The Independent Insurgency

03:32 pm - [Misspent Youth] Death of the Tag

So I was running the first-ever multi-session game of Misspent Youth this weekend, and I realized that while I can make the Tag* work, I have to work at it, and others probably aren't going to want to. So out it goes.

This was tough for me to do. I kept thinking that there was a magical way I could phrase things to make it work,but in the end I came to realize that it just wasn't going to happen.

In other news, Mickey ran the second-ever never-played-the-game-with-me session of Misspent Youth (she also ran the first) at Go Play Northwest. It sounds like it went mixed, but ok. I'm waiting on actual play, which Mickey says that she can probably provide soon.

* For those who don't follow my game slavishly, the Tag is this thing in the game where you get it when you treat other characters like friends (rely on them, come to their aid, compliment them, etc.). When that happened, you were very lightly in charge in-character, and The Authority would direct its attacks at you.

04:48 pm - [Misspent Youth] The Shepherd and the Infiltrators

I'm about to start running a series of Misspent Youth. Here's the Story Games thread about the game.

07:17 pm - [Misspent Youth] Non-me-there playtest #3

The too-awesome-for-words and new-dad Daniel Levine ran the third=ever session of Misspent Youth that I was not present for. I'm enormously stoked. His LiveJournal post on the playtest includes the perfect playlist for a session of this game, and also the almost-three-hour audio file. If you're interested, head on over and check it out.

Thanks Daniel, you fucking rock.

05:03 pm - [Dresden Files] PoliCon session 2

The Game Master Show has released the second episode of the AP recordings I made of my Dresden Files playtests at PoliCon. This is the full 3 hour and 48 minute recording.

Thanks, guys.

11:11 am - Dresden Files AP on The Game Master Show

The Game Master Show just released an episode where they played AP recordings I made of my Dresden Files playtests at PoliCon. I'm not sure whether this episode has one of the two sessions I ran in its entirety or if this is an amalgamation of the two sessions I ran with excerpts. It's three hours and 18 minutes long.

(PS: Thanks to Phil for letting me know about this.)

EDIT: I just listened to some of this and it sounds like it's going to be the complete audio of the first of two sessions I ran on that day.

11:35 pm - [Misspent Youth] 1st Draft of Authority & World Creation

This is the first draft of the first chapter/article* for Misspent Youth. Have at it! Enjoy! Commentary is welcome but realize this went from my fingertips to the site without even a single review.

The Greatest Enemy of Truth

10:48 am - [Dresden Files] PoliCon AP report #1

So last weekend I ran two sessions at PoliCon instead of the one I was scheduled for. I was really excited about the characters I'd written and I wanted to see more of them used. Plus, I had no slot in the morning and nothing that looked that interesting to me. I'll talk about the first session first and write about the section session later.

04:10 pm - [Misspent Youth] PoliCon and rule hacks

I ran a session of Misspent Youth at PoliCon this weekend. It went pretty well. There were some interesting (friendly) head-butting issues over content and out-of-character decision making, but in terms of the rules hacks I posted about on an earlier entry, it was great.

Specifically, I found that I don't need changes 1 (sell out before rolling to get out of a conflict) or 3 (negotiated backing out of a conflict). All I needed to do was to not give The Authority a claim on the first roll, and only giving it one of the two numbers it usually claims. That resulted in conflicts which lasted longer and did not feel unpleasantly abbreviated. The game was still plenty dark without being a never-ending lose-and-sell-out-fest.

I'm a very happy fellow.

05:08 pm - Darren Milardo, Werecoyote Cabbie

Last character for the PoliCon session this weekend.

Darren Milardo

High Concept: Werecoyote Cabbie

Personal Struggle: Duty to Teach Fools vs. Duty to Family

Aspects: Werecoyote Cabbie, Duty to Teach Fools vs. Duty to Family, Mouth Writes Checks Ass Can't Cash (Fools), Pay Any Cost, Bear Any Burden (Family), I Got So Many Problems (Fools/Family)

03:22 pm - Kenya Hintzen, Foster Kids' Half-Ogre Champion

Another character for the PoliCon session this weekend.

Kenya Hintzen

High Concept: Foster Kids' Half-Ogre Champion

Personal Struggle: Dodging The Choice vs. Taking Down Bullies

Aspects: Foster Kids' Half-Ogre Champion, Dodging The Choice vs. Taking Down Bullies, Living Under Star-Eyes' Loving Glare (Dodging), Sydok's Legacy of Righteousness (Bullies), Wizards Are Liars (Bullies)

08:46 pm - Javier Woltman, White Court alt-porn Impresario

Another character for PoliCon.

Javier Woltman

High Concept: White Court alt-porn Impresario

Personal Struggle: Indulgence or Enlightenment?

Aspects: White Court alt-porn Impresario, Indulgence or Enlightenment?, Ascension is Possible Through Love (Enlightenment), People Are Tools, Useful and Easily Broken (Indulgence/Enlightenment), The Darker the Pleasure, the Sweeter the Taste (Indulgence)

07:11 pm - Ericka Trivette, Wizardly Social Worker

Continuing in the series of characters for the PoliCon game in Philly this weekend:

Ericka Trivette

High Concept: Wizardly Social Worker

Personal Struggle: Do-Gooder or Slumming Aristocrat?

Aspects: Wizardly Social Worker, Do-Gooder or Slumming Aristocrat?, Poor Little Rich Girl (Slumming), I Can Change the World (Do-Gooder/Slumming), Everyone Deserves Respect, Damnit! (Do-Gooder)

04:35 pm - Annabelle Lambdin, PI Savant

The first of 5 (or 6) characters I'm planning to bring with me to PoliCon this weekend. Phases 4 and 5 will happen on con day. Commentary is very much welcome.

Annabelle Lamb

High Concept: P.I. Savant
Personal Struggle: Excellence vs. Connection

Aspects: P.I. Savant, Excellence vs. Connection, Smartest Girl in the Room (Excellence), Haunted by Nita's Ghost (Connection), Careless When Friends Are Endangered (Connection)

Skills: Investigation (Great +4), Contacts (Good +3), Scholarship (Good +3), Alertness (Fair +2), Guns (Fair +2), Intimidation (Fair +2), Athletics (Average +1), Burglary (Average +1), Resources (Average +1), Stealth (Average +1)

Stunts: Ear to the Ground (Contacting, p. 6), I Know Just The Guy (Contacting, p. 6), Shot on the Run (Guns, p. 3), Interrogator (Intimidation, pp. 10-11), I Know Just What Happened! (Investigation, may make Declarations per Scholarship while investigating a crime scene, gains a +1 bonus when doing so.)

Refresh: 5

Phase One: Annabelle grew up lower-middle class in one of Newark's white suburbs. Her family was working-class and devout, but Annabelle always had an inquisitive and questioning mind. She spent much of her youth taunted for her height, braininess, and lack of social graces. Aspect: Smartest Girl in the Room

Phase Two: As Annabelle entered high school and began college, her proud streak deepened into arrogance. At the same time, she became self-aware enough to start to realize what this was costing her and began to yearn for more human contact. She found it in her roommate, Nita Manjarrez, a carefree, tough-talking young woman with whom she eventually shared an apartment. When Nita went missing one day it devastated Annabelle. The police seemed disinterested in the case and Annabelle began a Quixotic search for the missing, presumed-dead girl. Aspect: Haunted by Nita's Ghost

Phase Three: Book Title: "'Belle of the Ball." When a gruesome clue is left on her desk weeks after she opens Lamb Consulting, Annabelle abandons all caution. She finds herself unable to maintain her careful, methodical ways and plunges headlong into the occult underworld of Gateway City. Deep in the city's transgressive underworld, she becomes entangled in a twisted sex cult, convinced she'll uncover the mystery behind Nita's disappearance. Aspect: Careless When Friends Are Endangered

06:20 pm - Some Misspent Youth rules fixes

So after JiffyCon, and a very good discussion with Eppy Ravachol and Nathan Paoletta, I came up with a few fixes for Misspent Youth that I’m going to put into the rules outline that I’m bringing with me to PoliCon. NOTE: some of this might not make much sense if you’re not familiar with the rules of MY, but I’d be happy to elaborate at your request.

11:13 am - Spirit of the Dresden Files

So I'm playtesting the Dresden Files RPG, but all of it isn't done yet (unsurprisingly). I would like to run the "full" thing, and so in the meantime, I'm reading the files, preparing, and our group is running Spirit of the Century to familiarize them with the rules.

On the drive to Western MA I got an inspiration. The group has made vampires a huge part of their back stories. I thought, "Why not make them Dresden vampires?" Percolate, percolate. I thought, "I'm going to introduce Dresdenny stuff here." Percolate, percolate. I thought, "That could be lame, some Dresden stuff won't work in SOTC mood." Percolate, percolate. I thought, "There's a guy in Dresden's Newark (where our game is going to be set), a bisexual Brazilian trickster-type guy, who's writing pulp 'fiction' as a way to disseminate information about what's really going on in the world to a public who won't process it."

I'm pretty excited by this idea.

02:02 pm - [Dresden Files] Gateway City: Newark in Dresdenverse

So I have been honored to be invited into the "bleeding edge" Dresden Files RPG playtest. The first official task we were given was to Dresden-up a city using the city rules. This is at about the 75% done stage, but I'm excited and want to share. I should note that I have not read a single Dresden book and only watched the show a couple of times, so some of what I have here might not be totally in theme for Dresden. Please take such failings as my own, and not as those of Evil Hat. Here it is:

05:01 pm - MY Dreamation roundup

(D'you like the double entendre there? I do!)

I ran Misspent Youth three times and it went extremely well each time. Each one went to a full game, from exposition scene to deneumont. Revelations:

1. The game works. It's hella fun.
2. The three-act structure scene economy works very well. We had definite stories in every game.
3. Writing it such that people do it "right" as GMs is going to be tough.
4. The first trait that Youthful Offenders have, Mistreatment, may be too passive and focused on the past. I may have to come up with a more active and present-focused trait.
5. Despite what came up at the indie roundtable, I've got to make conflicts a bit easier for YOs. Right now, they are winning at a vanishingly small degree. Mendel confirmed this for me with some rough supermath in the final moments of the con. I don't want to make it too easy, but I'm hoping that the YOs will come out of conflicts winning somewhere between 25% and 40% of the time. Right now it's something like 8%.
6. I'm not going to try to have a final book for Gen Con 2008. I am going to have an ashcan, however. To that end I'm downloading free (and maybe one cheap) layout programs. As to why I'm editing my expectations, I came away feeling that I won't really know what the game does until and unless I've released it into the wild and gotten feedback
   1. I want to give people a price break for buying the ashcan when they buy the final book. I think I'm going to stamp each one with a unique "citizen identification number" or something similarly creepy.
7. Jennifer Rogers is going to do art for me, for reals now. At minimum, I'm going to get a cover and some motif images that I'll reuse as chapter stops or page markers.
8. I am not going to write any part of it in-voice. I am going to do layout and stuff as though it were a magazine, though.
9. I want to make it comic-book sized.
10. The following quote will be on the cover: "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." -- George Orwell

05:04 pm - [Misspent Youth] AP report and me feeling better about stuff

So when I was up in Western MA, I did a playtest of Misspent Youth. Vincent then went, BEHIND MY BACK, and posted about it on The Forge. I was really happy. I have this very firm story structure via scene economy thing that I thought might suck. That game showed me it actually was really really good.

I also came to realize that I need to have a somewhat traditional GM in this game. The Authority is going to have to not care about winning and losing conflicts, and instead is going to have to be responsible for pushing the story along. I need to write more about this, but it's not as ugly as it might sound at first.