2021 Day 13 Doom

It's Friday the 13th on #RPGaDAY!  Always a fun day here at the Other Side.  Let's see what the day has in store for us.

Day 13 Doom

I have to admit Doom was one of the first words that jumped out at me when I was reviewing all these words back in July.

Back in High School, we ran a set of interconnected AD&D adventures. My DM would run games that included me as a player and games that didn't, I ran games that included him and others that didn't.  All of these games and a few that bled over into my early college days came to be known to me as the Dragon Wars.  They were designed to be a huge world-ending event.  And to a degree they were.  Our individual worlds ended and what would eventually become to be known as Mystoerth to me now was born.

But I am not talking about rebirths and Mystoerths now.  Today I want to talk about the end.

I suppose in a way "Flood" also works into this since there are so many myths out there about a great flood destroying the world, only to lead to rebirth.  But my worlds were not destroyed by water, it was fire that got them.

The scope of that game was epic. I wanted a real Return of the King vibe to it and I got it.  So much so that when I did my next "world ending" series of adventures, The Dragon and the Phoenix, for the Buffy RPG I went back to ideas from the Dragon Wars to help fill out some elements for Buffy.  I even brought back Big Bad from the Dragon Wars to fight against Buffy and the Scoobies in TD&TP.  That series of adventures also ended with "No Other Troy."

Was there another Troy for her to burn?

- William Butler Yeats,
No Second Troy

These days there is no great Doom hanging over my worlds; at least not ones that will end in the world being destroyed and then reborn.  The Dragon Slayers have managed to re-ignite the sun, the Treasure Hunters are only now getting into the darkness, the Undead Hunters are learning the plans of Orcus.  While any of these could destroy the world it is not likely that it will happen now.  The Dragon Slayers already saw to that.  But I am still instilling a sense of doom in the Players and Characters.   They have to feel like the world rests on their shoulders.  In a very real sense it does, but not for the reasons they think.

Maybe it is just the games I have played over the last few decades, but a little doom hanging over the PCs is a good thing.

#RPGaDAY2021 Day 12 Triumph

This one was much harder than it should have been.

Day 12 Triumph

What would I consider my greatest RPG-based triumph?

I have had some great opportunities in the RPG world.  I have had some great gaming groups over the decades, met some fantastic people and I have worked on some great projects.

But I have to admit that Ghosts of Albion is one of my greatest triumphs.

Back when Eden Studios was working on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG I was part of the team.  But I was also, for various reasons, growing dissatisfied with Buffy and the license.  In the process, I got the chance to meet and talk with Christopher Golden.  He had done some original fiction for the game and was interested in the process.  He was at the time also working with Amber Benson on a new property with the BBC.  It was about two siblings who discover they have a legacy of magic to live up to and a country to fight for in early Victorian England.  The new animation, written by Golden and Benson and directed by Benson, was Ghosts of Albion.

From the very start, we wanted it to be compatible with Buffy and Angel. It had more magic and more powerful creatures.  While Buffy had vampires and Angel had demons, Ghosts would vampires, demons, as well as fae creatures and of course ghosts. And all of these could be player characters. 

It is one of the highest-rated and best-selling titles I have ever worked on.  People still tell me how much they love the magic system, the content, and the rules.  I have to admit that sometimes I read over it and think to myself "wow, I wrote that!"

I love the Victorian era, I love writing about magic and honestly, I loved working with Chris and Amber.

I have worked on many licensed products before and this one was by far the best experience I have ever had on a game.  

Here's to hoping I can do more with NIGHT SHIFT to capture the same sort of feeling. 

#RPGaDAY2021 Day 11 Wilderness

The name of the game was Dungeons & Dragons.  So there was a certain expectation on, well, dungeons.  But that is not all of what we got.  Sometimes we went outside.

Day 11 Wilderness

Live-Action Role-Playing was not really something we knew a lot about back in the early to mid-80s.  Yes even in my little town we had heard about SCA but that was something that happened far away in places that sounded exotic to us.

We did know about live D&D. 

Of course, we had heard stories of people getting trapped in their make-believe world. I mean we had seen Mazes & Monsters right.  But still in the time after discovering D&D and before discovering easy access to alcohol there was a time when my D&D group would run around the woods wearing all black to play "live D&D."  Sometimes this was near the train tracks near the Hospital north of town but most often it was at the local Boy Scout camping area out way west of town.  Known as Ebaugh County Park, we always called it Ebaugh Corner since it was on this corner of old Route 36.

It felt a lot bigger than what is on that map I can assure you.

We didn't get out there often.  Our town was hit with Satanic Panic back in the mid-80s and we worried the cops would come out and harass us. 

Not a lot of D&D was played here really.  Frankly, my eyesight was getting bad then (and it never got better!) so running around in the dark was not something I could well.  I was actually pretty pathetic really!  I remember my last time there too.  June 1987 right before college.  

I never really did try live-action D&D again. Was never really my thing.

This has come up again recently as I am getting ready for a trip to the Renaissance Faire in Bristol, WI.  My son and his friends are all dressing up in Assassin's Creed gear. I have been there in the past in Steampunk gear.  Though I must admit I want to go in period clothing and keep a Star Trek badge hidden, just in case.

Hope to head there this weekend.  It might not be the actual wilderness, but for a city kid like me, it is close enough.

#RPGaDAY2021 Day 10 Advantage

Going for another alt-word today. Plus it gives me the chance to talk about one of my favorite topics.

Day 10 Advantage

One of my favorite new mechanics with D&D 5e is the Advantage / Disadvantage ruling.  It is pretty simple really. A situation is in your favor, roll with Advantage, that is roll two d20s and keep the highest.  If a situation is against you then roll with Disadvantage; roll two d20s and take the lowest.   

It's not really revolutionary, but it is a nice quick way to adjudicate rulings and many rules use it.

Simply if you have advantage due to one condition and advantage on another one you still have only two d20s.  If you have advantage and disadvantage they cancel each other out. 

The thing that I like about it the most is the nice probability curves they generate. 

You might recall that prior to selling my soul to the dot com world I was a Statistics professor at the University of Illinois colleges of Education, then Medicine. I taught at the undergraduate and graduate levels for years.  I LOVE statistics.    

I knocked together some simple frequency graphs of rolling a d20 normally, with disadvantage, advantage, and with a simple +3.   These are chances of rolling the number (1 to 20) or higher on a d20.

The Data

The Graphs

Rolls are on the X-Axis (1 - 20) and the Probability on the Y-Axis (0.0 - 1.0).  

The red line is our normal d20 roll. Blue is disadvantage (2d20, take lowest), yellow is Advantage (2d20, take highest), finally, the green is normal +3. 

Is it much?  Not really in the short term, but over 1000s of rolls over the last 7 years the effect has added up.   And it is always a lot of fun.  Especially when you are rolling and get two 20 (a 1 in 400 chance). Fun when you are rolling with advantage, but fantastic when you are rolling with disadvantage.

I have adapted it for use in my OSR games and it works great.  

#RPGaDAY2021 Day 9 Medium

It's a Monstrous Monday and it is also Medium day for the #RPGaDAY. 

Day 9 Medium

Most of my monsters in the various Basic Bestiary are Medium-sized.  This works out well for a number of reasons, but mostly it is a boon for something I had been wanting to do for a while.

In D&D 5 monsters have different HD die types depending on their size.  It works out like this.

Table: Size Categories

Size	Space	Hit Die
Tiny	2½ by 2½ ft.	d4
Small	5 by 5 ft.	d6
Medium	5 by 5 ft.	d8
Large	10 by 10 ft.	d10
Huge	15 by 15 ft.	d12
Gargantuan	20 by 20 ft. or larger	d20

So Medium monsters use the common d8 for hit dice and the truly monstrous Gargantuan creature gets a d20.  While AD&D and Basic D&D went more for larger creatures having more HD this works for what I call the giant baby problem.  A gigantic creature can have a lot of hit points, but no combat ability, two things that HD covers. 

I also like this idea for personal reasons.  When I moved from Basic D&D to Advanced D&D I often used a d10 for monster hit points and not the RAW d8.  I figured the monsters had to be more "advanced" so they got more hp.  I also rationalized this with the fact that Basic fighters use d8 for hp, and Advanced fighters used d10.  Of course on average, this is only 1 extra point per HD, but I liked it all the same.

3e and 4e also used different die types for hit dice, but these were different for different types of monsters.  I like the 5e way of using these for size. 

You might have seen these in some of my write-ups.  The Mad Hatter Goblin is a small creature. I list it's standard HD is 2 and it's average hp from a d8 and it's Con mod is 9 +2 or 11.  As a small creature, the same 2 HD and +2 con mod gives the creature an average hp of 7 +2 or 9.   Sure not a lot of difference, but enough over the long run. 

I am presenting both sets for people that want to use my "Advanced" set of size-based hp calculations or the standard RAW ones.   I have been using this for a while now and while there might not be a significant difference in the play of the vast majority of monsters, the ones it does affect really affects them.

I hope people, especially in the OSR crowds, take to the change.

#RPGaDAY2021 Day 8 Stream

We are back around to Sunday and that means we are all on the same word.

Day 8 Stream

I think it is no great assumption to say the advent of streamed games online has changed how the public sees RPGs in general and D&D in particular.

Making the claim that shows like Critical Role have increased the number of people interested in RPGs is not really disputed regardless what one's opinion of them is.

Personally, I am not a fan of watching or listening to others play D&D.  I have nothing against them, and I think many of them are quite nice and I am thrilled for their successes and for what it means for the game as a whole.   I just get bored with them.

Right now my favorite streaming pass time is The Great Courses.  Thanks to this I have listened to/watched the history of the world in various courses from early pre-history to the Victorians. I have listened to a number of courses on religion, detailed history on England, and more about the Vikings than I care to admit.  Currently, I am listening to How We Learn by Monisha Pasupathi, Ph.D. It is really great even though much of it is a repeat of my Undergrad days. Though I am chaffing under dismissal of treasured theories that have since fallen out of favor. ;)
Most of these Great Courses feel like undergrad courses, but I have really been enjoying them. 

So far I have gone through about 33 of these, about 75% of another Undergraduate degree. Though this degree would most likely be in history. Sadly there is no homework, no assignments, and no exams, so there is no opportunity to show I have been anything more than a passive learner.

Mind you in my choices here of one stream vs. another (say Critical Role vs. the Great Courses) is not a value judgment in any way other than how I choose to spend my own time.  I also listen to a lot of highly questionable music while at work.  

I think for my next stream I could work on shoring up my German. A language I learned in High School and for a couple years in college that I have not used in nearly 30 years.