As I mentioned a few weeks back, I will be one of the hosts of the 2011 season of This Just In… From Gen Con, the only live-from-the-con podcast. This year, instead of going to corporate sponsors directly, we decided to turn it over to the fans and crowdfund the project via IndieGoGo. Check out the video we did:
I’m a child of the 80s, raised on a steady diet of romantic comedies and high school movies, king among them being The Breakfast Club. Movieland High School is as mythical a land for me as is Middle Earth or A Galaxy Far, Far Away; it bears little to no resemblance to my own high school experience, but it captures my imagination as if there were dragons or lightsabers. Naturally, it has always seemed to me to be a perfect setting for a roleplaying game.
I’ve been aware of fellow blogger Michael Wolf (Stargazer’s World) has a free game called Warrior, Rogue & Mage in which those three words are the characters’ stats as opposed to their class. MWP’s Leverage also does this with the roles of Hacker, Hitter, Grifter, Thief & Mastermind being also character stats. Given how in Breakfast Club the whole point of the movie is that the characters are/are not the stereotypes of a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal, it seemed riffing off the roles-as-stats idea in these two games was the way to go.
Thus I came up with Princess, Jock & Nerd.
Mythender is a game of epic heroes fighting gods in Mythic Norden being developed by Ryan Macklin. He’s been working on it for a couple years now and it looks like things are finally moving towards the final stretch. Last week he posted the first draft of the character creation rules and I decided to take them for a spin to help Ryan out with whatever feedback I could provide.
The game is set in mythic Norse country, but the image that jumped right out at me was not a Viking warrior, but an Irish one (unsurprising for anyone who knows me, really). Given there is a connection between the Irish and the Vikings, I used that as the jumping off point to create my own Mythender.
Behold Eire, raised by Morrigan to be the embodiment of the land of Ireland, sent by the Raven Queen to Norden to end the northmen and their heathen demon-gods.
The news is out and it’s now official: I will be one of the hosts of this year’s This Just In… From Gen Con podcast. My co-host will be Rich Rogers of Canon Puncture and The Voice of the Revolution fame.
For the last three years, I have thoroughly this innovative show, recorded at and released during Gen Con, which captures a small sample of the beautiful chaos that is the best four days in gaming. While I’ve attended, the show gives me a window into some of the other cool stuff going on all around me, and especially the year I did not go right after my mother passed away, This Just In managed to give me a little bit of the excitement of being at the con. I won’t lie, there’s a bit of an intimidation factor in being the next one in the legacy, especially being on the first season without any of the two founders, but I’m up for it.
How did I end up here? Well…
I always had the vague notion that what I had termed Joys and Sorrows was where the core of this game I’ve been working on lied; in a game about the loss of Humanity, the loss of the Self, Joys and Sorrows represented that which defined what was being lost. But for some reason that I couldn’t pinpoint I wasn’t entirely happy with the mechanic (and I call it that only as a technicality, as it never really became part of a moving system but remained only a cog off to one side).
A few weeks ago while at work, I had a small Eureka moment in regards Joys and Sorrows and the central place I wanted them to have but hadn’t quite achieved. The game, in essence, is about the loss of that which makes you Human, and the stories that emerge from that downward spiral. I was on to the right idea with Joys and Sorrows in that these are player-created statements that describe that which is important and connect the character to their Humanity, as well as defining where the sources of interest and conflict will lie as the story develops. But it was still clunky. I hadn’t found a way to express mechanically, on the physical game level, the loss of these bonds.
And then it hit me.
I am honored to report that, through the sale of the RONIN: Japan Earthquake Relief Edition bundle, we have raised $1310.00 in donations to help relief efforts in Japan. The donation was sent via PayPal to the Japanese Red Cross Society on April 10, 2011.
Click to see the full-size version.
It is hard to imagine that it has only been a month since the 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami hit the island nation of Japan. As efforts turn towards the reestablishment of normal life for those affected, it is our hope that this donation can help those in need in some small way.
A very heartfelt thank you to all who participated.
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