A Rash of Enthusiasm...

This is the heading under which I will sing the praises of all that excites, delights and entertains me most about my favourite games. Without further ado then, RD/KA! presents a first regular feature, 'A Rash of Enthusiasm...'

... for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP2)

I've been having a good time running this after buying it a couple of months ago. The well-designed shiny hardbacks have grabbed the completist in me, and I'm gleefully gloating over the horrors in store for my hapless players. The Warhammer Old World is without a shadow of a doubt my lifetime hall-of-fame fantasy rpg setting, my 'desert-island' fantasy rpg of choice.

There are various reasons to maintain that GW's hi-octane take on all that Tolkeinesque stuff is simply the richest fantasy adventure-gaming setting ever created, but I must here confess that I really wasn't into all that 'Chaos, death and spikey bits' when Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB) first hit the gaming shelves. It took WFRP and then Warhammer 40K (40K) to give me a taste for the lush gothic of the Warhammer vision. There ensued the 90's slump that laid waste to the rpg industry, leaving WFRP (the true heart of the Old World naturally enough) on life-support as a licence in which GW long displayed no particular interest, and in the hands of dedicated fans clinging to the dark underbelly of the hobby like veritable encrusted barnacles.

So I've been waiting a long time to get a proper WFRP campaign going. This is my first regular roleplaying in several years. And with WFRP2, the GM's and Character packs, and Plundered Vaults, I got my first session going in 5 days flat. From a standing start. Which speaks volumes for the essential coherence of the revised rules, not to mention introductory scenarios that should give players new to roleplaying- let alone to WFRP- a satisfying introduction to this grim world of perilous adventure. Full marks from this satisfied customer.

To single out one and only one 2nd ed. revision that I most like I would have to choose the magic system. I really like all the systemic revisions of this new edition, but this is the one that has delighted me most in play, and which intrigues me most as a GM.

When mortal combat finally broke out in session 2, I was amazed when Alane (female elf apprentice wizard, party's sole magic-user) just got into the thick of things (the goblin encampment in 'Pretty Things') and started firing off spells. Amazed, and delighted: because that meant that with just the spell list he was given at character creation the previous session Alane's player (a WFRP novice mark you) had taken charge of magic. This was a unique moment in my GM'ing career: to see magic-use erupt appropriately from nowhere in the face of peril, truly epic stuff!

Novice WFRP PC's being what they are, Alane's magic missiles proved interesting, but the decision in this first taste of the dread of combat still went to prowess at arms. All the same, the idea of magic as a force to be reckoned with, instead of as a measurable resource to be rationed out by the system- well that was seen in all its glory. This magic system is just so good that even if every single other rules revision was just plain crap, then WFRP2 would still rock the realms of magic in rpgs. And we all know that WFRP2 is much, much better than that already. ;)


Related@RD/KA!
Prologue: Getting to Middenheim
- Blogging my WFRP campaign: introducing the party.
- My little Old World: at the gates of Middenheim.
- My little Old World: mission accomplished?
- My little Old World: clearing the cludge: the GM gloats.
- Index:- My little Old World: Ashes of Middenheim

Interaction action #4: Schmooze and small adventures

Wednesday evening saw me at a Glasgow SF Writers' Circle pre-con party, which began with a reading in Borders to launch the Nova Scotia anthology of new Scottish speculative fiction. Editors Neil Williamson and Andrew J. Wilson were on hand for a well-deserved small celebration of a nice book and a warm glow of satisfaction.

Contributors Marion Arnott, Gus McAllister, Phil Raines and Mike Cobley read extracts from their stories. Mike's 'The Intrigue of the Battered Box' enjoyed popular acclaim for his spirited performance of the characters' voices, a real treat. A veritable throng of fans intent on autographs did indeed press upon the impressive collection of local talent waiting in line.

I had by this time found and introduced myself to Ken MacLeod which led to a couple of genial pints in a nearby smokers' pub. Three strong continental lagers later I rejoined the Glasgow Circle party in the Counting House across the square, caught up with the usual suspects, and got wired-in to hitting my first Worldcon registration with a tidy hangover.

Thursday morning, the Glasgow writers hit Interaction running after this limber-up, with Gary Gibson doing readings from Against Gravity- new; and Angel Stations- mass-market release. The pace was maintained that same day with an official Pan McMillan release party (Borders again) featuring Hal Duncan's Vellum launched in a lovely hardback edition on an unsuspecting public, and some not so unwary old mates who kept Hal buzzing with a celebrity guestspot autographing his prize. The sweet smell of success washed down with light drinks must've turned my head, because I spent Friday night paying silly swank prices for beer just because it felt cool to be hanging out in the Hilton. Just a pity I can't do a Sean Connery accent.

Amid the ever more numerous ever more familiar faces were all the people I bumped into and those strangers I hung out with around the concourse and in the Hilton on a boozehound's Friday night. To all these friends and acquaintances, old and new, I had fun hanging out. The social whirl and meeting more of my kind of geek are what I go to SF cons to enjoy, though I must say that I paid a hefty cash price for the experience, and I sold shares of my consumerist soul to the GW money-suckers years ago!

Related@RD/KA!
- Interaction action #1: Long weekend in geek-central
- Interaction action #2: The theory and practice of good gaming...?
- Interaction action #3: Elsewhere in the convention guide

Interaction action #3: Elsewhere in the convention guide

"Programme out of space fails to take off!" drone winds down
So, I counted 5 non-electronic games-related panels at the Worldcon, as well as perhaps 4 gaming tables. I can't remember seeing much if any at all games and related ephemera on display among the exhibits and dealers' tables. I wasn't tempted to part with too much cash, but am reading Gus McAllister's The Canongate Strangler, and have got China Mieville's The Scar, and The Emperor of Dreams- a Clark Ashton Smith anthology in the Fantasy Masterworks series vying for position in my readpile. Both authors are new to me, so I'm quite looking forward to them.

Panels less perilous?
I managed to squeeze in 2 more panels on Saturday afternoon. I made a point of catching Ken MacLeod in the company of Carolina Gómez Lagerlöf, Oliver Morton, Mike Scott, and Francis Spufford holding forth to a packed crowd on

• "The Long Tail": Economics of a Post-Scarcity World

• "Does the internet makes it possible to keep infinite back catalogues of publications and exploit them in an economically efficient way? (Inspired by Chris Anderson's blog & article in Wired.)"

Another lively panel, with thought-provoking contributions zipping in from all sides. I'll have to dig out that blog and article sometime I guess.

Hardly pausing to draw breath, I went to see my old pal Bill King moderate Jaime Levine, Rebecca Moesta, Stan Nicholls, Dave O'Neill raising the roof asking

• Are Tie-in Novels Worthwhile or Do They Stop People From Reading Real Novels?
• "Are there parts of the genre that tie-in novels tickle yet other books just can't reach? What makes a really good tie-in novel? What are the joys of working in a shared universe?"

I say 'moderate', but immobilise might be a better word. I mean, what do you expect from a panel of 3 writers, a publisher, and a big fan of tie-ins when they're faced with a topic like that? Exactly the rapid and unbreakable consensus in favour of, well, tie-ins that ensued. The substantive issues in the tagline never reached critical mass. And I couldn't find a copy of Trollslayer in the dealer room for Bill to autograph to my cousin.

It's showtime!
Reductio ad Absurdam's production of Lukas Back in Anger on Friday night was a genuine triumph. Promising all 6 episodes of Star Wars in an hour was ambitious for a low-budget revue spoofing fannish imitations of the gloss of Lucas' flawed masterwork alongside, well, its flaws, but the first hour was far more hit than miss and sometimes insanely funny in that geekish giggly sort of way. But over 60 minutes in and still only on The Return of the Jedi and I was wondering if the wheels weren't going to fall off all the same.

Phil Raines and Iain Sorenson's riposte was a show-stopping finale- Jabba: the musical, which featured a series of finely-crafted skits on classic Abba hits sung surprisingly well by our dynamic duo to well-deserved ovations. I was entertained, amused, nostalgic, and impressed.

Related@RD/KA!
- Interaction action #1: Long weekend in geek-central
- Interaction action #2: The theory and practice of good gaming...?
- Interaction action #4: Schmooze and small adventures

Interaction action #2: The theory and practice of good gaming...?

Saturday evening saw my next event: Game Design: Realism vs. Playability, featuring David Cake, Gordon Lamont, Marcus Rowland, and a late replacement for the unexpectedly absent Dave Howell. I was looking forward to this, a crucial and fascinating design conundrum for us gamers.

Plus not only have I met Gordon at DiceCons past, but Marcus Rowland is a name known to me from the days of yore.

The panel itself was run as a question and answer session after a quick round of personal introductions to an attendance at least at big as that at David Cake's lecture, and it was really quite lively, with lots of people getting a chance to contribute, some snappy answers, and a few good jokes

"did you hear the one about the game where you might not even survive character creation?" (rpg old farts' classic Traveller joke...)

"or what about the boardgame that takes 40 minutes to play a battle that lasted only 10 minutes in real life [Prestonpans IIRC]"
(Gordon on playability and resolution)

There was no real moderation as such though, so the talk, though reasonable enough, wasn't really going awaywhere.

This was exacerbated for me by the overwhelming preponderance of rpg'ers- 3 on the panel, and most of the questions. That's fair enough to be sure, but I'd've liked to have heard more about the isses in respect of boardgames too, which have after all shown themselves the simulationist's ne plus ultra. In the end though, I'd have to say that it wasn't really the panel's fault, stifled as they were by the paucity of the gaming programme at the 63rd Worldcon.

It has to be said that the premise of the panel was an example of this: realism and playability were set up as a simple contradiction- for the sake of a debate naturally enough, as if this is a big isse: "Playability means a game is easy to understand, and more quickly. Realism adds depth and believability but makes the game longer. How do you find a balance?" The thing is that playability and realism so construed are not contradictions in that simple sense, as witness the mulititude of great games of all kinds ever-increasingly available. This stifling sense of unimaginative convention programming was commonplace at my Interaction panels, too many of which seemed to be set up to play out tired old issues, dead debates in the face of panels who could generate no worthwhile controversy of the topics they were given.

The games programme at Worldcon2005 was such a disappointment to me that it threatened to overshadow my convention highspots. So I have not finished with it yet, but I'm going to move before I start to rant...

Related@RD/KA!
- Interaction action #1: Long weekend in geek-central
- Interaction action #3: Elsewhere in the convention guide
- Interaction action #4: Schmooze and small adventures

Interaction action #1: Long weekend in geek-central

Interaction, the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention has just passed in Glasgow last week, a 5-day extravaganza of fannish celebration of the multimedia breadth of our favourite worlds of the fantastic. An avid gamer, I was pleased at the sight of several panels about games and games design. More promising I felt was the mention of 2 games rooms set aside onsite. Here was my taste of the games programme at Interaction.

The games rooms were a joke. I checked them out on Thursday after passing on drinking the evening away in the Moat House foyer. Rockall ("for noisy games like Werewolf") and Malin ("for the more serious boardgames") were pokey wee meeting rooms barely fit for 2 comfortable gaming tables each, let alone for the numerous members at other games programme items. So I didn't get any gaming in at Interaction then.

Thursday afternoon though, I had had the chance to listen to 'Roleplaying Game Design Theory', David Cake's comprhensive whistle-stop tour of Ron Edwards' GNS model of rpg theory as propounded here: The Forge. Was Cake aware of the irony under which his exposition laboured I wonder? I mean, he had perhaps as many as 100 gamers in a decent lecture hall several times the size of the space alloted to actually playing games, and it looked like we weren't even going to get a Q&A? It speaks volumes for the intrinsic interest of the GNS model that interjections remained always polite, and Cake's account was rounded-off in good order.

The GNS model is a multiplex topic in its own right but I can certainly report that it actually does what it says on the tin, so to speak- I found my own recently started WFRP2 clarifying in my mind's eye as I listened. The Old World of GW's Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is a gem of a place to adventure in, a grim and gritty scab on the otherwise all just a little too pristine face of classic European high fantasy in SF/fantasy geekdom. ;)

Related@RD/KA!
- Interaction action #2: The theory and practice of good gaming...?
- Interaction action #3: Elsewhere in the convention guide
- Interaction action #4: Schmooze and small adventures