The legendary Thuloid's gold

If you're reading this, you might be interested in a solid and fairly wide-ranging batch of discussions going on at Thuloid's latest post at the House, all assisted by that gleaming new Disqus plug-in.

The post looks at what makes a game interesting and the comments cover D&D and old school art, the aesthetics of GW's Age of Sigmar, the Iliad, Vampire, The World's End, Frozen, roleplaying the life enlisted, milking in the industry, and character history tables.

If you don't already know and you're a blogger, the House is a network you can join here.

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Dragons as dungeons and titan diving

My post at the House this week got a bit out of hand, trying to cover just a little too much. I did manage an approach to going inside the big kits, a look at character infection as a way to offset combat, and the idea of living delves and spaces.

But I had a lot more, so as a start on it, here are three related tables, for weird infections to replace more ordinary ones, for living landscapes, and for wargaming inside creatures.

In the House, or hanging out in the shed for now...

Not content with one sporadic gig here, I have a first post up over at the House, probably the start of a weekly series looking at what the member blogs have been up to, and going off on tangents.

This one covers basing miniatures and how it can be seen as an element of roleplaying, plus a potentially hobby-shaking development in the understanding of what miniatures might be, then representing low gravity in games. There's some interesting discussion in the comments as usual.

It's also worth saying that if you're a blogger and not a House member, but you want a bit more traffic, have a think about joining up. The info's all here. There's no widget to add and the essay is just a joke, but you can play along if you feel like it. You don't even need to link back to the House or put up the network logo, but it might be neighbourly.

This could be especially relevant to your interests if you're primarily a roleplayer and the blog is listed with the RPGBA, which looks like ceasing operation in a couple of months.

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Game stores, House of Paincakes and your blog too

Loquacious has answered my question at House of Paincakes on what she thinks boosts game store creation and helps a store thrive, and what a keen community could focus on. She's a store owner too so if you have an interest in the future of tabletop gaming at the tabletop, have a read.

This is also a good time to remind people of what HoP is: a major blog network with a strong but open authorial voice and excellent regular writers. Any blog on tabletop gaming can join, right here.

The blog rolls are heavy on wargaming right now, but that will change if a wider range of blogs join. If you want to spread the word about the kind of game you like, go and do it.

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Towards a new model army?

Many of us feel that certain areas of wargaming can be pricey, some areas increasingly and unreasonably so. A handful of posts from the past few days suggest ways forward.

• James S at Warp Signal proposed the not-so-alien notion of army sharing...

• Matt Plonski at Apocalypse 40K described wargaming online with Vassal.

• The guys at Dark Future are reorganising their blog to highlight work in the wider community like tutorials, reviews of alternative bits and conversions.

• Loquacious at House of Paincakes followed up the OGL post and wondered about extending community licensing to other game systems and settings.

• For 40K especially, Tales of the Maelstrom posted a lead-in for tomorrow's festive meet-up, blending Rogue Trader's use of a GM with wide group play.

Interestingly, BoLS this week posted some homebrew, which I think is the first time in a good while. It's a full mission, like those Creative Twilight produce, possibly a step into a new golden age, and Loken reminded us of the first and its magical Lords of Battle pdf.

A few bits and pieces

First, BoLS has a major update on the ongoing GW vs. Chapterhouse case - there's a little more here - and HoP flags up a clever thunderhawk.

Second, if you've been having trouble seeing The M42 Project's vision of an improved alternative to 40K, SandWyrm posted a force organisation chart and revised game introduction. 

Third, there's a discussion going on at Trey's last Warlord review, on change in people and genre, and Roger the GM sees the old school in ITV's classic show Knightmare.

Fourth, one or two of us were commenting a while back with Lovecraft's favourite words, and to expand a shrunk vocabulary I've decided to build on that. I started here and here.

Lastly, it seems no one got that movie reference from the last post, so I've put a slightly more open reference into the next entry for the Maelstrom table. This is entry no. 6 of eight unless someone else jumps in before Saturday. If you have a suggestion, go for it.

     The descent into the Maelstrom... (heading for 1D8)

     6. ... wakes the traveller - who is afloat and wired up in a sensory deprivation tank.
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Warhammer xK and wargaming almost before war

There was a post at Kings Miniatures last week suggesting GW cuts prices by 50% and that we list what we'd buy if they did to encourage them.

I've been wondering what I'd put on a list at 50% off, but I haven't come up with anything yet. The Lord of the Rings line is there, but why drop into 25mm from 28mm and not go to 15mm, or better yet 6mm? For sci-fi and 40K at 6mm, check out the new not-titans from Steel Crown Productions.

Building on a discussion with Snord at BoLS, I don't much dig GW's heroic 28mm style any more. I think it looks odd. The bits can be useful though, and we might only now be learning how useful. Ork hands, say, can look simian on naturally proportioned humans.

I know I'm not alone in this, so here's another hypothetical. If GW's style is falling out of fashion, what else could the rulesets be used for? What if the settings got old?

To mention another discussion at BoLS, I recently joked some of the Dystopian Legions miniatures could inspire a Warhammer 20K, set 10,000 years further back from the 30K of the currently fashionable Horus Heresy. What about playing a Warhammer 2K in our near past or future, or c. 0K with ancients? Would the ruleset be up to the job?

That got me thinking about earlier periods. How about -40K? Or -400K? Have you ever seen a ruleset for wargaming or roleplaying encounters between early humans? This kind of thing. Various posts at The Subversive Archeologist - like this one - suggest plenty is still up in the air. Early human miniatures are relatively thin on the ground too.

If you have anything like that up your sleeve, you might want to read Lo's current series at HoP on getting new ideas out there, which is now up to the subject of self-publishing.

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Dust-offs & Debunking

In the first part of what looks like being a long and intriguing series, Rob Kuntz at Lord of the Green Dragons has this to say about the rather fashionable - maybe advantageous? - efforts to reconstruct 'correct' approaches to early RPGs:

The more you vest in "this must be the way it is done, because Rob, or Dave, or Hargrave, or EGG the Magnificent," did it that way, you have reached the dead end of creative and spontaneous thought and action, the very essence of the original game as composed for creative individuals.

But that's just, like, his opinion. Right? If you need help with a get-out, it could be the understanding that what the creators of D&D gave us wasn't an RPG, but a wargame.

If you want an OD&D primer, Von is doing an overview at HoP, with 1, 2, 3 parts so far.

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Deep thought Friday

This time I'll just direct you to two discussions.

One is SinSynn's considered post On Violence in Gaming at House of Paincakes, which is still picking up thoughtful responses two days later.

The other is Dark nights apprising here at the Expanse, which stayed oddly quiet once it was posted despite solid traffic - until James S took up the gauntlet earlier today and made things a lot more epistemological and DtF in the process.

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Grilled Porky

The interview I did with Loquacious for the ID series is up here at World of Wonder. If you don't know the series, the subject is game design and it goes wide and deep. All of the interviews are here, and to anyone interested in gaming I recommend a good read. 

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Rolling with it: adaptive action

The next part of the series on game design is up at House of Paincakes. Loquacious starts looking at rules, and as with the last part there's a lot of thought-provoking material from interviews too.

The mention of elimination got me thinking, and SinSynn makes what looks to be a central point with the recognition that "everyone's mind works differently". I'd say there's huge potential in that.

I got quoted too, from a great discussion we had on what exactly random might be. We covered Freud's parapraxis, a quote from Marvin Minsky and the Mandelbrot set, as well as precision and the potential for a 'limitless' game.

More could come later, but reading the snippet, I thought I might develop the idea and turn it into a rule. I'm surprised we don't see one like it more often. Here's the key line.

The Grisly Grotto

For last week's post at HoP Von recorded a video on what roleplaying is, and it's worth a look. When I clicked through I found it linked to a vid on Quake, a seminal first-person shooter from back in 1996, and watching more reminded me how good the design was.

This is a walkthrough of the fourth map, the Grisly Grotto, built around a flooded cavern, one of my favourites for the character of the spaces and the clever setups. Quake never seemed especially complex in how it populated levels or reacted to events, but the bad guys and locations were arranged well to draw players on and keep them off balance.

This is the PC version and as far as I can tell it's not using the DarkPlaces mod or any texture packs. Watch out if you don't know Quake - it's pretty gory, and could be scary.

If you're wondering why all that infrastructure might be there, Callin at Big Ball of No Fun has a lot of options, and for more cavern inspiration check out the links at this post.

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In the House

The upstart House of Paincakes has opened up links with the Expanse. That is to say I'm in, but there's persuading to be done the decision was a good one. What comes of it is anyone's guess. For my part I've agreed to supply glimpses of life's deeper mysteries.

The network is growing fast and has some real talent so go explore by all means, but beware - as the logo suggests, it's a bumpy ride and not for the easily offended.