Tag Archive for rant

More Backup Ranty Goodness

Deep One / 2012/01/09 / No comments

Over at Newsarama, we have learned that as well as Batman, Detective Comics is also going to a 40 page, $3.99 format. The additional pages will be story content, according to John Rood, the Executive Vice President of DC for Sales, Marketing and Business Development.

So, Batman is for sure getting backups featuring tie ins to the main story. What is Detective getting?

The short answer is we’re not sure yet. Here are a few suggestions:

  • Give us characters we haven’t seen enough of! Look, everyone loves the Bat. But a lot of us love his supporting cast. We understand that it’s expensive to print runs of comics, but here is the perfect opportunity to give fans of the GCPD, or of the many other neat characters who live in Gotham a bit of something to look forward to.
  • Show the women some love! There are a ton of great female characters that DC has basically ignored in the relaunch: Renée Montoya, Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown, Josie MacDonald and Romy Chandler, just to name a few. Give them some decent screen time. You’ve promised us some Steph Brown and Cass Cain, but so far, we haven’t seen either of them. This is your chance to make it right, on the cheap.
  • Give the GCPD it’s due! Gotham Central was one of my favorite titles. Sure, now probably isn’t the time to relaunch the book, but using a backup in Detective Comics makes perfect sense. They are all detectives, after all.
  • Show me some Batgirls! Okay, I’ve already mentioned Cass Cain (aka Batgirl and the Black Bat), and Stephanie Brown (aka the Spoiler, Robin and Batgirl). Both of them are fan favorites, and they both have a history together. Why not show them doing their thing? Fans who don’t read Detective (like me) would buy issues with either of them. They would have a heart attack and buy several copies of any issue with both of them. Want to get even more fans screaming with delight? Do a Misfit run. She tried her hand as the new Batgirl in old continuity, why not bring her troubled, homeless self back?
  • Answer the Question! Look, I loved Renée as the Question, but that seems to be off the table now. So, bring back Vic Sage. He’s a detective, and I loved him in 52. Let a whole new generation appreciate the Question. Even better, use the backups to have Vic train Renée as the new Question. (On another note, if you do this, please put Renée on the Birds of Prey! Her appearance in Gail Simone’s run was inspired. More, please.)
  • Classic villains! Whatever happened to the Riddler? Or Killer Croc? Or Bane? Tell us in a backup!
  • Do some test marketing! Not sure if there is enough interest in a character? Give them a backup. Watch the sales rise and know that fans love Stephanie Brown, and Cass Cain, and Renée Montoya. Experiment. Take chances. People are buying Detective anyway, so take a few risks. They could pay off!

If any of these happened in the pages of Detective, I’d put it in my pull list in a heartbeat. So, listen up, DC. You have a chance to right some of the wrongs you’ve done in the past.

Category: Comics / Tags: , , , ,

Batman and Backups

Deep One / 2012/01/09 / No comments

Over at The Source, DC’s official blog, they’re talking about backup stories. Starting in issue 8, the comic

will feature the first of a series of back-up stories exploring the dark history of the Court of Owls, the mysterious and malevolent secret society wreaking havoc upon Gotham City in the ongoing series.

The Source Blog, January 9 2012

 

SPOILERS AHEAD!

I love backup stories. The backups from the new Action Comics are wonderful. Steel has appeared, but the story of Jonathan and Martha Kent really shined, and made me hope that Action would keep doing little stories at the end of a larger comic. I’m happy to pay an extra dollar for these gems.

Now, back to Batman. The price goes up a dollar, and we get…more Court of Owls stuff. For those of you unfamiliar with the Scott Snyder run on Batman, the Court of Owls is a mysterious organization that has done bad stuff in Gotham since the town’s founding. They are responsible for the death of at least one of Bruce Wayne’s ancestors, and possibly more.

Why do we need a backup for this?

Look, I like the Court of Owls stuff. It’s nice to see Batman not completely controlling Gotham City. It’s nice to see him wrong. But to me, a backup story should avoid direct tie ins to the Main Event. A backup can work if it’s coming at the Main Event from another direction, but this sounds more like a history lesson.

If we need history, why not include it in the Main Event? At least some of the backup is told from the POV of Alfred’s father. Neat, but I’m paying an extra dollar? When that could be included in the Main Event as diary pages, flashbacks or any number of other bits?

Okay, I get that it’s cool. Snyder has a great history of doing backup stories. I would rather, though, get a feel for the story from other characters that I care about. Say, Detectives Harvey Bullock, Renée Montoya or Crispus Allen. Even Commissioner Gordon would work. Seeing them working the case from a different angle would be interesting, and allow Gotham to develop from a viewpoint we rarely get to see.

Gotham City is a character in most Bat titles. It needs another point of view to develop it. The Wayne family is important, but there are other people in Gotham. I’d like to know how they see the city and the stories that have shaped it so much.

Category: Comics / Tags: , , ,

Why Do We Have To Kill Everything?

Deep One / 2011/01/25 / One comment

Head Minion‘s Sunday night Pathfinder game heated up this week. Sadly, we were down two players (one has another game that runs every other week, and Bearded Dork had some family obligations), which left us with two paladins, a monk and a witch.

And we walked into a bar.

Jokes aside, the game went well. After escorting our prisoners to town, we encountered the mayor, who let us know that if we caught any more bandits, she’d give us a reward if we brought them in alive. Thing is, the town is about as corrupt as Chicago during Prohibition, so Varius (my peace-lovin’ paladin), is a bit nervous about the offer. It doesn’t help that we found out later that the mayor is a former slaver.

We had an idea of where the bandits might be camping, and since we suspect that they’re being lead by some sort of demon, we all figured that it would be a good idea to check that out. We took the road as far as we could, but eventually, we had to trek through the jungle. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but our ranger and druid were both missing. A few lucky die rolls later and we managed not to get lost. We did learn from the locals that there were a lot of giant bugs in the area, as well as some smaller ones that are very poisonous.

This lead to eventual combat. Whilst camping, we were accosted by four man sized centipedes. Now, Varius values the sanctity of life, even if that life is a giant disgusting bug with too damn many legs. I knocked two of them out (with help), but the other two weren’t so lucky. After the fight was over, I tried to save the ones that were dying. Unfortunately, other people were trying to coupe de grace them.

This actually lead to some fun roleplaying. The rest of the party isn’t quite sure how to deal with Varius. Fola, the monk, is doing her best to at least try and figure out what my code is. She’s quite derisive about my dislike of murdering defenseless vermin, which adds a fun dynamic to the party. While I transported the surviving centipedes away from camp, she argued that since poison is evil, and the centipedes were poisonous, it was therefore okay to kill them. I argued that killing isn’t okay, even when there is evil involved.

Things are going to get interesting when we start fighting demons. Varius believes that everything can be redeemed, and killing is always wrong. It might come down to healing the demon before people can murder it.

I can’t wait.

Category: Gaming Report / Tags: ,

Everything That Is Wrong With The World

Deep One / 2011/01/04 / No comments

I check out my local Craigslist casual encounters from time to time. It’s a fun way to pass the time. People are, by and large, much more honest about what they want an anonymous setting. The ads are a snapshot into the sexual mindset of my local town.

Sometimes, you get things like this. I took a snapshot of it, because you never can tell how long ads are going to last on Craigslist.
 
Image of a Craigslist Ad
 
If you don’t want to look at the ad, here is the text:

So, your boyfriend or fiance won’t take the final step and marry you? He’s being really careful to not get you pregnant, too, isnt he? Then we can help each other out.

I will help get you pregnant, and then quietly step out of the picture, and leave you to make sure your significant other makes an honest woman out of you, now that “he” has “accidentally” gotten you pregnant.

Complete discretion assured. Hubby will never know it isn’t his if you don’t tell him. Blue eyes, dark brown hair, average build, serious about making sure we enjoy our encounters. If you’re serious about wanting a baby, we need to talk.

 
I cannot begin to describe the horror I felt when I saw this ad. This fellow is looking to participate in one of the most disgusting things I can think of: Creating a life so that someone can get married.

If your relationship is based on an outright lie, it ISN’T GOING TO LAST. Having a baby, especially with some guy you don’t know AND LYING TO YOUR PARTNER ABOUT IT is not a way to keep your relationship going. Instead, learn to communicate with your partner in an open and honest way. Find out why they aren’t ready to get married right now.

The only thing that having a cuckoo in your house is going to do is ensure that the child you have will have a shitty life. Even if he/she never knows that his/her life is based on a lie, you’ll know. That stress is going to affect your attitudes. And when (not if) the father finds out, unless he is the most understanding man IN THE ENTIRE MULTIVERSE, he is going to leave anyway.

I may have more coherent things to say about this in the future, but right now, I got my hate on. I hate the man who thinks he’s gonna get some by offering to father a kid, and I hate the woman who thinks she’s gonna keep her man by having a kid.

Category: Bloggy Crap / Tags: , ,

On Adaptations

Deep One / 2010/12/08 / No comments

A while back, I went and saw RED.

RED Movie Poster
It was a hoot. I had much fun. I helped Warren Ellis buy his daughter a pony. The only problem with the film was the ticket taker.

You heard that right.

There’s one guy at every theatre that does it. When someone has paid enough money to eat for a week to see a lousy 111 minutes of action, the last thing he wants to hear is some kid in a clip-on bow tie saying:

Oh. It’s nothing like the comic.

I could actually hear the snootiness oozing out of the kid’s pores. He assumed that I had no idea that RED was based on a comic. He felt vastly superior to me, the guy paying his wages. I wanted to point out that Warren Ellis, who wrote the book, was happy to see it get made, and was totally okay with the changes they made. I wanted to go off on a rant about how comics and film are really, really different media, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to get a direct translation.

I was in a hurry, though, so I shambled on through to my seat.

And that kid is really unlikely to ever read this, but I’m going to say it anyway: Movies and comics are two different beasts. They work in different ways. Movies are passive, you sit and wait for the action to happen up on the screen. You don’t have to think that hard (exceptions exist, I know). Comics, on the other appendage, allow a lot more interpretation. RED the comic can be taken in a lot of different ways. RED the movie is 111 minutes of old people kicking ass. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I was entertained by both formats of RED. The movie made me smile, and laugh, and generally have a very good time. The comic left me stunned, and horrified, and wanting to know what horrible thing Paul Moses had done to earn the death mark. Movies usually tell you why stuff happens. Comics, I’ve found, allow the reader much more room for interpretation. It boils down to time. In a comic, you can take your time between issues to wonder, movies don’t have that luxury.

Which is why I prefer TV adaptations. I am stupidly excited for Locke and Key being turned into a TV show. Will it be the same as the comic? Unlikely. But it should be awesome, nonetheless. Television allows a lot more time for characters to develop, and for plots to unfold. And Locke and Key is full of really cool plots.


So, movie ticket taker kid, I enjoyed RED, despite your attempt to make me feel shitty. I’ll continue enjoying movies made out of comic books, because I know that they work differently. And I’ll really, really enjoy TV shows made out of comics. Hopefully, I’ll find the time to catch up on The Walking Dead, which is the most graphic basic cable TV show I’ve ever seen. It helps that I love the comic.

Category: Bloggy Crap, Comics / Tags: ,

New Character Blues

Deep One / 2010/10/06 / 3 comments

So, in our Monday night game, I’ve died twice. Now, both times, it was entirely appropriate for my character to die. The first time I did something stupid, and the second I was on the front line and didn’t stand a chance. Bearded Dork talks about a survivor’s perspective on new characters, but since I’m so experienced, I though I’d share the new guy’s take on it.

When I make a new character, I try really hard to make sure that there is a decent reason to go do whatever the rest of the party is doing. I’m motivated to adventure/go on a shadowrun/whatever with them. Sometimes that’s as easy as the new guy is looking for vengeance against whoever the party is up against. Sometimes it’s more complicated. But it all boils down to having a back story.

Back stories, also called backgrounds, are the single most important thing a player can think about. A good background give your character a reason to do stuff, it gives the GM an idea of what drives the character, and maybe even some tidbits s/he can use to fuck with you. It lets you do some roleplaying in between sessions of killing stuff and taking their shit.

So, both new characters I’ve introduced have had backgrounds. Neither time has the background come up. “You look trustworty! Wanna kill goblins with us?”

Now, I’ve gone out of my way to make interesting characters. The most recently deceased, for example, was an agent (many steps removed) of a corrupt and despicable tyrant. He was Lawful Good, yet wore a holy symbol of Asmodeus, the god of devils. He wore it because his position required him to do so. Other players noticed that, but never really questioned the behavior. The guy wore an evil (arguably the most evil) god’s medallion, but no one seemed to care. Of course, Pitr died before he could explain his deal.

Enter character #3. He has no name, can’t speak, and has shown evidence that he’s quite the historian. He wields a glaive (a weapon featured in the hands of various statues we’ve run across, held in a sinister way each time) and wanted to go where they were going. When someone asked why, he wrote “It’s complicated.”

You’d think that would raise some questions, right? Nope. “You look trustworthy.” I was given a name by another player (“I’m gonna call you Caleb”) and off we went to kill a demon. No one wants to know how I know as much about history as the learned wizard, no one questions my use of the weapon of what appears to be an ancient ruler. Hell, after 5 minutes, they were casting enough buffing spells on me and the other new guy that we could have slaughtered them without really trying.

Now that I’ve had an adventure with them, I doubt it’ll ever come up again. I’ll never get to use the finely crafted story of how…well, never mind. Clearly, it’s not that important.

I’d like to use the stuff I come up with, but the problem is tough. I can’t just soliloquy the shit (even if the character could talk), because I don’t want to hog time around the table. If someone asks, sure, I’ll explain, but if not, oh well. It requires that everyone at the table give just a tiniest nod to the fact that roleplaying is, at it’s core, a form of collaborative storytelling. It’s not a movie or a book. But lately it seems a lot like that’s what people are expecting, a sort of no-thought-required entertainment that is little more than kill the thing and steal it’s shit. Motivation isn’t considered in any public way. I know that other people at the table have backgrounds, but there is no venue to share them.

I wish I knew how to fix that.

Category: Bigger Picture / Tags: ,

Not Dead But Dreaming (and Ranting)

Deep One / 2010/10/02 / No comments

So, it’s been quiet around here for a while. The new job is kicking my assmeats, and there have been some personal issues at home, some friends were coming in from out of town, so I just haven’t had the time to post stuff.

Fuck that noise. I’m making some time.

The campaign I’m building is still cooking. I have been busy, so I’m not putting as much thought into it as I should, but it’s cooking like a roast in a crock pot. When I have more for it, I’ll put it up here.

In addition, the game I was running on Sundays is officially over. Surprisingly, the PCs won. I gave out some stuff that individually wasn’t that cool, but when clever players put it together, well, they came up with a plan that worked. Roughly nine levels ahead of schedule. That’s part of why I’m moving away from level based games.

See, we play a lot of them, and games traditionally crap out somewhere around 12th level (in a 20 level system). There is a bunch of cool shit you can do after that, but we have almost no experience with it. I’m pretty sure we’re all subconsciously killing our babies before we get to that point. Cool, we beat the campaign, but there is, to me at least, always a sad feeling of “man, there was some shit I could have done if we’d just made it a few more levels.”

Games that use experience points to increase your abilities as you see fit, on the other hand, let you feel cool all the time.

LEVELING IN d20
Me: Okay, I’m a 4th level wizard now. Let’s see, that means I get a couple of spells. And I hit things a tiny bit better. Oh, I get an ability score increase! Crap, all my stats are even, so whatever I put it in will pay off in another four levels. Oh, and some hit points.

LEVELING IN POINT SYSTEMS
Me: Sweet, I have enough experience points to buy up my skill in driving shit. I do that a lot. Oh, and I can use the leftover points to buy up my brains stat. That’ll help.
Other Player: Aren’t you supposed to be some sort of wizard?
Me: Yeah, but I do a lot of the getaway driving, and I’m an aspiring wizard, so I’m cool with the magic I got.
Other Player: Huh. Well, it’s your character.

Functionally, there is no difference here. Both characters are getting better, but the level system is very hierarchical. You get stuff at certain points in your career. Point systems customize. Sure, the aspiring wizard can’t do the same kind of magic stuff he could have if he were plugging all his xp into magic stuff, but he’s still a useful character.

Which brings me to the point. (You knew there was a point, right?) The replacement game for Sunday is a d20 Modern game, run by a friend of mine. It has promise, and isn’t fantasy, so I’ll give it a shot. But as some of you may remember, Bearded Dork doesn’t have the brainspace available to run a game right now, which was leaving out Thursday crew somewhat in the lurch. One of the players is already running our Monday game, one made an attempt to GM, but was uncomfortable doing it (I wasn’t there for that game, but from what I’ve heard it was a good time), and one has expressed zero interest in running anything. My Sunday game had just ended, so I volunteered to run.

No, I’m not running the campaign I’m building here. It’s not done yet, that’s why, and stop interrupting. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll be posting more info on what I’m doing either today or Monday.

Thanks for reading this crap. Hopefully, we’ll be getting back onto something like a schedule, but probably not. I know that the 10 or so people who read this are busy, so I’m trying to make it worth your time.

Category: Bloggy Crap / Tags: , , ,

Rise of the Runelords: Report 3

Deep One / 2010/09/07 / No comments

It was bound to happen eventually. Play the pipes for him! Drink to his insanity! Cadwagan is dead. Long live Cadwagan.

So, we started off at the gates. Not wanting to go through them, we instead climbed up a watchtower (where the rogue got props for killing sleeping goblins) and rested. Our casters were out of resources, and it seemed like a good idea. My problem was that we rested for nine hours, and not once were we bothered.

I get it, the GM was being nice, but I can’t suspend disbelief to say that “goblins are stoopid, they don’t check to see why there are four corpses outside the doors or wonder why they can’t open the trapdoor to the watchtower.” If nothing else, the replacement tower guards could have showed up. We could easily handle a couple of goblins without bothering the wizard.

After resting, we started shooting at goblin dogs in the open courtyard. That’s when the guards on the other tower noticed us. People started climbing down onto the roof to get at the dogs and the guards. I decide to follow that train of though.

And fall 20 feet. And hit a roof. And break a roof. And fall another 10 feet. Into a room. With two goblins in it.

Epic split up party fighting happens. We hold the day. Now, we start exploring. Eventually, we find our way into the throne room. Where all the little goblins are waiting.

What’s a good fighter to do? Why, overrun his way up to the chief, of course!

That, of course, is when fickle fate decides that it’s been a while since she ass fucked me. I can’t roll higher than 7 on a d20. And chiefy boy crits.I go down. Our priest manages to bring me back up to one hit point, but as soon as I get back in the fight, I’m critted again.

No big deal, it was a boss fight, so I don’t feel cheated. Tactically, it was a good move on my part, because goblin chiefs tend to do a lot of damage. Like I said, bad luck. The party made it out alive, and even managed not to lose anyone else (though it was quite close for the wizard).

I have no idea what I’m going to bring in as a replacement…

Category: Gaming Report / Tags: ,

Rant: Social Engineering and Prejudice

Deep One / 2010/08/24 / One comment

A while back, my friend Bearded Dork started describing an experiment where we do a little social engineering.

I’ve decided with a friend today to begin an experiment, I’m going to make two people into something they are not. Sort of.

via Bearded Dork

Now, I know what the plan is for both individuals, and while the research we’re preforming is unethical at best, in the interest of science (and having some fun) we’re going through with it. Rest assured that no one will be hurt.

But, it brings up some interesting questions about social engineering. At it’s most basic, social engineering is about making attitudes and behaviors match what you want them to match. A good (if scary) example is the “controversy” surrounding the “mosque at ground zero.”

“Wait,” you’re saying, “isn’t this blog about campaign design?”

Yes, and maybe I’ll bother to get around to that in a minute.

Now, back to my ranting. The “ground zero mosque” is actually part of a larger community center project called Park51. They describe what the project is like this:

Park51 will grow into a world-class community center, planned to include the following facilities:

  • outstanding recreation spaces and fitness facilities (swimming pool, gym, basketball court)
  • a 500-seat auditorium
  • a restaurant and culinary school
  • cultural amenities including exhibitions
  • education programs
  • a library, reading room and art studios
  • childcare services
  • a mosque, intended to be run separately from Park51 but open to and accessible to all members, visitors and our New York community
  • a September 11th memorial and quiet contemplation space, open to all

via Park51, emphasis added

So, it sounds like a nice place, right? But, somehow, someone managed to frame this as an issue of religion, specifically that those evil brown Muslims want to pour salt into the fresh wounds of September 11th, 2001.

Now, it would be one thing if the opponents just wanted to say “hey, we’re cool with the Muslim community center, but the mosque is making us a little twitchy.” Instead, somehow (I’m guessing through some pretty adroit social engineering) it’s become an issue of those weird non-white people wanting to spit on us. Or something.

This isn’t a controversy. Park51 wants to use their private property to build a Muslim community center. They want to freely express their religious beliefs, something they can do, thanks to a little thing called the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. If a Lutheran group was building a community center with a chapel, THERE WOULD BE NO CONTROVERSY.

Social engineers have cleverly made this into a Big Thing™ by using loaded words, outright lies and lies by omission to make it seem like this is some sort of terrorist plot. People are now “following the money” to prove somehow that this is a jihadist plot to impose Sharia law in the good ‘ole US of A. Jon Stewart did a good job talking about that.

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What this amounts to, in my not really humble opinion, is religious persecution. Islam, as Imam Feisal Abdul-Rauf points out, “Religious freedom is at the core of Islam. The Quran expressly and unambiguously prohibits the coercion of faith because that violates a fundamental human right — the right to a free conscience.” Oh, and he’s the guy who wants to build this thing.

Okay, I get it. Brown people scare you because they pray all funny. But you bastards have engineered a situation where one of the guys who has been trying to tell the extremists in his faith to quit it is now being called an extremist. He was on the side of peace, and by perpetuating the ridiculous accusations that are being floated around, you are alienating someone who could help sort all of this stupid jihad shit out.

So, I urge everyone out there to dig down and find the actual stance of Park51, the Cordoba Initiative and Imam Feisal Abdul-Rauf. Do some social engineering of your own, and let’s help stop this absurd travesty of a situation.

If you want to support Park51, they could use it. Write a letter to the editor, your congressperson, senator, or President Obama. Educate yourself, and then educate the people around you.

Don’t make me convince my posse that you’re part of the problem. I hear tell that Jay Peters can beat up Chuck Norris.

Category: Bloggy Crap / Tags: ,

Rant: Rules Lite vs. Rules Heavy

Deep One / 2010/08/22 / 3 comments

You’ve heard me talk a bit about rules lite versus rules heavy. Well, you’ve seen my posts, anyway. It occurred to me that this needed a little more talking about, um, writing about. Whatever. Anyway, if you don’t like reading about my boring fucking origin story, you might want to skip this post. It’s got some of that, and a lot of my personal opinions.

The Bearded Dork and I were having a discussion about this the other day. (Gaming legend Jay Peters and I have also discussed it, but I don’t remember the contents of the talk that well, and I refuse to disrespect the man.) The conversation turned, as it sometimes does, to the use of imagination in RPGs.

Origin story time — like many gamers, I wasn’t a real popular kid. I was actually okay with this, most of the other kids I knew at the time were dumb. I regret to say that I can’t remember the name of the kid who introduced me to Dungeons & Dragons, (The basic version. Some of you might remember the red box it came in. And the crappy dice that you had to use a crayon to color in the numbers.) but we had a crapload of fun playing it. Eventually, I convinced my folks to buy the coveted Red Box for me.

And holy shit, it turned out that we were doing it wrong. I read the rules cover to cover (and even played through the little choose your own path adventure they had) and realized that our imaginations had completely overwhelmed the rules. At the time, I didn’t think this was a bad thing. Somehow, by the time I moved to Montana, that attitude had shifted.

I’d like to blame the AD&D second edition system. I can’t, though, so I’ll blame adolescence instead. If I could bend or break the rules, so could anyone else. It would be anarchy! (And not the good kind, like you want. Or don’t want.) The more rules you had, the better the game was!

Only, that killed my imagination at some point. Sure, I had a lot of fun playing in and with imaginary worlds, but everything eventually came down to a rules call. I couldn’t find rules for doing cool, cinematic things in combat, so I just stopped trying. I used a bit of my brain’s imagination centers when interacting with NPCs (unless I was killing them) or the world, but let’s face it — a lot of games are excuses to imaginarily kill shit.

This is a fine style of gaming for a lot of people. I guess I’m not one of them anymore.

Let us take a look at the games I have been playing for the last few years. Shadowrun has been out a long time, but it is really, really rules heavy. The 3rd edition system has rules for every aspect of combat, and for many (if not all) social situations. You don’t have to role play out the quest for getting more money for a job, you can just roll some dice! D&D in any version has rules for everything. If you subscribed to Dragon Magazine, it had rules for even the most outrageous situations. Pathfinder isn’t much better. It did an excellent job of streamlining many rules, but they’re still there. Hell, they just introduced a new set of sub-rules for fighting dirty.

BASH is rules light. If it isn’t in the rules, the person running the game makes a judgement call. There is little time wasted flipping through the 8.532 x 104 rulebooks normally hauled around by dedicated gamers. Hell, the BASH book is only 132 pages. Compare that to Pathfinder’s (which did combine the Players Handbook and Dungeon Masters Guide) 576 pages.

Let me give you an example. Imagine that our heros are in an alley, fighting a single opponent who is pretty tough. I want to do something cool and cinematic, but I’m having a hard time hitting the guy. In Pathfinder, it goes something like this:

Me: Okay, you said we’re in an alley with some garbage strewn around. Is there any kind of garbage can?
GM: Let me check my notes. (Some waiting happens here. I’ve literally seen this happen.) My notes don’t say there is.
Me: Um, is there a big piece of garbage? Maybe big enough to cover a dude’s head?
GM: Probably. Make a perception check.
(clatter of my trusty twenty sider)
Me: Sweet! Uh, let me check my sheet…19!
GM: Yeah, there’s a thing in a pile that could cover someone’s head. It’s in the pile on the…(dice clattering) left side of the alley.
Me: A thing. Okay, I will take a move action to get over there, and another to pick it up.
GM: Okay, next up is…

When it gets back around to me about 10 minutes later:

Me: Okay, I take the…whatever it is, and I’m gonna move up to the guy and throw it over his head.
GM: What?
Me: I’m hoping to blind this guy for a minute so he stops being so hard to hit.
GM: Are there rules for that?
Me: (Sigh) In the Advanced Players Guide. It’s the new dirty trick combat maneuver. I can give him a condition for a little while.
Another Player: I thought we weren’t using that book!
Me: I though we were cool with the feats, spells and combat stuff, just not the new race and class stuff.
GM: I think I said no new stuff yet.
Me: Dude, we talked about this. You said we weren’t gonna use the race and class stuff.
GM: Um…
Me: Fine, I just hit him. (Clatter) Does AC 21 hit?
GM: No.
Yet Another Player: Wait, if you didn’t have your sword out, how did you even try and hit him?
Me: Fine, I miss him with some garbage.
GM: That’s an improvised weapon. Unless you have the catch off guard feat, you provoke an attack of opportunity.
Me: Nope.
GM: (Clatter) Does a 24 hit you?
Me: Sure does.

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Fun! Wait, no. Time consuming and frustrating.

Now, in BASH, it might go a little more like this:

Me: Okay, you said we’re in an alley with some garbage strewn around. Is there any kind of garbage can?
GM: That seems likely. Sure. (Pointing at the map) Right there.
Me: Sweet, I grab it, move up and toss it on his head. Hopefully not being able to see will make him easier for us to deal with.
GM: So, you want to confuse him?
Me: Holy shit! Yeah! I’ll spend a hero die to get the confusion power! (pages turing) It usually goes off of the Mind attribute.
GM: But you’re hitting him with it. That seems more like Agility.
Me: That seems reasonable. (clatter of dice) 16.
GM: That beats him. He can’t see, is confused, and it’ll take him a while to get the can off his head.
Me: Git ‘em, guys!

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Now, take a few and read those both out loud, in your gaming cadence. Which one takes longer. More importantly, which one seems cooler? Both times, I’m trying to do something cool that’ll help everyone else. In Pathfinder, this takes a while, and is kind of boring. In BASH, it takes a minute, and is fun.

Just to be clear, though, there is still some imagination in rules heavy games. I just see it a lot more in other systems. I want players, GMs, and everyone else in the hobby to get back to imagining things, instead of consulting a book. Maybe you don’t agree with me. That’s okay. Find the game that is right for your style.

It won’t be the one I’m creating here, though.

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