Ogwood

Germ of an idea: Run an RPG one-shot in the setting of HBO's Deadwood, using the rules from Og.

 Here's your (insensitive and horrible) word list. You've been warned.

• Dead
• Wood
• Fire
• Water
• Whiskey
• Beer
• Drunk
• Medicine
• Cowboy
• Injun 
• Chink
• Doctor
• You
• Me
• Horse
• Pig
• Gun
• Gold
• Money
• Cards
• Pick
• Axe 
• Dance
• Vote
• Kill
• Ride
• Mine
• Snatch
• Whore
• Mother
• Fuck
• Fucker
• Fucking
• Fucked
• Up
• Bastard
• Cock
• Cunt
• Sucker
• Indignity
• Shit
• God
• Damn
• Ass
• Piss
• Motherfuckingcocksucker
• Truth
• Gratis

Everyone gets their preferred version of the F-word for free, plus a randomly-chosen assortment of other words.

What, you're still here? That was the joke.

Okay, fine, let's pretend I'm serious, as I really do enjoy a good game of Og now and again. Instead of being stupid cavemen, the PCs are fuckin' drunken cowboys. So you use the existing Og rules with a few simple modifications. You'd rename most things, and have to create a few mechanics. Eloquent Caveman becomes Cussin' Cowboy (or perhaps Fuckin' Wordy Cowboy), for example. And it might be worth creating a new class for Sober Cowboy who never forgets how to do things, though I'd strictly limit that class to one PC per campaign.

You'll need twice as many words per character, so 2d6+4 per PC, and the Fuckin' Eloquent Cowboy gets 4 more than anyone else rolled, plus all 4 versions of fuck on top of that. PC's names are of course not on the list, but I'm sure you'll come up with nicknames from your word list.

You have guns, so damage is 1 for a punch (2 for Strong Cowboy) and 1d6 for a gunshot, reversing the default Og unfairness (where Banging isn't nearly as good a Strong). That's a much faster and bloodier combat system too, and all the more so because there's no 40-Unnnggh T-Rex's to deal with. All of which is okay as the length of combat is at times somewhat unfortunate in Og. Replace your dino and mega-fauna monster list with miners, cardsharps, goons, saloongirls and railbarons.

The hardest part would be making the economy work. Og has no economy, but Deadwood is all about the gold in them thar hills. So you let gold buy guns, property, booze and whores, all of which need mechanical benefits. Guns = damage boosts, obviously, and the others could all be mechanisms for restoring Unnnggh, or might give some other bonus (like adding +1, or rolling two dice and keeping the better one). Giving them all mechanical benefits gives the PCs something to fight over, which is kinda the point. So these resources need to be limited and tightly controlled by the GM. The system becomes crunchier than default Og, but characters die so fast once the guns come out that I don't think you'll really feel the heft of the crunch. Some groups will have so much fun cussin' up a blue streak that they won't ever roll the dice.

I just thought up the marketing pitch: "No use big words, fuck Og."   :)

Wild-Die vs Drama Die

Please forgive my calling Last Unicorn's "drama die" a "wild die" in several posts the last couple days.

I've only played ICON Star Trek once, but I've played lots of d6 Star Wars and lots of 7th Sea.

In d6 Star Wars, the Wild Die is the one that indicates critical success on a "6" and critical failure on a "1". Last Unicorn / ICON Star Trek calls that The Drama Die. In some versions of the d6 system, this die explodes.

In 7th Sea, "drama dice" are something completely different. You get them for good roleplaying, or taking cool actions. Later you spend them to boost only the most important rolls.

Because of years of those contexts, I'm likely to continue to use Wild Die and Drama Die as I first learned them. If I say "Wild Die", know that I'm referring to a die you always get to roll that is somehow special (probably involving crits) from the other dice of the roll. If I say "Drama Die" know that it's some sort of reward die or limited resource die that will probably be used sparingly.

Exploding Dice

Some RPGs have a mechanic called "exploding dice" - in general, it means that if a die rolls it's highest value, you roll it again and add both rolls together. Example: You roll a "6" on a d6 - in a game with exploding dice, you'd roll the 6 again and add both rolls together. In some versions, a second "6" result would mean a third roll and a result greater than 12.

Most people who read this blog are probably familiar with the concept and the term, but I'd rather just explain the reference here rather than have to explain it again every time I mention the term.

One interesting side-effect of exploding dice is that certain results can't be rolled, and your bell curve ends up lop-sided. Using the d6 example above, you can roll 1-5, 7-11, and 13-17, but you can't ever roll a 6, 12, or 18.

This can have major impact if your gaming has a sliding difficulty scale. If the difficulty was 5, and you apply a standard +1 difficulty modifier, you've just cut the chance of success in half (from 33% to 16.6%). However, a second +1 difficulty modifier on the same roll doesn't impact the chance of success at all (stays at 16.6%), and a third +1 difficulty modifier only reduces it slightly (from 16.6% to 13.8%).

Wonky vs Broken

Nerd aside: That title kinda sounds like a lawsuit, doesn't it? Like Mr Wonky is suing The Broken Corporation...

• Wonkiness isn't the same thing as broken.
• Broken would be wonky taken to an extreme and likely giving someone an advantage.
• Plain vanilla wonky isn't nearly as bad as broken.
• In some ways, I find wonky more annoying, 'cause it bugs you but isn't worth changing a bunch of things to fix.

In Context: Scion is generally wonky, but only certain specific elements of it are genuinely broken.

Legend, Willpower, Avatar, and Titan

Trying to post something at the Scion Forum today, I nearly ran afoul of trying to distinguish temporary Legend points from permanent Legend rating.

• A character, with a Legend rating of X, has X-squared temporary Legend points.
• Many powers grant Legend, and others charge Legend. In most cases this means points, but there are a few things that temporarily boost Legend rating instead.
• However, it's terribly easy to accidentally not specify "points" or "rating" and those vague moments can get a little painful or confusing sometimes.

A similar problem sometimes occurs with Willpower.

• There are things (mostly powers) that trigger based on permanent Willpower rating.
• Other things (powers again, but also non-power mechanics) care about temporary Willpower points.
• Distinguishing between the two can sometimes be tricky.

Then there's the word Avatar, which can mean:

1. The top Boon of a Purview - the ultimate level of a field of godly power. (Note: sometimes players and forumites refer to the Ultimate epics as Avatars, but technically this is incorrect)
   
2. A character currently using such a Boon.
3. A birthright that allows a god to manifest with lower Legend (rating) for fewer Legend (points).
4. The sentient embodiment of one of the Titans, who can have 2 out of 3 of the above.
5. The words standard english-language meaning gets used occassionally, which in Scion would be roughly the earthly manifestation of a god, regardless of whether or not they used the birthright to manifest it, and regardless of whether they have and ultimate boons (in other words, it's still their avatar regardless of whether they have Avatar or any Avatars).
6. The physical body manifested from ichor by a god to be their earthly manifestation.
   

And, of course, the word Titan has similar issues. It can be:

• The world-sized embodiment of a primal concept. (Also sometimes known as a Greater Titan)
• Any of the many simultaneous Avatars (primarily 4th meaning, but also potentially the 1st, 2nd and 5th) of a Greater Titan.
• It's mythology-specific meaning, the primal beings from which the greco-roman gods were birthed. These would be just the Greco-Roman Avatars of the Greater Titans: Cronus, Ouranos, Gaia, etc. This is rarely used by the books, but it's hard to avoid when discussing the myths and characters that inspired the game.
  

---

Wouldn't all of the above be easier if they'd just used a thesaurus?

• Legend Rating could have determined "Myth Points".
• Willpower Rating could have associated temporary "Ego Points".
• "Primals", of which greco "Titans" are but a subgroup, could have "Avatars" (4th meaning only). Gods would instead have "Manifestations", with the option of purchasing the "Mortal Coil" (or perhaps even "Humility"?) birthright.
• The apex of Powers could be "Ultimate Boons" to compliment the games existing Ultimate Epics, though perhaps "Ultimates" and "Pinnacles" would preserve a distinction between them.

I think choosing to use multiple different terms would strengthen the game and remove much of the ambiguity and confusion of the rules. I fail to see what possible advantage all these duplicate terms and alternate meanings have. Does anyone have insight into why such decisions were not made?

Decisions = Challenge

This is part two of a thought. First read Dice ≠ Challenge for the groundwork of why challenging the players is important in RPGs, and why simply making them roll dice doesn't cut the mustard.

What challenges a player is forcing them to make hard decisions. There's multiple ways this can occur and two main categories such decisions fall into.

The first category is flavorful decisions. Do I work towards the group's goals, or strive at cross-purposes? Should I fight to the bitter end, or flee? Do I ask the hard questions, or let him off easy? Frontal assault, or sneak in under cover of night? The Lady, or the Tiger?
These are fun story-driven decisions, and the bigger the impact of the decision, the more fun it tends to generate. Deciding what your character had for lunch is only fun under specific narrow circumstances. Deciding how your character will confront the villain is almost always fun and exciting.

The second category is mechanical decisions. Here I'm mostly talking about Force Points, Luck Points, Drama Dice, Legendary Deeds, etc. These are resources a player can expend to influence die-rolls, or make events occur. Things like spells and powers (that can be used a number of times per day or per session) also fall into this category, though they are sort of a hybrid between the two. As with flavorful decisions, these mechanical ones generate more fun the bigger the impact the decision has on the game.

While almost all roleplaying scenarios allow for flavorful decisions, not all RPG systems incorporate mechanical decisions.

I prefer lighter rules-systems myself, but experience has shown me that most players get great enjoyment from mechanical decisions. The game that first opened my eyes to this was 7th Sea.

A different kind of Knack

7th Sea uses the term Knack to mean sub-skills, and they often allow for minor tricks you can do with a skill. They're rated 1-5, and grant dice.

(Scion also uses the term Knack to represent minor tricks, though the scale of Scion makes use of the word minor rather debatable. The tend to be rather powerful, actually. Instead of being derived from Skills, Scion Knacks are derived from Epic Attributes, which are rated 1-11 and greatly overpower dice. I've written up many Scion knacks on these pages.)

Below, are some minimalist descriptions of some Knacks I'd made for 7th Sea, and used in the Viola campaign. The format is: "Knack name [Skill name] Description." Unless otherwise stated, assume all are counted as Advanced Knacks.

• Ceremony [Priest or Skald] Used to flawlessly conduct any Ceremony or Ritual in your respective religion
• Cover (Shield) [Shield (not buckler)] This knack may be used as Passive Defense against all Ranged Attacks, and Active Defense against Thrown Weapons
• Duck [Grenadier] This knack may be used with your Panache Roll to avoid the brunt of an explosion.
• Innuendo [Courtesan, Courtier, Criminal, Spy, Streetwise] Roll Wits plus this knack to cleverly get a point across to someone without having to spell it out.
• Jester [Courtier, Performer] Roll Panache plus this knack when you seek to lighten a crowd, crack a joke, or taunt an adversary.
• Obstruct [Wrestling] This may be used as your Defense Knack (Passive or Active) when you have an opponent in a grapple.
• Puzzle Sword [Merchant (Swordsmith), Fencing] This knack may be used with Lore Checks and Activation Rolls concerning Puzzle Swords and their Makers.
• Syrneth Lore [Scholar] This knack may be used with Lore Checks and Activation Rolls concerning the Syrneth and their Artifacts.
• Threaten [Criminal, Governor, Spy, Whip] This knack may be used with Resolve Rolls in Intimidation Attempts. See 7th Sea Players Guide page 193.

In addition, I house-ruled the following Knack to make it more meaningful and worthwhile:

• Reload (Firearms) [Firearms] Modified from Player's Guide: Each Rank subtracts 3 actions from the Reload Time.
  

If memory serves correctly, these Grenadier knacks are also house-rules, changes from the official knacks/rules to improve functionality or better simulate reality:

• Fuse (Grenade) [Grenadier] A Grenade detonates 1d10 phases after the fuse is lit. For each Rank you have in this knack, you may reroll that d10 once. The last die rolled is kept.
• Throw (Grenade) [Grenadier] When you throw a Grenade as an attack, roll this Basic knack. Lighting a Fuse is 1 Action. Throwing is a Second. Range = 5 plus (2 times your Brawn).

overuse of the CIA

In gaming, when you need a shadowy organization to pull the strings behind the curtain, it's far too easy to just say "he works for the CIA". The truth of the matter is, there's 16 different agencies in the US alone that a PC/NPC mole, conspirator, or black-operative could work for. Why settle for the boring old CIA, when you can be an operative from the DMA's office of GEOINT? Those guys are the ones with the real power - "hey Fred, whattya say we move the space needle a couple hundred feet southwest today?"

Here's the list from the Wikipedia page on the Intelligence Comunity...

The IC consists of 16 members (also called elements). The Central Intelligence Agency is an independent agency of the United States government. The other 15 elements are offices or bureaus within federal executive departments. The IC is led by the DNI, whose office (ODNI) is not listed as a member of the IC.

• Independent agencies
  • Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

• United States Department of Defense (DoD)
  • Secretary of Defense, through the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA)
  • Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency (AF ISR or AIA)
  • Army Military Intelligence
  • Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
  • Marine Corps Intelligence Activity
  • National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
  • National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
  • National Security Agency (NSA)
  • Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)

• United States Department of Energy
  • Office of Intelligence

• United States Department of Homeland Security
  • Office of Intelligence & Analysis
  • Coast Guard Intelligence

• United States Department of Justice
  • Federal Bureau of Investigation Directorate of Intelligence (FBI DI)
  • Drug Enforcement Administration Office of National Security Intelligence (DEA)

• United States Department of State
  • Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR)

• United States Department of the Treasury
  • Office of Intelligence and Analysis

• • 
    

Mystery-Cult Etymology

When I was a kid, I read tales of Centaurs (half-horse, half-man) and Minotaurs (half-bull, half-man) and assumed they had something (other than Greece) in common. Foolishly, all throughout my youngness, I assumed "-taur" must mean "half-man". How very silly of me.

These days, I understand the Harryhausenian tales of my youth a bit better. I know that the Minotaurs roots are "Minos" and "Taurus" - it was, after all, the Bull in the labyrinth of King Minos.

Yet, applying the same logic to the other creature just didn't seem to work. Centaurs aren't bulls, they're horses! Then I realized, it's just a case of the doubled "t" being dropped. Cent-taur. I now see that the name was intended to let us know that the original story was merely a parable or metaphor. It wasn't a true tale about real creatures. Instead, it was 100% bull.


P.S.: Don't confuse Etymology with Entomology. They sound similar, but mean totally different things. One's about bull-centipede crossbreeds, the other is about those tree-guys in Lord of the Rings.

Liminal Beings

Today's vocab lesson: The phrase "Liminal Being" is mostly just a fancy way of saying "hybrid" or "crossbreed". However, it has very exacting implications in mythology and science fiction.

a liminal being is a fantasy character that combines two distinct states of simultaneous existence within one physical body. This unique perspective may provide the liminal being with wisdom and the ability to instruct, making them suitable mentors, whilst also making them dangerous and uncanny.

That wikipedia entry goes on to provide a list of Liminal Beings such as centaurs, cyborgs, ghosts, Merlin and Spock. Think I need to strive to work this into my Scion campaign. Liminality is a tiny bit akin to Bisociation, and (as a technicality) all Scion PCs are, by virtue of mingled divine and mortal blood, Liminal Beings. (I say it's a technicality, because in Scion your mortal blood doesn't really provide you with any benefits at all, and is eventually overpowered by your inner divine nature.)

The Midwives Crisis

The Continuum RPG has a GM's section, which covers "known history" of the setting, from the founding of Antedesertium (17,997 bce) to the wild Interregnum where mankind is nearly driven extinct (13,557 to 12,969 bce) to Joan of Arc's attacks on enemy weapon depots at the end of the Hunt of the Sun (4316bce) to the release of the Continuum RPG (in 1999 ce) to the elimination of childhood (2218 ce) and beyond into inheritor time-space. As you can see, this timeline has some pretty odd entries on it. One of my favorites reads as follows:

5762 [bc] Midwives' Crisis: All leveller mothers begin birthing twins

That's it. No cause. No motive. No explanation. No details. No end date given. "Further information is not available here." Further Information (the book by that name, it's a Continuum Supplement I don't have) may tell more, but I don't have it so I don't know.

I'd noted this odd cryptic entry when first considering what I'd do if I ever ran a Continuum game. I definitely wanted to touch on supercool concepts like the Macro Computer (part of "The Hunt of the Sun", the plot to convert the sun into a time machine and thereby destroy the future) and the inhuman nature of The High Kings of Antedesertium. I wanted to involve the battles between St. Germaine and Joan d'Arc. I wanted to include Inheritor spaceships and alien Greys, and Atlantis. I had all these awesome huge epic plans, but no way to condense them into the scope I'd have time for, especially not with PCs being Span One.

That's where the idea of Izzy's Tour came in. I could briefly flirt with all the big secrets of the setting. I didn't have to focus on any one of them, or make solving such things the point of the narrative. If I was going to do that, I could name-drop like crazy, and even spend a session or two on kooky little red herrings like the Midwive's Crisis. What fun!

As if on cue, Amy and Kevin asked if they could join our Continuum game. Kevin's character concept was a little odd. His PC, Kail, was a mirror twin. It's a rare real-world condition, where otherwise-identical twins are born as mirror opposites, with reflected assymytries of the face, moles on opposite limbs, etc. In folklore, this means there's a good twin and a bad twin.
His backstory involved the murder of his twin, and him taking that Twin's place. I didn't want to work that in too deeply to my scenario, 'cause I knew they'd be moving soon, and I didn't want to derail things. Conveniently, I was able to get the party to the time of the Midwive's Crisis on the last session that Kevin was able to play in. In my campaign, the line read more like:

5236 bc - height of the Midwives' crisis - due to antedesertium magic/meddling, all leveller mothers birth mirror twins, and Brock (the background villain who chopped off Dale's hand) is somehow taking advantage of it.

It was, I admit, a little dirty to do this. Poor Kevin must have felt like he was moving away from a campaign that was on the verge of being all about his character. I'm a horrible, terrible, evil GM, and that's why you all love me.

Bisociation in Scion

Posted a slightly different version of this at the white-wolf forums in response to something earlier today.

Mythology is rife with Bisociation. Bisociation is a term coined by Arthur Koestler. It refers to when something has multiple meanings and/or realities at once. It's somewhere between metaphor and contradiction. It's what powered Gnostic mystery cults in ancient days. It's superficially akin to Syncretism.

Examples relevant to Scion:
Saturn is both the barbaric Titanic father of Zeuss (aka Chronos, who ate his own children) and the merrymaking fun-god that Saturnalia celebrates. He's also the god of planting and growing grain.

Loki is both a Giant and a God. He is both a good guy and a villain. Both a humanoid and fire itself.

Most gods have multiple contradictory avatars. This is doubly true after the Romans got their hands on them. Most are also in some way metaphorical.

Helen of Troy's parents were Zeus and Leda (according to Homer and Euripedes) or Zeus and Nemesis (according to Asclepiades and pseudo-Eratosthenes). She was abducted Paris, went willingly with Paris, fled to Egypt instead, and was abducted by Theseus, depending on the author. Troy itself lies in Turkey, Greece, and England.

The holy grail is the chalice of the last supper, the cup that caught Christ's blood, the philosopher's stone of paganism, (the secret child of Christ and) Mary Magdelene, and the Merovingian bloodline. It was found by Galahad, the Templars, Indiana Jones, and Tom Hanks.

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, Apollo's Chariot, Horus's golden barque, a bright flaming diamond orbiting the earth in a crystal sphere, just another star, and a giant nuclear furnace.

Horus, Jesus, and Mithra were all born of Virgins on the 25th of December. Christmas roughly coincides with their births, Viking Yule, Roman Saturnalia, the Solstice, and the time when Jolly Old St. Nick (not to be confused with Old Nick, unless you're really messin' with the PCs) shimmies down chimneys.

The trick to using Bisociation in Scion is to except every mythic metaphor as truth. When the players point out the contradictions, acknowledge them out-of-character, but be brief and vague about it. "Yes, that does seem to contradict, doesn't it? I wonder what that means." Fate has tied everything together in ways that make objectivity impossible.

In-character, mortal NPCs each pick a single truth (or are just clueless). Gods accept every contradictory truth from their own pantheon's point-of-view, and the Norns accept multiple trans-pantheonic truths. All other NPCs fall somewhere between those extremes.

Further reading: The best article on relating Bisociation to gaming is Kenneth Hite's "Two-World Minimum: Bisociation and the Art of High Weirdness" which originally appeared in Pyramid, but is reprinted in Supressed Transmission: The First Broadcast

Explaining "meta-RPG"

This used to be part of my Wikiland post, but I decided it needs it's own post I can refer to later.

By "meta-RPG", I mean an extra-layer of RPG you apply on top of another RPG (which I'll call the Host). Without a Host, you'd find it very hard to play the meta-RPG, as it provides few rules and precious little structure on it's own. I didn't make up this term, I suspect it was coined by John Tynes.

Examples of existing meta-RPGs include:

• Tynes' PowerKill, which is played for 5-10 minutes before and after it's Host RPG.
• The world-creation system from Universalis is sort of a meta-RPG. Universalis comes with it's own Host built in, but it's very simple to strip the basics of the meta-system out and apply it to a new Host as a way to build unique worlds and settings.
• By the same token, the d20 System and GURPS can both almost qualify as a meta, or perhaps more accurately as a Host for campaign settings. The same goes for True 20, though intentionally even more so, such that I'd be tempted to remove the "almost". But I wouldn't actually give in to those temptations.
  
• Moebius Campaigns (a concept Jeff Tidball first presented in Games Quarterly Magazine, if I recall correctly) are definitely a meta-RPG structure.
• Wikiland is a meta-RPG I created earlier today, 12/21/07.

Are there other meta-RPGs out there that I'm missing?

Groeg ydy a what the heck does that mean?

Groeg ydy abar a ognise bod 'n lladdedig ail a ail

To get that, I took a quote from an archaeologist: "Greece is a corpse that must be [killed? murdered? buried?] again and again", and I ran it through an English-to-Welsh translator. It certainly wasn't 100% historically accurate for me to put it into modern Welsh, but it was the closest-to-accurate translator I could find in the time I had available.

Nowadays, that same translator site refuses to put it back to English, so I'm missing one critical word mid-sentence.

The original quote was a comment (by Sir Moses Finley, if I recall correctly) on how historical evidence in the Mediterranean does not support the idea of the events of the Illiad happening during the lifetime of the Greek civilization. He was arguing against the view of Hisserlik being Troy. Iman Wilkens references him in "Where Troy Once Stood".

I've always thought that Iman Wilkens' Troy-In-England would be a really cool time & place to set a game. So it was only natural that my time-travelling PCs would have a layover there. Since I'd only have 1 or 2 sessions to explore it, I needed to focus on communicating the concept, not aiming for historical accuracy.

Here's some relevant links about Wilkens' research and ideas:
I wrote my own summary of Wilkens' theories in a post on repeatedexpletives.
Wilkens' own site which goes into a lot more detail on Troy as an ancient Celtic Oral Tradition that the Greeks merely adopted.
Wikipedia has a decent-enough article on Iman's book, though the various editor's biases show through in places. The contrast from section to section is somewhat amusing.

All About Bacon

Backstory: I was reading Suppressed Transmission: The First Broadcast by Kenneth Hite, and the chapter entitled "Six Degrees of Sir Francis Bacon" got me wondering:

• What other variants of the Kevin Bacon Game are there?
• What other references to said game in popular media could I think of?
• Is there anyway I could work it into a bill in Nomiblog?

Kevin Bacon game: Everybody knows this one. One player lists a movie. The next lists an actor from said movie. The third lists another movie that actor was in, and so on around the circle. Several scoring systems and variants exist, depending on whether you're trying to cooperatively get to Kevin Bacon or actively trying to stump the other players. If playing with an even number of players, it's often best to have each person's turn be the listing of both a actor and a film.

I hearby propose a new name for an established Bacon Game variant: We'll call it Fakin' Bacon, after that lovely product that looks and tastes like Bacon but is actually made from soy. In Fakin' Bacon, you can count home movies, stock footage, voice overs, actors playing other actors, sound and lighting technitions, etc. As long as it was filmed, videoed, or digitally recorded and shown to at least one person who wasn't in it, it counts. I played a lot of Fakin' Bacon back when it didn't have a name.

To that, we add some other variants I've played or seen in print:

Sir Francis Bacon game: As Kenneth Hite demonstrated quite ably in the above-mentioned book, Sir Francis Bacon is very easy to connect to anything in the field of conspiracy theory: Masons, UFOs, Kabbala, modern-day assassination plots - they are all the fault of Sir Francis Bacon. I mentioned an example elsewhere today.

Hite also quotes Foucoult's Pendulum, wherein Umberto Eco connects "sausage" to "Plato" in 5 easy steps. That sounds like a variant of Kevin Bacon, but with fewer restrictions on what things you can connect and how you may connect them. Probably only a game in the same sense that Sim Earth is - a pleasant rule-less diversion you can never truly win.

The A. Harrison Game is kind of like Sir Francis Bacon, except played via snail-mail and probably dangerous under the current administration. Also pleasant, ruleless and unwinable.

I once played the Eggs and Bacon game, where instead of listing actors and films we listed menu items and restaurants. It was okay for something to do when you're trying to get kicked out of Denny's, but not really a good overall game. Getting from "Faux Chicken with Mangos" to "Kosher Latkes" is an exercise I'll leave to the reader.

The Erdős–Bacon Number involves people who are published academics and appear in films. It's not really a game, not even in the sense that Sims are, as it's just an equation with no decision tree. It's interesting none-the-less: you add your Erdos number to your Bacon number, and the total is your Erdos-Bacon number. The current minimum is a 3. My wife has a Bacon Number of 4 (see below) and co-authored a paper on plasma physics and using lasers to cause implosion (seriously) while working at the Los Alamos Labs, so she may have a non-infinite Erdös-Bacon number, I'll have to do some research to say for certain.

The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon entry on Wikipedia lists plenty of good references to the Game. But it misses my two favorites:

1. The DVD of Season 2 of Lost has an interactive Six-Degrees game that simply shows the links between the characters in the show.
2. "James Bondage, 006.9 in A View To A Clone, Part 2: In The Mouth Of Cloneness" has an extended sequence wherein Bondage and the Clonemaster play Fakin' Bacon, though they claim it's the genuine Kevin Bacon Game.

My Bacon Number would be 4:
Rolfe Bergstrom is in the upcoming Black with Billy Garberina. (I also have a voice-over zombie moan and shuffle in Billy's Necroville, but that may be uncredited)
Billy Garberina was in Gimme Skelter (2007) with Kenneth J. Hall
Kenneth J. Hall was in Fear of a Black Hat (1994) with Nancy Giles
Nancy Giles was in Loverboy (2005) with Kevin Bacon

Therefore anyone else (Jake & Kris Roth, Audie Harrison, etc) who appeared in In The Mouth of Cloneness has a Bacon Number of 5, assuming you count minor video projects.
The original View To A Clone at least appears on the internet so it's perhaps a more legitimate Number 5 link for Jake, X, Daved, Kat, etc.
J. Starr Welty appeared in a couple Pizza Face Death films with me, in addition to writing and directing Black, so her Fakin' Bacon numbers are 4 or 5 depending on how you trace it.

I note that someone I went to high-school with has a Bacon Number (or at least Fakin' Bacon Number) of 3:
Tasha Hardy produced Star Trek: World Enough And Time which starred George Takei
George Takei was in American Summer (2007) with Tom Arnold (I)
Tom Arnold (I) was in We Married Margo (2000) with Kevin Bacon

The Oracle of Bacon determines Bacon Numbers quickly, though it does so only via Actors, so it ignores Tasha, for example. Jerks. Here's a fun fact:

"According to the Oracle of Kevin Bacon website, approximately 12% of all actors cannot be linked to Bacon using their criteria."

I assume wikipedia and the oracle meant all professional film actors when they said that.

What is Gaming?

When you say you spent the evening "gaming" or "roleplaying", people assume you spent the night hanging with friends and rolling dice. If you explain instead you were IM-ing an RPG with out-of-state buddies, or killing things on WOW, they'll still consider that gaming. I'm pretty sure the same goes for my pet nomiblogging project, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Let's say I spent the evening by myself working out stats for a group of Frost Giants I'll eventually use in my Scion Campaign. The next day we end up in a conversation, and you ask what I did last night. Would you accept me saying I spent the night "Gaming"? It seems a little misleading in that context. Yet for some (myself included) that's a goodly share of the fun that gaming provides.

It seems we lack a larger term for not just Gaming, but for the whole gaming-related enchilada: designing, writing, conceptualizing, crafting hand-outs, theorizing, researching, reading, xp-spending, threat-balancing, character creation, house-ruling, acting, gaming, etc.

Why is it that a hobby that's been in full swing for over 30 years still hasn't fleshed out such an important part of it's vocabulary?

Harpastum! (Rules for use in Continuum)

This is also from the old Continuum campaign. Here's a wiki link on Harpastum, though the book I was using for reference back when running the campaign made it sound less like a team sport and more of a free-for-all. That difference is reflected below. What I was envisioning may be more like Follis, but with Harpastum's heavy ball and physical demands. Or wikipedia could just be wrong. Not like that's never happened before.

The Game: Harpastum: (Mechanics and Skill Improves for Continuum)
This game involves a sand-filled ball, and a lot of throwing, catching, and shoving. It's a classic Roman pastime. Slightly less bloody that gladiators.

Each participant gets to roll an Athletics four times, as follows:

Throwing: Uses any form of Athletics that involves a two hand throw or a throw of a large (softball+) sized ball.
Other throwing games get a -1 penalty.
PCs who's athletics involve non-throwing games have just Body -1, and get only a Body clock for the roll.

Catching: Uses any form that involves catching things thrown to or at you.
-1 if it’s a minor part of the specialization you’re using.
If there’s no such action in the game you have Athletics in, then have just Quick -1, and get only Quick clock for the roll.

Bodychecks/Shoving: Usable with any Martial Arts, Unarmed Combat. Also useable with any full-contact Atheltics like Football, Rugby, Hockey or Lacrosse.
Games with minimal contact (baseball, soccer) get -1 penalty
Games with no contact (golf) roll just Body -1, and get only Body clock for the roll.

Stamina: Useable with any Athletics, Unarmed Combat, or Toughness.
If using an Athletics with no strenuous activity, such as minigolf, just roll Body, and get only Body clock for the roll.

Each player makes 1 roll for each those 4 components to the game, and records how many rolls they succeeded at.
If one player has most successes, they won the game! +1 extra clock on Athletics
If no clear winner, each player rolls again for Catching & Stamina.
If no clear winner then, each player rolls again for Bodychecks & Stamina.
If no clear winner then, each player rolls again for Stamina.
If still no clear winner, the game ends as a draw.
Bonus clock for winning is only if someone wins at the end of the first set of rolls!

If anyone states they Span to take advantage, then all players add a Quick roll to each round of rolls.

if no PC gets any successes on the first 4 rolls, Tiberius laughs at your incompetence and the game ends as a flop.

The tough part of this from a GM / Adventure Writer perspective, was how many rolls to have PCs make. Each roll is a clock (effectively an experience point in the terminology of other games) whereas it would take 15 days of off-camera Harpastum playing to get an Athletics clock otherwise. Too few rolls means no chance for PCs to "level up", but too many rolls results in the plot bogging down and getting boring.

In retrospect, I should have made there be a trophy - some gift from Tiberius to the person who won the game. That would have justified doubling the number of rolls without risking boredom.

Gods and Scions as Egregores or Memes

Jake introduced me to the word egregore today. Like syncretic, it's a concept I've been aware of for a while, but for which I've never known the proper name. The Egregore concept, in occult circles, is roughly (very roughly) that ideas have an identity of their own. Sort of like memes meet personification. If enough brain power is spent thinking about something, the something will begin to think. Or more accurately, a spirit or consciousness will form based upon and embodying that concept. We imagine them into being. I love the gaming applications of this.

Imagine a Scion campaign where the Gods are but Egregores or the personification of Memes. It jives perfectly with the games existing concepts of Legend and Fatebinding. I imagine it'd lead to a far lighter and less serious campaign style, almost parody. In addition to Zeus, Thor, Isis, et all, the campaign would also include Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Darth Vader, Bloody Mary, Gandalf, Hannibal Lecter, Samuel Colt, The Beatles, Uncle Sam, Coca Cola, etc. Anything that people believe in, or just spend a lot of time thinking about.

Could these newer entities give birth to Scions? If so, I feel very sorry for the Scion of The Macarena.

On what is the Legend-rating of a Egregore dependent?
If it's how many people are currently aware of them, then that'd make the new Egregores and Memes every bit as powerful as the ancient Gods.
If it's how many generations have spoke of them, then chronological age would directly limit power. This logic would cap the PC's Legend, so I imagine it's not a perfect fit.
If it's how many people have honestly worshiped them, then Gandalf and Coke are kept to low power. Santa, on the other hand, may be able to siphon power from all those little kid's letters.

Interpretatio Graeca

Just stumbled across this wiki page that has some interesting gaming applications. It discusses Interpretatio Graeca and Interpretatio Romana, two specific examples of Syncretism.

Most directly applicable to gaming is this chart that shows the gods held in common by ancient Greeks, Romans, and Etruscans. It's useful for Scion, GURPS Imperial Rome, Fulminata, etc.

Syncretic Gaming

The Scion RPG, with it's sexapantheonic foundation (Greek, Norse, Voodoo, Japanese, Egyptian, Aztec) and tertiary embracing of urban legend and modern society as well as other myths and pantheons, is a robust example of Syncretism. That's my word for the day.

While the word is new to me, the concept isn't. I've often explored such a philosophy in my gaming, blending genres and picking tools from settings and systems (and movies) I enjoyed.

In short, I like to mix my metaphors.

For example, I once resolved an Amber DRPG campaign with climactic build to an apocalyptic endgame that drew equally from Jesus Christ Superstar and Aliens. (And Zelazny's Amber, of course)

And then there's the hatbox, which deserves it's own post some other time.