Top 5 Non-Electronic Gaming Moments of 2008
Alright, it's been awhile since I typed in here. I notice that in my absence Chris has re-papered the green room, the snacks are a little better and there's a weird little Vietnamese man in the bathroom who keeps handing me towels. Odd... in my absence, things seem to have gotten better.
I am unnerved by this.
Anyway, what have I been doing while I was away? Well, I have been writing for a certain tabletop gaming company with a particularly angsty reputation and creepy fan base. It may possibly rhyme with "Bright Brolf". Or "Blight Blolf". Or "Gravewight Gravewolf". Yes, I've been writing away at vampires. Like you, Iiiiiiii wasssss oooooonce a maaaaan. Oh well. I'll just go on ahead and sadly admit that unlike the rest of the Weekly Geeks, I am more interested in tabletop than video games. I'm like the Spiritomb on the team of Pikachus.
Be warned: you're about to read some of the geekiest words ever written. I hope you enjoy them.
5. The Vampire Clanbooks
Technically, this should be higher on the list, but I can't in all good conscience put it higher because I assisted in making them. Apparently I'm told this is "Journalistic Integrity" but the truth is that I'm just incredibly embarrassed. Saying you work on Vampire: The Requiem is almost like admitting you write the letters for Penthouse Forum.
There's one thing you need to know about the Vampire: The Requiem series: you should never be seen reading them in public, ever. I made the mistake of reading one on the bus once, and this weird, creepy guy dressed in black with all these strange buckles all over the place sat next to me and started talking. The worst part was he had a teardrop tattoo under his eye. I hadn't the nerve to tell him that I doubted he actually killed a man in prison, but I figured that I might be wrong, and the worst sort of thing you want to say to somebody with a teardrop eye tattoo is that you doubt they killed somebody. What if I'm wrong? He could have shanked me right there with a sharpened spoon or something.
Anyway, creepy guy just started talking. Endlessly. He started telling me about his character and how awesome it was and then he started telling me he was a poet and he just went on to his hopes and dreams right there. Oh, and to make matters worse, he told me that The Temple of the Vampire was always looking for recruits. Then he left.
Eep.
Anyway, turns out my hometown of Olympia is the home of the "Temple of the Vampire," and now I'm just kind of weirded out about the whole thing. They could be watching me type this right now with a Palantir. Don't they know that's a bad idea? Sauron could be watching!
So, yes, the clanbooks. White Wolf's experiment in awesome. These puppies are slick: full color, 90% artifact text, no tedious rules-crunch to get in the way, and while you're reading them you forget they're gaming books. They are really clever, well written vampire novels. The gimmick is that these are supposed to be the "dossiers" of various young vampires trying to unravel the secrets of their clans, which are basically a White Wolf specific trope that divides "vampires" into "five different kinds of vampires," each with a separate history and origin story. I think it's neat.
These books are gorgeous. I cannot stress that enough. They shine as something really special from across the gaming store. If you like vampires but have never played Requiem, these are still readable alone. That's how weird and awesome they are.
4. Legend of the Five Rings 3.0
L5R is a unique case in the history of tabletop. It started out as a collectible card game, a bit like Magic: The Gathering, but M:tG is based on Dungeons and Dragons, a tabletop game. L5R flipped that. The L5R tabletop is exquisite, full of tons of elegant and simple maneuvers that make a really special game. L5R 2.0 was owned by Wizards of the Coast, and the idea was that they'd take the L5R universe and turn it into a d20 showcase project, revamping the Gygax-written "Oriental Adventures" module for the 90s.
Unfortunately, New Oriental Adventures turned out to be a disaster. They combined the d10 "Roll and Keep" rules of the first edition with the new d20 rules, printing them side by side, in possibly the most confusing corebook ever devised. So confusing, in fact, that I refused to play, despite loving the setting and the player-driven background. It was just too confusing.
Thankfully, somehow, Wizards of the Coast let L5R go, and shortly thereafter 3.0 was written. The Samurais-and-Sorcery genre was reborn. I cannot stress how much I love this game, it's seriously the most beautiful and well-designed game I have ever played. The rules are whip-snap-quick to learn, and feature a unique "Raise" system, where players can wager points in exchange for doing something really cool/epic (like kung fu moves, summoning kami, etc.). It is really amazing and I suggest it to any new tabletop player. It works splendidly.
3. Dungeons and Dragons 4.0
Again, a persnickety spot to place this one, but this is a really special entry. The oldest rpg in existence got it's 4th iteration this year, and it has basically become the most contentious thing in non-video gaming history ever.
Basically, blame it on World of Warcraft. For the first time, Wizards of the Coast was facing the first real threat from video gaming, something that hasn't ever really been a problem. Traditionally, video gamers and tabletop players are the same people, so what happens in one doesn't necessarily affect the other, but WoW really did bite into Dungeons and Dragons' player base. I, personally, noticed it pretty early on. My players were calling in, saying they couldn't play, they were raiding. I had no problem with it, since I can always play a game even if it's with one player. That said, weird situations started to creep in, and it seems that Wizards of the Coast noticed it fast. White Wolf responded by buying the rights to the World of Warcraft tabletop, which is sort of lamebrained when you think about it. Who wants to play a tabletop of a video game (and vice versa, they're just not really popular)?
Wooza wuzza, the end result of D&D 4.0 turned out to be a bit odd. Things were a little bit more archetypical, and a little less full of Gygax-isms. The Bard was gone, the most notable change, my favorite class.
I like Bards, and I need to digress here while I explain why I do. If you don't know what a Bard is, a Bard is a D&D class that completely, utterly and absolutely destroys the concept of the Rogue. They cancel each other out. The Rogue is a sneaky, silent but deadly killer that specializes in scouting and stabbing other people in the back. The Bard is loud, obnoxious and largely incapable of doing anything with any degree of subtlety whatsoever. Players of Bards and players of Rogues generally have diametrically opposed gaming styles and, to be honest, both of us are completely annoying to the more "normal" players who like to play Fighters or Wizards. We're the "flavor" classes.
The Bards of 3.5 were a sort of cuddlefied version of the Epic Bard, a prestige class from the original AD&D, which required a character to have 15 levels in both Fighter and Wizard. Generally, that's at least a 6 year long campaign character. The theory behind the Epic Bard was that he'd old and has seen everything there is to see, so the character steps back a bit and leads other characters to glory. Fair enough. The 3.5 Bards, however, were generally loutish, deliberately zany characters that had the advantage of the Bardic Knowledge skill, which basically turned the character into a walking encyclopedia. Every single time I played one I ended up leading the party, but basically just because I was the only one who had the faintest idea where we were supposed to go in the first place, and 99% of the fun I had was in keeping the Rogues from doing their jobs. Oh, they hated me. And I loved that they hated me.
I'm not against 4.0, in fact, I hold the weird belief that just because the publisher has moved on doesn't mean the books need to be taken off the shelf and burned. I look forward to playing 4.0 and maybe trying something new. Still, I miss you, Bardy McBarderson. May Valhalla treat you well.
2. The "New" and "Improved" Settlers of Catan Miniatures
They can't all be gold, folks, and this one just boggles my mind. I saw these the other day at the gaming shop and my head hurt. Basically, imagine the simple, brilliant grace of Settlers of Catan, that quirky and Germanic board (or is it tile?) game, only mixed with the idiotic "Cranked to 11" aesthetic of Warhammer 40k. It's a set of miniatures for your Catan game that look vaguely like all those little bits and pieces of metal and plastic that are glued to the model of the Millennium Falcon. Nobody really knows what they are supposed to be, they don't contribute anything to the game, and you're supposed to take time out of your precious day playing video games, smoking illegal stimulants and fucking to put them together.
Well, maybe not the last one, since the sort of people who would enjoy this aren't likely to get much at all. Funnily enough though, every guy I've ever met who likes Settlers of Catan is in a relationship, since it's common knowledge that women like this game. That's a certifiable fact that you can take to the bank. You know the fastest way to remove that demographic from the game?
Mix it with a miniatures game.
Miniatures = virgins. Proven. Women hate miniatures, you will never see a woman anywhere within 500 feet of a Games Workshop unless there's a Bath and Body Works immediately adjacent, and introducing miniatures into your cross-demographic game is only dooming it. Seriously.
God damn do I hate miniatures players.
1. The Death of Gary Gygax and the Retirement of Monte Cook
Really, both are sad but when slammed together they make a supernova of depressing news that is unheard of in the whole of gaming history. I don't know what I can really write about it except both are really sad and we can only hope somebody jumps in and takes the mantle for themselves. That sad, likely not.
