Gothcon was tough without Helma, and Lincon even more so. Over the past few years, I’ve relied on her entirely for many things: logistic reminders of all sorts, a welcoming presence for people while I’m setting up, opinions and observations which aren’t mine, her own experiences of other things at the convention, and basically understanding my sense of purpose in being at any such place, which a lot of people don’t.

Therefore I owe a big thanks to everyone at Indierummet for providing me with a kind of social crash and interaction space, with some willing players when needed, with some friends who know me better than most people, and with the chance to play my chill, scarred-ear, elderly piano-playing bunny with a derringer in his sock. He turned out to be more useful in dungeon burrow encounters then one might think.

Three intersecting principles

Independent publishing tag: not in it for the ROI, “product line” is not the point, market share or income stream is not the point; only the urge and the capacity to share it

• In this case with the nuance that both of these games were originally conceived in 1998, when I had put my first thoughts together about system, play, and enjoyment

The teaching goals: roughly, GMing for FFR, playing characters for IOHM; obviously these aren’t truly separate or exclusive, but they are focused here in terms of deficiencies I’ve learned to recognize and understand step by step throughout the past eight years

• Yes, deficiencies. It’s only been during the past five years that I’ve realized how many people, some of whom have been talking (endlessly) about role-playing with me for two-plus decades, do not know how to play. Some of them are self-aware and mask it carefully, some of them kind of know it and elide anything which would go there, and some are oblivious to themselves.
• However, the goal here isn’t corrective or therapeutic toward un-learning or won’t-learn, but rather directed toward people who inclined to do this thing and who are actively learning, at any current starting point.

To learn by doing means, not explanation or correction, but merely doing the thing the way it can be done … with these specific things in place.

• Limited and focused scaffolding
• A rubric of cyclic activity
• Some means of assessment

In this context, it’s also pretty soft, meaning there’s no explicit syllabus or exercise-based format. Participants’ interest and active learning is at whatever level they bring, and the bulleted list is effectively mine to keep in action without hammering at it or concealing it.

Fantasy for Real

Having played with the same starting hand-out information and characters for almost two years, I decided that it was time to re-start from scratch. I rolled a pickle for every location and, unlike the last round, I decided to begin with people making up their own characters.

The choice of location is mine, so I picked The White Waste. Here’s the ripped-from-wherever map I used, narrowing in a bit on the southwest quadrant.

The characters (the Seeker, Emilio, Kneecaps, and Imlakad) were quite free with magical hijinks, so it’s not surprising that The Vile Shrieking Curse (a claw thing trinks) and Devizad’s Reduced Expungement (a forbidden tablet at the heart of the Great Zero), among other things, coalesced into a wild vortex … anyway, the ending qualified as “everyone is fled, ‘dead,’ or impossibly compromised, so close curtain.”

I/O the Human Machine

Fortunately this game saw an intensive round of play, with one scheduled event and one unscheduled. As I always have one step out the door regarding finishing and publishing it, I was encouraged that my last critical confusions or uncertainties really did come together as I scribbled afterwards.

I brought the Sverdlovsk location pack that I shared at about the same time at the Patreon. it’s available to all the people playing, so play incluces no surprise or revelations about “what’s going on.”

The first game, as implied by the document, focuses on a church being used for nefarious politics. The squad succeeded in investigation so they set up a targeted assassination of a high-profile culprit in a downtown Yekaterinburg plaza. Although they did kill the target, the fight afterwards turned against them.

I set the second game, with completely different people, at a different location entirely, Murmansk, which was less developed as a document at that point. It’s a very interesting place full of nuclear technology and scary caches of nuclear waste. In this case, the cyborgs

The key point in both cases, however, is that no matter how the actual mission “goes,” and even if it has high-level political implications, or even if the squad actually subverts the mission to a different goal … not much changes in any meaningful social way, nor does the squad ever face consequences or change in its basic social role. The only real change occurs in each player-character’s “mood deck,” through the ongoing cross-deck use, rejection, and draft process. My interest at this point was to see whether this point lands for the people playing for the first time, which can’t be explained at the outset to any real effect, but only experienced and internalized. I wanted to see whether one’s deck changes enough during play, specifically the first time, for a person to enjoy the idea that they are beginning to know their cyborg pretty well, and will do so more when they play next time.

In the first game, one of the squad turned out to be a surprisngly intense mystic/artist, and in the second, two of them turned out to be mutually sexually active for differing, not particularly admirable reasons. I also liked the outcome that at least one squad member, in each game, settled into a resigned, alienated, isolated self-space even though they had been utterly on-task and dedicated to their respective mission.

Comparison

Game Master tag: as I have been saying and trying to land for many years, the tasks associated with this term are real, and the tasks’ organization is specific for a given game. It might occur to you that the proper conjunction in the previous sentence is “but” rather than “and” … which I maintain, if you think so, is a signal to yourself that you haven’t landed the concept yet.

In each of these games, the respective main focus of GMing tasks follows directly (is determined by) from the needs of its character play.

• Playing characters in Fantasy for Real includes one descriptive phrase with no directive, dynamic immediate goals, and minor improvement per adventure. Game mastering focuses on a dynamic situation including many external (pickle) and internal (picklet) uncertainties. One person maintains this set of tasks throughout play, including rather formal preparation, without a dedicated player-character of their own.
• Playing characters in I/O the Human machines includes professional specifications, continuous deck building for one’s profile of moods, and an in-play history of injury, personal pauses, and possible judgments. Game mastering focuses on steady opposition of specified types and degrees. These tasks are carried out in minor, scattershot, and opportunistic ways by anyone and everyone in play, all of whom have player-characters of their own.

Combat is tremendously different in these games.

• battle map in a location vs. location + quick context
• resolution roll, but very ordinary (same as any resolution) vs. contextual roll, but very detailed using a special subroutine
• damage by roll with points vs. damage all lands for all still-viable attacks

Magic (in FFR; in IOHM it’s cyber netdive stuff)

• FFR’s magic is an elaborate rules-subroutine with immediate effects, point values, and lasting effects, plus further subroutines for trinkets and homunculi.
• IOHM’s “net” activity allows for a wider range of action for characters compared with normal people, and it provides for a special means of attack and vulnerability, but otherwise it merely colors up what you’re doing and what’s happened with no resource, no specific effect, and no long-term consequence.

Please ask anything you like about the games and about what they may provide in terms of enjoyment and learning!

Format note

I’m stalled out on editing the clips to show you from these games’ recordings, but when I finish them I’ll add them to the post, so I’ll keep the Actual Play tag in place.