Moments In Annalise

Here’s the (filled-out) play aid that I threw together for the JiffyCon Boston playtest of Annalise. Click for full size.

Whenever you get into a moment in the game, the group generates an array of possible achievements and consequences that could come out of the moment. If you read down the paper, you can kinda see the flow of the game based on which achievements and consequences were on hand for the various moments. Which is hella cool!

I plan to revise it into something a little easier to parse at the table (probably with little circles or boxes for assigning dice, with the chart at the bottom that tells you which number means which either relegated to a different play aid kinda thing, or integrated into the sheet in a less obtrusive manner).

Anyway, something I’ve been meaning to post for awhile. In general life news, we’re at the end of the season at the shop I work at, so we’re in the big final build crunch. Lot’s of overtime in the next two weeks, but no free time a’tall. I am waiting on the proofs for the next printing of carry, though, so that is probably the next thing I’ll be posting about.

Also, news soon about my booth at Gen Con!

Don’t Hold Back

I hope somebody tells me when I sell out. Seriously. Just send me an email saying  “dude. This thing you just did? You sold out.” I’ll appreciate it.

It’s kind of nice being around a bunch of people who are designing out on the fringe (Walton & Dev & Shreyas, for the record). It makes me feel warm and safe in my standardized/normalized design and business practices. But then I look back at the people setting those standards (Vincent & Evil Hat & Luke), and go “holy crap, I am doing something wierd and strange, aren’t I?”

I hope y’all don’t mind when I name names. It’s a response to the nethabit of never specifying who or what you are talking about. Particularly when yer yelling about trends in game design and publishing.

In happy news, Annalise playtest at JiffyCon Boston! Once that’s over, I should be able to finish up the current draft and get in touch with you poor bastards who have indicated interest in reading/playtesting. Then, once my current Wednesday D&D game wraps up in a couple weeks, full playtest with that group. Super exciting!

sometimes…

Sometime’s I just wanna scream “I DON’T OWE ANY OF YOU A FUCKING THING” and then shoot a potato through my computer screen.

Seriously. I hate the internet again! It must be February!

2007 Recap

Guess it’s time for one of these, then.

2007 was interesting. I hated the internet a lot, so I think I dropped out of many of the web-based social circles that you, gentle reader, are involved with. I also had a lot of personal upheavals that severely impacted my leisure time, especially in the late-winter-spring-early-summer. Even now, I’m pretty gunshy about posting things to forums, and while I’ve been keeping contact with individuals, I’m pretty certain that my “online identity profile” is much lower than it was at, say, this time last year.

Which is totally fine with me, let me tell you what.

Umm, other than that, lesse…Hamsterprophet Productions did fine, overall. Due to aforementioned personal ish, carry was out of print for a couple of months that it really shouldn’t have been. I think that that killed any momentum it may have had left from Gen Con and Ron’s excellent AP at the Forge, and sales have pretty much flattened out since it’s been back. If I had the time and energy to proselytize for it, I’m sure it would do better, but hey, I am what I am.

I’m almost out of stock of the perfectbound version of Timestream, which is good.

And, while I started poking around with little projects off and on, I finally have traction on a game that I’m really excited about (Annalise), and which will be taking up most of my time for the next year or so, I think.

This has, however, been an EXCELLENT year for my actual play. I think I’ve logged the most hours playing games this year than ever before in my life, and the vast majority of those hours have been solid fun. My brain is bad at dates and remembering things, but to the best of my recollection:

Playtests

• Snow From Korea, at Dreamation. This was with Shreyas and Russell (and someone else? Adam Dray?), and it was really beautiful!
• Misspent Youth, at DexCon. There’s a whole post that I need to make detailed how this game inspired me for Annalise.
• In Frankenstein’s Wake, a game that came out of my BibliOdyssey Design Challenge, by Eric J. Boyd. It imploded!
• Project Donut, two separate oneshots. Can’t talk about it.
• Darkpages. A metric ton of Darkpages - it was my Monday groups game for most of the summer, in addition to a couple of oneshots at SGBoston, and then I ran a session at Gen Con. It’s been really satisfying to be doing longterm playtesting, and see the feedback work it’s way into Jared’s brain and back into the game.
• Annalise, of course. I ran one complete game (5 sessions, I think) with my Monday group, and then I’ve done a couple of single sessions since then with evolving rules tweaks. Every time I play it I fall in love with it again.

Single Sessions/One-Shots

• A couple games of carry, at Dreamation and DexCon. Good times had by all.
• Dust Devils hacked to a space bounty hunter thing. Fun, but I still need to play Dust Devils straight and see if it works for me.
• 1001 Nights, like, a thousand and one times. At least four times that I can remember, and I’m sure another one or two are in there.
• Was my hardcore Primitive game in 2007? It may have been late 2006. Anyway, it was fun. I need to play more Primitive.
• Giants, at JiffyCon. I’m hoping to get a multi-session game of this in, and soon.
• Ganakagok, once at Dreamation and once at Origins, and ohmygodIlovethisgamesomuch. I mean, I don’t think it’ll replace InSpectres as my favorite game, but it is definitely the game that touches me the most in play.
• Oh, yeh, InSpectres a couple times, both running and playing it. KaKAAAW!
• Dogs In The Vineyard, finally. At Origins. Just the one town, and I kinda sucked at running it, but it was still cool.
• Acts of Evil, at Gen Con. Umm, I dunno if I’m up to playing it on my own, but damn it’s a artistic game. And I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.
• Roanoke, at Gen Con. It was sweet and educational to us brain-damaged story-gaming folk.
• A one-session version of The Mountain Witch at DexCon, which worked out really well. I love running this game.
• Agon. Eat my spear!
• The Pool, finally. It’s really good.
• Oh, and Unistat, finally. It’s also really good.
• Best Hunter Squad, at Gen Con. I died!
• Contenders, run by Malcolm on his Rock Star Tour. This is a good, good game. Maybe one of the best that’s come out in the last 1-2 years.
• I’m sure something else is in there, but hey. That’s a good start!

Long-form/Multisession

• Three-session arc of The Mountain Witch. It was REALLY good, despite some interpersonal issues among players. I was superhappy with it. I love running this game.
• GURPS. That’s right, I’m playing GURPS weekly. I took a break in the fall, but I’m on my fourth arc (each arc takes about 3-6 weeks, and they revolve through different genres and characters). It’s been satisfying in the long-term-character-immersion way, and socially the game is awesome.
• Darkpages, though it’s technically been playtesting, took up most of my summer.
• Again, playtesting, but Annalise is a longer-form game, and it was really nice to play it out as such, though I’ve been evolving the rules like whoa since then.
• Aberrant! My Monday group is on the second of three story arcs, and it’s been a blast running this game. We’re all on the same page about how fiddly we need to be with those silly rules, and there’s something that just feels right about using the character powers and such as written. There’s three characters, and each story is focusing primarily on one, and we’re right at the midpoint of the series. It’s fun and exhausting, sometimes - I have to do prep! Whoa!

So, playing lots of games is fun. And totally educational to me as a designer, and just as a fan of the genre. I’ve learned a lot this year.  And that’s what counts in my book.

Gen Con AughtSeven

I had a really good time at Gen Con. I’m also doing a lot of thinking as a result of it, which is always good.

I promised some pictures - unfortunately, I lost my stone-age digicam half-way through the con (which is good, cuz I need an excuse to get a new one, but is bad, cuz I had some great pics on there), and my cell phone pix aren’t apparentely ready to come through the intertubes yet. So, there will be some pictures, but not quite yet.

I started doing this by day, but my brain is mush and it all runs together anyway. So, in very rough chronological order, bullet points

• I broke my (two-convention) streak, and didn’t meet anyone in the airport that I knew. Lame!
• We need better logistics at the booth - not to blame anyone, cuz we’re all volunteers, but we did a lot of waiting when we could have been doing a lot of setting up. That said, the load in went smoothly, ’specially cuz Bill and myself had Origins to train us on the equipment.
• The Diana Jones Awards, while fun with the free drinks and the….attentive…wait staff, was a little underwhelming. Maybe cuz I didn’t care about any of the three things up for it, maybe cuz there was little AC and little loudspeakering, maybe cuz I was exhausted, but I really wanted to have more fun there. Oh well, maybe next year?
• Seeing people is fantastic! You are all my friends that live in different places that I only see a couple days a year, but its totally worth it.
• I particularly enjoyed spending time with people that I kinda knew, and developing those relationships more. Kevin, Jason, Steve, Eric, Brennan, Bill, Krista, Paul, Danielle, Clint, Matt, Justin, Gregor, Julia, Ron, and I’m sure there’s some I’m forgetting - thank you for spending time, meals and games with me. This isn’t to say I didn’t really enjoy gaming, chilling with, meeting or bullshitting with the rest of you people, I just don’t remember your names at the moment!
• The dealers hall was much more manageable, probably a combination of me having experienced it before and it actually being a little less crowded this year. The Forge booth had plenty of space, and even with the increased electronic games presence, there was still a lot of unused space - like, the Segway challenge was in the dealers hall. Wierd!
• Free loaves of bread from the mall food court. A Dro sandwich ensued.
• Going to a sleazy underground bar with Kevin in pursuit of his spy game goal, and watching him win 100,000 in two hands of blackjack. I felt like a superspy, and I wasn’t even the one kidnapped. Unfortunately, we never did find the final clue, and Kevin failed to save the world.
• Going way off the beaten path with Kevin and Jason and Eric to relax and eat and have a great chat. Indianapolis has some hella cool buildings, and the extra 15 minutes of walking were totally worth it to get out of the con zone.
• Hatching secret plans & ideas for a booth next year.
• The booth was rocking, but exhausting. I was doing double-duty as IPR rep and Forge booth participant, and even though they were in the same physical location, I really couldn’t muster the energy to do well by the booth. I didn’t end up running a single demo of carry (though others did, thanks Ron!). I did run Primitive (which got recorded by Canon Puncture) and a couple of InSpectres demos, all of which were fun. I like running demos for other peoples games way better than my own, I’ve come to realize.
• Morning conversations with Krista, Brennan and Bill as we all got around and on the way to the dealers hall. These always put me in a good mood, and we had some really interesting talks in that hour or so every morning, not to mention some hilarious moments (f’rex, “Dude, I’ll punch you right in the sleep-hole”).
• Getting lost EVERY NIGHT getting back to my hotel. I’m glad I had a map. My brain is not built for directions.
• My hotel was neat! There was a train in it, and ghost people! I wanted to play Drifter’s Escape sitting between the train cars!
• Playtested Darkpages twice. The first was an incredible lineup of players (I ran it for Jared and Jason, the authors; Thor, the editor; Dave Turner and Mike Mearls, who have been following the games development for awhile, as I understand it), and was an incredibly productive playtest, I thought. I can’t wait for the game to take a final shape. The second was much more abbreviated (with Kevin and Alexander), but demonstrated that the previous playtest had pointed the game in a good direction.
• Played Roanoke. It was fun, but our story gamer brain damage got in the way. Kevin was hard on himself about not running it well; I think we had some expectation/execution dissonance in play that contributed, and I kinda went off in a weird direction with my character. Nevertheless, it was a good time for me, and I would play a game with those guys (Kevin, Clint, Jason, Eric, Matt Snyder) in a heartbeat.
• Playtested Acts of Evil, kind of. Well, we did, but we didn’t get through too much of the game. But what we did get through….this game is awesome, in the most literal sense. No less than three times I sat back at the table, staring into space and going “Holy crap, Paul. That is BRILLIANT and disturbing.” - about game mechanics. Oh yes. Oh yes.
• I am so incredibly glad that I stayed until Monday. Sunday evening dinner and gaming after the pressure of the BIG SHOW is off was really great, and I don’t want to ever miss it again if I don’t absolutely have too.
• Ron and Jason and Julia and myself had an interesting conversation about our games. A subject for another time, but…there’s something interesting happening in game design, and while I’m not sure that it’s a big ol’ deal, there are some fascinating implications to some of these games that are happening right now.
• I saw a lot of great costumes, and it’s really sad that I lost my camera for that reason alone.

So, in short, good times. Very good times.

Well, That Was Quick

You’ve done it again, internet.

I’ll be seeing some of y’all at the gaming table. And at Gen Con.

You Almost Broke Me Again, Internet

*sigh*

I think I’m finally done being mad at myself for being mad at something on the internet, this time around at least.

But man, it doesn’t take much.

A Room for Gen Con (Edit: Taken!)

If anyone needs a place to sleep come Gen Con, drop me a line (n-dot-d-dot-paoletta-at-gmail-dot-com). I’ve some changes to my situation, and I’m leaving an open slot in an Embassy Suites room. I’ll get you in touch with the guy who’s organizing the room, but no promises (he’s looking for people as well).

Edit: And it’s taken. Good times!

And So It Goes

The intertron has become a place of fear for me. I’m tired of filtering everything I write through the lens of “how could someone possibly misinterpret this”.

My friends, I will see you at the table.

(and/or email and AIM. My contact info is everywhere)

On My Plate

(cuz if I don’t do this, I’ll forget everything)

(so not in order of importance)

Write up a Mountain Witch AP thread at the Forge.

Write up an outline for Kevin & I’s Push 2 article DONE!

Send in corrections for carry so it can be back in print. DONE!

Read and review all of the BibliOdyssey entries. DONE!

Update website with links to carry AP threads.

A couple of IPR-related tasks.

A followup blog entry about the culture of Awesome.

AND THEN I CAN WRITE GAMES AGAIN!