Mork Borg

 

The best description I have for this strange game is it is one of those "concept albums" from the 70's or 80's that the record company picks one hit single from and the world ignores the genius behind the rest of the creation.

This is not a "system replacement" game for anything, DCC, D&D 5, Old School Essentials, Labyrinth Lord or any of them. Really, it feels like an adventure module with its own rules and you read through it, and if you want, play through it as well and enjoy the ride. You are free to play other adventures if you wish, but the system itself is this very tight set of rules that cribs from the OSR but goes off in its own direction much like a severed head.

It is an experience meant to be read in physical form, played with friends, and enjoyed for what it is.

I respect they did not try to go the complete game system route with this game, it feels like a party game that you break out, spin a dark one-shot tale, and go about a strange journey down the dark and twisted paths of your imagination.

A lot is said about the art and layout, the pure chaos of it all. Is it needed? To shock people out of their system comfort and expectations, yes, I feel it is completely needed. We get so used to our facing-page layouts, neat organized rules, and bulleted summaries that there are times I feel we miss the raw force of imagination and the primal energy of fear and horror which resides within our consciousnesses.

The layout and presentation is welcome. For too long I have been held in comfort and almost coddled by what is easy to mentally ingest.

The game comes as a shock, and a needed one at that to a society too accustomed to safety and isolation.

It is a wake-up call of a game.

This is not for everyone, and many will dismiss this as a fad. I thought it was at first, how could something so simple and so outrageous be anything more than passing thing? This was the thing Youtubers talk about to get views, right? It isn't fair, honestly. Nor is it meant to be. It does feel like a game written to stand up to all the crap that would get hurled at it, in defiance of common wisdom.

If not for the simple fact that it brought out a near-universal rebellious feeling that so many have when they experience this. It is more than a game, it is a cultural milepost.

Do something different.

Like something new.

Do not let fear rule your life, and if need be, embrace fear and become it.

Conquer it.

Or laugh when you fail and chalk it up to what could have been.

Not every adventure is perfect. Not every hero is a perfect video-gamer avatar meant to represent us perfectly. Not every fight is fair. And there may be nothing you can do about the upcoming end of the world.

But will your toothless cretin of a haggard old man with a missing finger or two smile when he finally grabs that bag of gold before he is consumed by the Hellfire?

Will that moment have made all of the suffering worth it?

To win.

Yet lose.

But defiantly smile as your hero holds the bag up high through the flames and knows he has won.

For that experience alone, something our MMO-inspired player-protecting games of today can't fathom delivering, the price is worth it alone to be shocked to an awakened state. You may not like the album, you may wonder what you just heard when the needle reaches the end of the B-side of the vinyl record, but you will remember it and walk away thinking differently.

For or against.

Trash or genius - and take note, with notable things, like albums or musicians, there rarely is a middle ground.

But you will get an experience that is hard to replicate or even have elsewhere. Even the act of understanding is a part of the experience, and there are a lot of things hidden away to discover later. One read alone will not teach you the game, nor the world, it may take dozens of passes. And the things you discover may be things you discover about yourself. The darkness within. What scares you? What is darkness and horror in your own mind?

For that alone, it is a classic.

Planning Tools: Articy Draft 3

So I am planning with a tool called Articy Draft 3. It is a nice tool, sort of a set of index cards on steroids, and you are able to extend and subclass any object in the planning tool. Need an entity, which is basically a "noun" type thing in your game? You got it. Need to extend the entity base class as a main or supporting character? You can do that too, and even define custom properties for those base classes, such as a blank character sheet you can fill in for each character. You can extend the entity class to be an equipment item and give it weight, cost, damage, AC, and other values.

This is a first impressions review, so I may be missing a few things, so be warned. But I like first impressions reviews because they give the beginner an idea of what to expect when starting, and how easy the tool it to begin being somewhat productive with.

It also has a storyboard grid for laying out flow, with story parts, folding many cards into one, linking folded cards, and all sorts of other storyboarding tools and useful functions. You can lay out adventures, conversations, scenarios, or even a book in the flow grid and connect events with characters, places, items, and other concepts you come up with.

There is also a location tab that allows you to build maps, drop down characters, link those locations to the story flow, and take all of the noun items you build in your entity creation and all of the story flow parts to your own custom maps and locations. You can put down pawn-like markers for characters on maps to place your characters on a map the size of a room to a universe.

It is not a virtual tabletop, and it is not multi-player. This is a tool for teams or single designers to create structured experiences like games, modules, adventures, or stories. There is no die-roller, web client, or any other virtual tabletop functions. They have sort of a Powerpoint presentation mode for flows, but I have not figured it out yet. We are talking game design and planning today, not playing.

Easy to Get Lost

One point is that it is very easy to get lost in this tool, and I found myself fighting it as it started shaping my idea instead of my idea's structure and flow - the one in my head - being dominant. I threw out several versions of my plan as I found myself collecting junk again, making giant lists of everything, and ending up with junk drawers of hundreds of things, dozens of relationships, but no real plan.

I did a story, but the structure took over the story in several ways, and I found that the central core ideas in my story were sidelined to unimportant story branches. This is just as much on me as it is the tool, as not every idea translates well into a structured grid. It could be my idea is not baked enough and it needs several more revisions, and in my feeling getting to the point where you are writing things down and throwing them in the recycle-bin is a lot better than having them sit in your head and go nowhere.

There is a benefit to doing a lot of work and being forced to throw it out. Your idea gets refined with each iteration, more focused, and improves with each revision. You also start to quickly find the problems with your idea and begin to weed those out.

My advice? Do not get too invested in one project file to rule them all. Keep making them and throwing them out. Keep your project resources in a resource directory apart from your planning board and keep this as the giant sheet of newsprint on the table you can scribble all over, pull a fresh sheet onto your workspace, and tear off the old one to dispose of.

Adventure Design

This tool is a bit of overkill for designing a B/X adventure for a one-shot, as it is a professional level planning tool If I were writing a module to publish? Yes, I would use this tool as my first choice sine it organizes and collects ideas, stats, story parts, maps, and all the other bits that go into an adventure. One word of warning, what you design in this tool can be so complex getting it out may be an entirely different challenge.

You could design a B/X adventure so complex and intricate that describing it in traditional book form would take hundreds of pages, and I am still not sure many people could successfully take a complex, twisting narrative and present it in a traditional PDF adventure module. The idea may be clear in Articy and inside your head, but would readers ever get all of the ideas that you want to communicate?

You could have a battle in a B/X module where you face the vampire count, and if a player has a certain item, such as a stopwatch, the narrative could branch and turn into an incredible narrative. This would be clear to the designer in the program, but to the referee reading the module, or even the players playing through it, may not be obvious and the entire arc ignored as they hack and slash their way through.

A side note there too on audience expectations. Yes, that optional narrative arc is great for a story game, but in a more traditional hack-and-slash game that effort may be wasted as your audience came for one experience but the tool allowed you to design another. Don't get distracted by a tools cool capabilities and allow it to steer you off course, and be aware of what your audience came to see.

One could also create a story so complex and intricate that translating it into a game engine, such as a visual novel, RenPy, Inform, Twine, Unreal, Gamemaker, Godot, or other game or story engine would be darn well next to impossible. You could create it and lay it out, sure, but you could easily outstrip your ability to manage that much complexity, code, and engine expertise to get whatever you design out of there without a team of dozens and a couple million dollars to invest in a game company.

One of the best pieces of advice I can give when using this too is: be aware of the limitations of your target format and your own abilities. Also, be aware of your target audience and what they expect.

Export: Possibly an Issue

The tool has export functions for game engines and various formats, but for story and adventure design I have found, so far, that all my work is staying inside the tool and I am using it as a reference library. This was one reason I stayed away from learning this tool for so long, I was hesitant to adopting a proprietary tool that I could not export from easily in my planning and design work.

Part of me wishes you could export a visual novel or standalone story experience directly from the tool, as that would be ideal even for demos and rapid prototyping. Or even a PDF of the entire idea in book format. They may have an extension for that somewhere, or they may not, I do not know enough at this point as this is a first impressions review. They do have a variety of exporters, including Word and Excel spreadsheets along with JSON and XML, so it is possibly a matter of time or searching for the one that fits your needs. There is an API toolkit too, so further work in this areas is possible.

If you are writing a B/X style adventure for a PDF release, a visual novel, or a novel, yeah, I feel you will be doing all of the exporting and copying over the idea to the new format yourself. What you do gain is superior organization and refactoring abilities, so at least all of your ideas will be easier to pull out and describe. All of your relationships and links will also be easier to reference and organize.

You can get the raw data out in a variety of formats, but for my needs and use cases, I will be doing a lot of the work on format translation and presentation.

A Keeper!

This is a nice tool, and after using it a day it has already found a spot in my game design workflow. After a couple hours I was feeling somewhat productive, and it started revealing flaws in my ideas and designs. That is priceless, and if a tool has me throwing out work because it is garbage of my own design I find that highly useful and increases my productivity.

For highly imaginative types, you have no idea how valuable it is to have tools that collect the garbage in our heads, put it into bins, and allow us to see it as a whole and toss out whole parts at once is to our workflow. For some people the ability to collect, organize, and throw away garbage is more important than the ability to nicely organize things on index cards on a corkboard. The more you wreck, scribble on, destroy and rebuild your idea the better. Don't be shy, and do not be afraid to throw it all away and start fresh.

I need a tool that organizes chaos, lets me see the destruction as a whole, and hauls away the mental debris like a garbage truck and a street full of dumpsters - leaving me with the best parts.

This tool does that job.

Mail Room: Traveller RPG Box Set

This one I bought out of nostalgia, and I am glad I did. It has been a while since I wrote here, but I keep seeing clicks and hits, so I know there are people that miss me. First off, why I have been away.

My brother passed away. We played pen-and-paper games together for over 40 years.

Traveller was one of those.

So the last year I have been getting my life in order, boxing up 40 years of history and putting those in the garage, and wondering if I would ever return to these worlds. So here I am. Prime Day and a random purchase later an I am part of the way back.

I am not playing, but reading these days, and dreaming. I suppose dreaming is still important, thinking about the what-ifs, and the places never went to and never explored. Pieces of our imaginations which shall live on for as long as we are here, and forever if we choose to share. So share I shall.

First Glance: Basic Game, Basic Gear, no Ship Design

The boxed set focuses on the basic game, with a collection of classic ships, gear, and parts to get you started. No ship design is included, as that is in the High Guard book. Note the original Traveller little black books had a version of ship design that was different than the old-school High Guard's, so that is a difference here. Do I mind?

At first I did, and after a while of thinking about it I didn't. Some of the reviews I seen said their groups got along well without ship design, and stuck with the generous collection of classic designs shown here. I like the sort of "these are standard production designs and what were made" sort of game universe because it starts you out small. The designs are known and become familiar, like the iconic X-Wing or TIE Fighters of Star Wars. You get to know the ships inside and out, even the map layouts provided for each (nice job).

Besides, why waste the space on a cut-down ship design rules set? When if that is what you want, buy the expansion book and avoid repeating the cut-down rules here. I agree with this decision, and for a basic starting game it feels right for me.

Similarly, the gear is pretty generous, but sticks to the standards of what you would expect and gives a good collection to play with without going on for hundreds of pages. You get a good selection here to start with and I feel it gives you plenty of room to come up with your own additions. Some games I feel give you too much and your creativity feels restricted by choice paralysis.

Also, what you get in this box set is equivalent to the basic rule book, so you lose nothing by buying either - except (as I hear in some reviews) information on the default Traveller Imperium setting.

No Imperium and a Starter Sector

The default Third Imeprium setting is mentioned but not included. What you get instead is a scenario book and a sector map with only one subsector filled in - the rest is up for you to create and explore. Wow. Bold move here, and I actually love this. I love this so much I feel I have been waiting for this version for most of the time I have known Traveller. This setting is technically in the Imperium, but there is nothing stopping you from saying "no it's not" and picking one world as the stereotypical Human homeworld and saying "go explore!"

You could create a new map with "future Earth" as the center system and say "go explore!"

No Imperium needed. I love the lore and history of the original setting, but for new players and a new edition this feels right. For a player coming back and my imagination needing a jump start this feels right.

The Imperium is there if you want it, or feel free to ignore it. I like this a lot, and this is close to my feeling of the original Traveller in the first place, it is a hard sci-fi game where you go out and shoot lasers, explore planets, run cargo, meet new civilizations, and generally fly around and do whatever.

You could say Earth or "starting world X" is the only human planet and if we meet a planet with a population code, make up an alien race and go. First contact, trade, war, diplomatic intrigue, galactic rebellion, star federation, evil empire, or whatever makes you happy. You were one of the first to bump into them now play!

This really is an exciting and fresh and also faithful if you want it setup, and I like it a great deal. Nothing is overwhelming and the starting space is small enough you can wrap your head around it, fly around, and get into all sorts of trouble before you head off into uncharted space.

Cyberpunk Bug-Eyed Aliens

The themes of a cyberpunk-style feel plus the inclusion of bug-eyed aliens in the scenario book surprised me. This feels different, the technology is updated from the classic 1950's style bubble-helmet style of old, the 1970's evolution, and the "computers weigh tons" editions of the past. This game feels thoroughly modern, sort of like an Interstellar meets Aliens meets Blade Runner 2049 level of technology for me, if you are familiar with those movies. It is a harder-edged sci-fi than a Star Wars and not as technology magic as Star Trek, so it really fits my idea of a more grounded type of sci-fi where science and engineering are needed to save the day.

Bug eyed aliens? Yes, the scenario book has them, and this feels like it opens the door for them in the game, which is different than my expectations for classic Traveller. I could see throwing in blob monsters, bug monsters, floating amoebas, psionic starfish, brain creatures, space zombies, silicate rock monsters, fish men, space vampires, or any other sort of classic sci-fi race or monster in the game and call it good. The game's lore seems more relaxed, and I would definitely pick up a "monster book" with ideas if they had one. I would also include many more monsters in this game if I were to run it. The door is open.

Cyberpunk? Oddly enough I get that sort of vibe from this game. They have implants and other gear and even A-I intelligences. I am like, if bug-eyed aliens are in, then adding cyberpunk elements to the game feels like a unique and fun combination for a fresh take like this game. Plus augments give power gamers a way to work on their characters with new powers and abilities, so it adds to the tactical and character-building aspect to the game.

I would even add foam-rubber faced aliens with strange skin colors (or talking anthro-animal races) to the mix if it were up to me. This would be the trifecta of "modern sci-fi B movie" goodness for me without wandering into the big sci-fi tent pole universes' territory.

I do find the combination of cyberpunk versus bug-eyed aliens (with an explore as you go universe) to be a fun game to run with this and one I wished I had the chance to run back in the day.

Boxed Set Notes

It is worth noting the boxed set comes at a price premium over the basic rule book. You get maps, dice, and the scenario book, which add to the value considering you get all of the material in the core book plus all this. I like the focused nature of this product though and that made it worth the price of a AAA game (typically the standard edition) for me.

Also, the books are full color - which is a huge plus. The art isn't always eye-popping, which is a minus. The supporting material, like the starship maps and gear pictures, are very welcome and help set the visuals for the game nicely. Good presentation overall, mixed levels of art quality, and nice full color printing.

Overall, Worthy

In my feeling this is a worthy update to the system, more colorful, visual, and updated for the times while still keeping the original game's feeling of hard sci-fi. I like the modern twists and additions, the nods to classic sci-fi, and they feel at home here. I like what Mongoose has done, how this game has evolved, and how it is keeping up with the times instead of standing against the old editions (which are still out there and playable just as well). If you like those, play those!

This game, this edition, feels like is speaks to me, and the movies and experiences I see in sci-fi movies and TV shows. It does so without needing a licenced universe, and you are free to do and pull in whatever you want and play. You could use this as a sort of generic "D&D for space" sort of universe where the classic Traveller elements (tech, ships, rules, gear and feel) hold together stories and space maps that go off in a million unexplored directions. Your universe can be as big or as small as you want, even down to just playing in the Earth's collection of planets without FTL travel. You can use the Imperium, or not.

It feels like a perfect blank-slate open-ended sci-fi game, and that excites my imagination.

More hopefully soon as I dive in and enjoy this updated take on a classic. My summer reading and dreams of a thousand stars are finally here.

First Impressions: Dragon Age Rulebook

My Dragon Age Rulebook came in the mail yesterday, and wow, I am floored by this one. Full-color throughout, stunning drop dead gorgeous art, and over 400 thick paper stock pages make this one a true gem on my shelf. Green Ronin took out all the stops when putting this together, and I am seriously impressed and happy with the book.

The art deserves special mention, I feel it is on par with D&D 5's art clearly, and it keeps going on an on page after page. It truly is an amazing piece of work.

I feel I just stepped into a truly vast and amazing world. Yes, this is based on a videogame, but it is every bit as detailed and full of lore and history as any book I have seen. I feel this one does a much better job at setting a sense of place than Paizo's Golarion guide books just in the layers of background and history. It does not have as many pictures of cities and lands as that product, but it does a much better job at creating a nified world that works and feels like it belongs together than your typical theme park setting.

If only Wizards could present Faerun this way, and I don't mean a stand-alone worldbook. This is rules plus worldbook, and surprisingly, the rules only take up the first 150 pages of the game. Following that is 50 pages of world information, 150 pages of GM information, and about 100 pages of adventures in the back of the book. But throughout the book, the rules are mixed in with world information nicely, and you get a feeling for being in the world with every page. The core rules and mechanics of the game are really simple, taking only 12 pages of understanding to grasp.

But yes, I wish D&D could be presented like this, with a focused setting-specific worldbook and a complete game in one volume.  The world information is just gravy here, a treat to those who played the computer games, and it does a great job at setting that sense of place and tone. It is a different presentation than D&D to be honest, and it focuses on the world first and the rules as direct support for the world. I like this style for a 'world first' game.

That said, I wish other "world plus game" RPGs could be done like this, such as World of Warcraft, Everquest, Final Fantasy (pick your favorite), or others.

This game does have the potential to be every bit as 'player nuh-uh' problematic about lore as traditional settings, such as the fiction heavy Faerun, which may be a minus for some. The game does a great job walking that tightrope though, presenting a game-neutral setting that you could pull in lore from any of the three Dragon Age games, the books, or none of it at all and get playing. The rules do say 'it is your game and world' once you get the ball rolling, and they also say 'as much of the lore from what you want to pull in' is okay' so there is cover for having played little or none of the games and still have a game that is useful with a colorful setting.

I like that concept though, "use as little or as much as you like." They don't lay out the events of the computer games blow by blow, yet they still support that lore should you want to do that. It feels like a skillful way of handling lore and referees and players with differing experience levels in the game's huge volume of lore.

I could see playing this as a straight D&D replacement where you are adventuring and not paraphrasing the games with your every step. The game is strong enough and has plenty of non-game support that you could make this your own world without too much trouble or player complaints. I would just call it My Dragon Age: The RPG and begin some epic tale using all the Lego-like pieces in this box

You could play this by picking up your favorite hint book for your most-favorite entry to the series and play along with that for guidance, and I am sure this would please fans of the computer games. It is an odd feeling, but if you want to pull in places and characters from the game, you could use the computer game book as your guide and run from there, and I am sure you would please fans that love these elements quite easily, such as replaying Dragon Age: Inquisition as a pen-and-paper game with more freedom and options.

This actually feels very compelling for me and it would be something I would love to try GM-ing.

I am impressed, and it is going to take me a while to read through this massive tome, but I am looking forward to getting lost in this world. Does it bug me this is based off a videogame first? Not at all, really, Bioware built a real and compelling world first, and this is just as much of a fascinating place to explore as any of the old-standards we have in Pathfinder or D&D. Oh, and they do have a PDF available, bonus points for that inclusion.

First impressions? Mightily impressed, happy I purchased, and this one is going to steal some play time from our normal games. The world of pen-and-paper fantasy gaming is getting a little broader this summer, and rules-light but setting-heavy games are setting up their castles in the landscape of roleplaying. This is a good thing, and I welcome the options and excitement this game brings to the table for our little hobby.

Well done, and a full report very soon on this impressive game.