If nothing fails, the website for the next big RPG campaign of mine will be up in 10 days.

Yesterday was one of those days when our Changeling game got canceled at last minute and we all wanted to kill Spikey for it. But nothing really new there, really. So, me, Taija and Mikko were grumpy for a while, pondering what to do next. Then Mikko came up with the idea that I should demo how the 4th Edition D&D system worked, since I had been talking a lot about it to him. Taija didn’t object, so we called Petsku, an almost-neighbor, made D&D characters and I ran a couple of encounters for them to show various aspects of the system.

After the demo, we talked about it for a while and the players were “Ooh, I want to play more with my fun character!”

And I was feeling really negative about it for some reason. Something about continuing the demo game further wasn’t “doing it for me”, but I couldn’t really name what was wrong, so I said a lot of “maybe”s and kept on smiling/nodding.

This morning, after spending good time wondering about it, it hit me. I want to get something out of a game I’m running. I want to challenge myself when I’m running games. I don’t want to get stuck on the same old, same old. I want to look back at a game and say that I did something new there.

The Summer DnD (I’ve mentioned a few times on the blog) is probably the last DnD campaign I’ll run using the 4th edition straight from the books – In it, I’m exploring the system, I’m trying to push it a bit each time we play, see how it works for what, all while having a fun game with it. But like with all the other gaming systems, I will want to move away from what’s been given to me. The next time I’ll start a campaign with the 4th Edition, it will be full of house rules, have a world that doesn’t look like the one given in the books on any level and will feel like my game from the start.

Starting a game based on random characters, made straight from the book, for a demo, just doesn’t qualify. It feels like doing the same thing over again, being bound by the same restrictions.

So, sorry guys, it won’t continue.

I sort of swore I wouldn’t go into my personal life in this new incarnation of the-cow.net blog, but I guess I’m just weak. The actual gaming-related whining is somewhere down a few paragraphs.

The original the-cow.net’s (back in 2002, yikes, that’s 7 years ago) first post read “Well, I’m single again” and it was posted on the day a relationship that had tried to turn me into a “normal person” had ended.

During the time I spent living in it, I did my best to focus on the things that aren’t frowned upon by the mainstream society – I worked hard, I did what I could to be a good boyfriend, and kept a very presentable self-image so that we wouldn’t be marked as “strange people”. For a while we lived in what was probably closest thing to a gated community there was in Turku. So I cut back on my habits of watching strange Science Fiction television series, focusing on on “funny” family friendly comedies. I didn’t have any time for RPGing, but instead exercised at the gym. I didn’t hang out with the LARPers on my free time as I was befriending the neighbors and had barbecue with them.

In general I was being the guy that I could see the girl wanting to spend her life with. Sad thing was that I wasn’t really that guy at all. I’m a geek, through and true. So eventually there was bad blood, there were tears and there was the end of the relationship.

After that I spent time finding a balance to the question of what I wanted to be in a relationship, something that led me to avoid them for a long time. Either I saw a “critical flaw” in the other party, one that made me think I’d have to compromise myself to be with them, so I didn’t even bother. Or I’d again found myself drifting into the role of that “normal guy” to impress them, and then, disgusted at myself, would back off before things got serious.

So yesterday, the topic of “Do you cut your game sessions short so you can see me sooner?” came up when talking with my girlfriend. It’s one of those questions that have no good answer, really – either I’m placing more value on the gaming than on the relationship or it’s an indication that I’m once again slipping to the “compromising who I am just to be with you” pattern I had fallen prey to all those years earlier.

Like I’ve mentioned before in the blog, our gaming group’s sessions have been going through a scheduling crisis the past year or two. We’re in a situation where even a simple game can get delayed for months because people don’t manage to fit their timetables together. On one hand this is because we’re busy with our lives and jobs, but on the other it’s become an issue of prioritizing. Everything goes before the games. But then, why would you want to spend the evening pretending to be in a fantasy world killing goblins when you can go see a great gig at the local nightclub? If it was just that sort of things that can be easily justified, I think there wouldn’t be a problem. Sadly, before gaming also comes watching some movie alone in your room, washing your hair or ordering your sock drawer. Games feel like a very low priority hobby sometimes.

And as it feels that much a prioritizing issue, I tend to ask those of my players who have problems with their schedules if they really want to continue playing. And let them know it’s not a bad thing to quit if they don’t feel like carrying on. But it seems that the issue really is about time just being a rare commodity and people not being available on the same days. Player A has choir practice on Monday and Thursday, and Player B could only play on those days. Finding a day that fits everyone is painful, and everyone wants to play.

So, cutting the game short once we’ve managed to get the session ready would be a bit unprofessional. And I told her the truth – I haven’t been cutting the sessions short to get to her earlier. But the rarity of the games is not the only reason why I answered so.

It’s been a way of gaming for us to keep game sessions short. 3-5 hours. This might seem counterproductive since we’re having such long breaks between sessions, but there are good reasons for it. With such busy schedules, investing 3-5 hours every now and then to a game is trivial – You can still get back home after it and prepare the presentation for the bank merger you need to have ready by the morning. It won’t ruin your life to commit to play in such a game. And also, you don’t really need more time to have a good game session. A lot can be accomplished in for example 4 hours. Everyone gets to play their bits and the attention spans stay solid (unless you give the players lots and lots of sugar to eat, but that’s besides the subject).

Doubling the time of the game to 8 hours would never double the time of productive play. Extra hours add up to exhaustion and eventual silliness that follows. And people would be tired as they’ve just come from work and will need to be up again in 4 hours when the game is over. And as a lot of our games rely on improvisation more than tedious pre-planning, exhaustion of the GM will hit at some point and start weighing down the game.

If I need to mention a major downside of the short games, it is that we’re friends, and friends need to gossip and be social when they meet each other. So if some people haven’t talked in a while, they will want time to do that before we start the game. So sometimes the planned 5 hours turns into 3 as everyone has to catch up on what’s been happening. But like said, you can accomplish a lot of gaming even if the time is limited. As long as everyone is into what’s happening and willing to contribute.

So if it takes 1.5 months to organize a 3 hour game session, it would be a bit wrong towards everyone for me to cut that to 2 hours because I wanted to be with my girlfriend just a bit earlier. But even if I said I haven’t cut a session short to get to her sooner, there is a “but”. Just like there always is. If it would happen that she’d ask me to cut a session short, I would.

So, nothing’s different from before? I’m still willing to make compromises to be something my girlfriend wants? Bad Alvan? Well, let’s compare… I’m working hard (well, been on a vacation, but theoretically), I’m trying my best to be a good boyfriend. I’m not watching that many odd SciFi shows (more to do with there being not that many good SciFi shows airing), but even fewer family comedies. I’m using some of my free time playing RPGs and some going to the gym. I’m hanging out with LARPers (if Karaoke with them counts) and barbecuing with friends when I have the opportunity. And if my girlfriend asks, I’m willing to cut down on my personal time… So nuances have changed, but it doesn’t really look that different.

The beauty of it all is in the why. I’m being myself. So when I say that I would cut a session short if my girlfriend asked, it’s because there is no ambiguity about all the trouble we go through to get the games arranged. It’s easy to trust her with the power when she’s seen  me curse all my players to the depths of hell when yet another game falls through.

And like I trust her with knowing what things mean, I do trust my players to eventually get their schedules sorted. We managed to complete one campaign (even if it took time), we’ll manage the others. As long as they’re being truthful to me when they say they want to continue playing RPGs, it will be possible to find a date that fits all the players. And then we’ll play for a few hours, kill some goblins, fight off dragons and then spend ages wondering when on Earth do we have time for that short burst of fun again.

Just deleted four very good, very long, half-finished blog-posts because they were going nowhere and have been keeping me from starting any new ones for something like a month or two now.

Since we’re half-way into the year, I thought to look back a bit and write about how things have been progressing and what my feelings about them are.

First of all, the good news. We managed to complete the Henryn viimeinen iso keikka -campaign. There was a lot of things in it that didn’t work out the way I had planned, but that’s what always happens when you’re creating a new RPG system and put it to playtest. Things need fine-tuning, a lot of it. But the basic idea works, and that’s the important bit. The campaign turned out to be a petty bet between two old criminal masterminds where people’s lives were put into stake for a single dollar and ended on a cliffhanger with all characters on their way to a possible trap. The great thing was that we actually managed to complete a full campaign run even if it was only 7 games + character creation. Our games have had a problem that they have slid to oblivion instead of actually reaching a conclusion. A way to restore faith on gaming.

Secondly, peoples’ timetables are a total pain. Both the Changeling and the Summer D&D games have suffered from this and even Henry had slight problems. Month or two long breaks aren’t unheard of because people aren’t around at the same time. But that’s life. I’m quite pessimistic with Changeling, since it’s 3 people who all need to be there for the game to work, and we can’t manage to get a time for the game together. And it’s one of those games that really suffer from long breaks as the mood of the fairytale needs to be recaptured and the not-fully-human characters re-immersed into. Game-wise it’s been a fun experience when we’ve been able to play – surreal landscapes are fun and the rules don’t come to the way too much. The Summer D&D on the other hand can surprisingly live even with the breaks. While I’m not fully happy with what D&D wants to be as a game, I am slowly seeing the potential in it. Lots of neat moving parts that are fun to twiddle.

About future plans regarding gaming – There will be a round two of Henry in the near future with the tweaked system. Also I might have gotten slightly inspired again to go try running larps after the Knutepunkt trip a couple of months ago.

I’ll hopefully get some more inspiration / time to write some actual stuff in the blog in the near future.

Video here of Joss speaking on Equality Now event.

His bit starts at 2:00, but the introduction part isn’t that bad either. Very nice little speech. The answer “Why aren’t you asking the hundred other guys aren’t” is pretty much the thing that came to my mind as well. And the last answer sums things up. Good stuff.

<Dilithium> ok guys, no googling, what are the 7 continents?
<negationix> pangea
<negationix> rest is modern humbug
<Alvan> finland and lots of our suburbia
<negationix> pangea and Finland and suburbs of Finland and pellucidar
<negationix> that’s 4
<ryuu> antartic makes 5
<ryuu> I’ve seen him, I know he exists
<Alvan> I think Pluto is one, now that it’s no-longer a planet
<negationix> makes sense
<negationix> I saw wikipedia article about pluto, “pluto, just a rock”
<negationix> and we all know continents are usually made of rock
<negationix> (except maybe antartic)
<ryuu> I think Abe Vigoda is one
<ryuu> no wait, that was incontinent
<Alvan> well, everything abe’s not must be a continent
<Alvan> so that’s 7
<negationix> yeah
<negationix> so that’s pangea, finland, finland’s suburbs, pellucidar, antartic, pluto and not abe vigoda
<Alvan> do we win a prize?

To freely quote Back to the Future: “Doc, we better back up. We don’t have enough clothes to get up to 88.” “Clothes? Where we’re going we don’t need clothes.” – I’m wearing my last dress shirt and still have one full set of clothes (t-shirt, underpants, socks) for the airplane trip tomorrow morning.

Tonight’s “who I share my sleeping place with” roulette awarded me with 3 Norwegians. I guess the odds of getting them was quite high, considering not many people stayed for today.

So, yesterday was “move from the convention center back to civilization” day. At the after-dinner yesterday it really hit me how much fun this week has actually been and how much I’ve missed “the scene” (and by the scene I mean the people who tend to have an active role in it). I kind of miss these crazy knutepunkt people already. And I’m still in Oslo. Hmm. Should probably say some highlights from yesterday… Maybe waking up, maybe eating breakfast. Possibly going to sleep.

At this point, I’m pretty sure they’ve added something to the drinking water here. They are advertising coffee with a slogan that’s roughly “It costs more! So it has to be better!” … Only in Norway. The sleeping arrangements have slowly but surely been standardized, so it’s still 2 Israelis and 4 Swedes here with me. Yesterday’s highlights include me swearing never to dance Pornopolkka again and nice presentation about Company P’s Dollplay, something I’ve mentioned here before.

The weather was a bit gray yesterday, but that didn’t really matter so much. Also, it is to be noted that even the blisters on my feet have blisters now.

I listened to a lecture by a guy who had found enlightenment through LARP, chatted about finlandsvensk being the proper way to speak Swedish with an award-winning author and finally managed to maintain room-mates for like one day. 2 Israelis, 4 Swedes still. Very cool weather going on yesterday. Now I should go get lunch

On my neverending quest of figuring out immersion in all kinds of surrogate realities we like to dabble in, some interesting observations came from completely surprising direction: Extras of Police Squad! DVD. Actually, Leslie Nielsen’s interview in there. 

He discussed the reasons behind the cancellation of the show after only 6 episodes, major reason being how it was a show you had to watch. No, yes, really. A television show that was meant to be watched, failed for that reason. Thing is, average Joe and average Mary come home from work, relax on the couch, turn on the telly and zone out. They don’t zone into television or the surrounding social situation around them, but somewhere in the middle.

Police Squad! being a show where you had to pay attention to both see the hidden jokes and often see where the spoken humour comes from, you’d have to avoid blinking to get it all in the way its creators intended in good faith. No, average Joe and average Mary only pay half attention and need the cued audience laugh backgrounds to remind them to be amused while watching their fave sitcom while chatting on the phone. They need to be told the general gist of things without having to look actively, because they’re talking about how that wallpaper should be painted over. It’s all about not paying attention, as they sit down to be entertained after coming home from work, where they had to pay attention all day. Major point there. It’s a situation they dictate in their own terms, in their own personal surroundings, at their own pace.

Leslie Nielsen also mentioned the size of TV screens, and it’s worth mentioning here even when the home TV sets are growing larger each year. Small screen simply does not support background action. The visual jokes and semi-hidden slapstick moments in Police Squad failed to work on limited screenspace, but those same jokes shot Naked Gun movies into successful franchise. When they were blown up into the size of a damned wall, audience really did see. 

Of course, since The-Cow.net is about games as well, we all should now sit down and confer about the relationship of said observations towards games. On a high level, it’s about immersion. On low level, we’re dabbling with everything that delivers and communicates context and story to the player. It could be those soundscapes filling the room during tabletop RPG session, or carefully chosen backgrounds during dynamic camera edit on console action games, keeping the focus on foreground, or whatever. So, how to know what tricks to use? 

I’m so waddling into Alvanspace here, and it’s creepy in here with all the flotsam eyeballing me up. But here goes..

Let’s take regular tabletop RPG. Players know each other and there’s always off-game chitchat and generally arsing about, unless they’re hardcore system nitpickers everyone hates, but for that same reason, those spoilsports never get to play the really cool games with the really fun people, so we’ll just skip them. Anyways, all that reads as social situation during the play. On the other hand, the players arrived there specifically for the game, so that reads as paying attention since they’re so motivated to bother traveling a bit, et cetera. However, there’s very little for the senses – no visuality, no directly in-situ informative sound cues, no hints of an angry orc through bad smell, or so everyone hopes. All that is delivered to players through spoken narrative, with music etc providing mood in very broad and unintrusive way. Besides the differences in delivery, it’s very much like the average Joe/Mary mindset in front of television. Casual entertainment, if you may.

Console games? More in the cinema end of the spectrum. You go to movies, you end up sitting in darkness with all your attention focused, directed and guided towards the massive silver screen. You won’t miss a beat, and social situation happens before and after the flick. At home, you grab a game pad, holding it in your hands. It becomes a focusing element that keeps reminding you how you’re in control of something, so you concentrate. You use your hands, and that clicks lots of switches in your brain. Your reflexes kick into high gear, adrenaline pumps up and oh boy, your attention is in firm hold. You wiggle your fingers and it all translates directly into visual and aural situation that progresses on and on. That’s the key. You concentrate because you use your hands, the most used tools ever. They’ve been around as long as your brain, and they were the very first thing you ever figured out about yourself. So, in a way, the game connects with you in some scarily direct ways. 

Even if your buddies are there playing with you, social interaction (laughter, remarks, etc) all circle around the game and ongoing events in there. It’s a personal or shared zone, but zone nevertheless. You’re all connected to the game through tactile communication, for lack of better words.

Maybe that’s a big item in the list of questions on how to get tabletop RPGs more immersive. No draconian rules about not SOCIALIZING but PLAYING are needed, but maybe give the players outside influence to steer them into the wanted mindset. Immersion through surroundings is kind of out of question – I can’t imagine getting immersed into the game if there’s a big projector screen with some eerie symbolism flowing around, not to mention wizardly scenes from Harry Potter or whatever. No, RPGs are around the table, and that’s the visual context. Then again, handing the players some orc and elf figurines to fiddle with isn’t going to cut it either. I’m intrigued about involving some tactile immersion here, connecting the certain synapses like the game pad does. Some minimal physical involvement that doesn’t look or feel too out of place around the table. 

However, more I try to come up with something physical, I keep coming short-handed.

Given the realworld situation and surroundings where the game is played, there’s really no extra gadgetry that would help the players to dive into deeper end of world pool. And more I think about it while writing this, more I keep going towards the sounds used in conjunction with stuff happening around the table. Again. But alas, this time it’s much simpler and it will have tactile experience involved in a very important way!

Scenario-time! 

GM lets Joebob know he has a good chance to make a bloody good show with his next attack – but only if the dice rolls for his favour big time. It’s a potential show-off ending to a fierce battle, and even the music is off. Tense silence fills ears. Joebob takes the dice in his hand, aware of everyone watching, and Joebob ..

[GM hits a button hidden under the table, and slow heartbeat-like rumble that goes du-dum, du-DUM, DU-DUM begins to rise up into existence, dominating everything. Lights dim slightly, except the one that is pointed at Joebob and his dice]

.. stops for a second, hair standing up in his neck and wondering how the hell his teeth are clattering, and with a short sweep of his hand, he lets the dice fly. Dice hits the tabletop — and rumble stops right there, as if cut by knife. Dice number is checked, situation releases and then those lights return to normal, too. Game goes on, regardless of outcome. It wasn’t about the outcome in the end – it was the anticipation everyone wanted to play.

So, perhaps we can make the most basic gameplay controller, the humble dice more tactile to us, if we tie different elements to it. It requires some setting up, but hardly impossible for any GM with some dedication and sense of live dramaturgy. Include an event at the begin to set the players into game, and work the arc as you feel, as long as you give the players something to really feel about in the end. Even if one event clicks big time for players, they remember the whole game as very memorable. 

Tie it all together. I dare you.