lategaming

In 1966, Transhuman was defined by F. M. Esfandiary (later, FM-2030) as:

included physical and mental augmentations including prostheses, reconstructive surgery, intensive use of telecommunications, a cosmopolitan outlook and a globetrotting lifestyle, androgyny, mediated reproduction (such as in vitro fertilisation), absence of religious beliefs, and a rejection of traditional family values. (Source: Wikipedia

The word itself has come to mean “next evolutionary human” when it really means a stage of “Transitory Human”, where we start to notice differences. Of course, nothing in the above quote has anything to do with evolution as we can achieve transhuman status within our own lifetimes. The evolutionary process is described only in successive generations.

(RPG.net has a thread about a new game called Eclipse Phase - “a game of transhuman conspiracy and horror”.

From the thread and web page it seems like a Transhuman space-meets-Traveller-The-New-Era type background especially with:

the driving powers behind the wars—both AI and transhuman—were infected by a mutating virus with multiple infection vectors—biological, information, nano—dubbed the Exsurgent virus. Whatever its source, this virus has been known to sometimes transform its victims into something unexplainable … something monstrous and reality-altering.

…with a dollop of Cthulhu. I will likely buy the book (the same way I bought Sufficiently Advanced) though the blurb doesn’t inspire me. Is it that I want a game filled with some hope for a change? It might be that I’m not looking really for the inexpicable in a game setting (which also belies my general annoyance with Call of Cthulhu - in a world where there are snuff movies, special effects and Tom Savini, is it possible to actually go insane from seeing something horrific? Would the existence of something like that freak me out? I don’t think so!)

Horror and Sci-Fi sometimes works well. Alien would be the most obvious example of a resounding success. It’s more likely that you’ll find a dozen examples of where Sci-Fi didn’t work well with horror - the most obvious one I can think of being Event Horizon. I once ran a somewhat abortive game using the 2300AD system. The players were investigating a space anomaly (which turned out to be a Colour). It put the crew into a torpor and the ship sustained their bodily functions. They arise from their suspended animation nearly a hundred years later and find that Colours, sentient but not sapient, have been harnessed as a energy source and mechanism for ‘jump drive’.

I like Sci-Fi games but a lot of them end up with a resolute “What now?” after character generation is complete. Blue Planet and Transhuman Space have been accused of this at various times. I think it’s less a problem of the game (especially as we see the amount of material available) but more of an imagination issue - whether the GM can put forward a gaming framework. Jorune managed this well with the Drenn trials and SLA Industries with their BPN system.

Of course, Frontier is my transhumanist game set in a far-flung post-apocalyptic future. Of course, in Frontier, Earth still has a major, advanced technological human civilisation and has fully recovered from the apocalypse that overtook most of the West. There is a reliance on technology for science, research, law, democracy and war. There are sapient and sentient artificial intelligences which act as both tool and mentor to humanity. My inspirations for Frontier are many and have departed considerably from the “Star Trek But Better” conversations that Eamon, Colin and I would talk about over a decade ago. We never specifically mentioned Transhumanism (probably because to a greater degree we were already living Transhuman lives.

At the moment I’m working on ‘6′, ‘illusion’ and doing bits and pieces on the other lines. Frontier remains, for the time being, a long distance project.

As mentioned a few posts ago, here is a list of the games that have gone through our idea filter and dropped down into the Book Development stage. If you’re a regular reader, the chances are none of these are of surprise to you, although I’m not sure we’ve blogged about all of them. So, in no particular order, here is the list.

• Illusion (working title) - Set in the 19th Century, players are in some way involved with a magical stage act. A game of secrets and showmanship, where nothing is ever quite what you expected. Uses a thematic system based on playing cards (although dice-based rules are included).
• Additional 23rd Letter Material (working title) - The game of psychics and conspiracies. Over the years, we’ve written (and rewritten) a bunch of source material that was never published. The Projects Sourcebook almost saw the light of day, but not quite. This body of work includes detailed information on playing Network and Project campaigns, revised psychic abilities, GM information on the Powers, Terata, and more.
• War of the Worlds: Earth (working title) - Set after an invasion by Martians which has left physical and ecological devastation. Based on H. G. Well’s “The War of the Worlds”, characters pick up the pieces after that novel. See the War of the Worlds: Earth category for more info.
• ERIS - The system used by The 23rd Letter, War of the Worlds: Earth and others. This book will be available for free PDF download.
• 6 - A spy game, set in the height of the Cold War. For advanced role-players only, this game uses a very narrative system and Tiered Play to create intricate plots in an atmosphere of fear and mistrust.

There is no set publish date for any of these, but if there is any game that you’d especially like to see first, please let us know in the comments. War of the Worlds: Earth is likely to be the last of those games to be published, just looking at the amount of work still needing done.

Which do people like more?
(See the comments for more info)

Back in late 2006, I got a bit of a shock. Maybe you do as I do but I like to beachcomb through Google and see what people are saying about the things I have written. I pick up a few comments about The 23rd Letter and Zombi most often, usually through RPG.net which seems to be the big granddaddy of RPG-related internet portals. It’s pretty nice for the most part and I get to talk to some interesting people (and make excuses for the things I missed). As The 23rd Letter is still on sale via Key20, every now and then I get an email asking about it which is why I’ve started posting updated materials on the blog here. There have been some relative champions of The 23rd Letter, like Chris Lupton and Max Cairnduff, who have both gone above and beyond in the past to make the games known and for that I’ve always been grateful.

Anyway, this was the shock.

This page linked to Starway Pictures, a Hollywood-based production company, who were producing an adaptation of The 23rd Letter, a film about ESP and psychokinesis. I was utterly gobsmacked.

The script for “The 23rd Letter” was written by Jim Beck, an aspiring screenwriter who had also written gaming material for Paradigm Concepts , a small RPG company, but Jim Beck was mostly identified via his blog at blackroosterfilms.tripod.com. My stuff is also listed at pen-paper.net and a few years ago, t23l would have been a lot more on the lips of people.

Information on the 23rd Letter movie was posted all around on Filmmaker magazine, XLCinema.com and the Digital Video Information Network. The stars mentioned it on their myspace pages and there seemed to be loads of mentions of the name as I started digging deeper. Heaps more material is available on the Starway Pictures blog in February 2006, March 2006, April 2006, May 2006 and November 2006 including demo footage and pitch reels.

I found out about it in November 2006 and have been sitting on it for months. Why? Because I was really unsure at what to do about it. Am I supposed to assume the worst?

What do you do in this case?

[UPDATE: I've been talking to Robert Sanders @ Starway via email (and inadvertently to his lawyer (who didn't get the hang of "Reply All") and I think we're resolving any issues. I do not believe that there was any infringement of IP so it's now down to whether they change the name or we agree to jointly use the name).]

I thought I’d share a bit about how our game design process works and (in a subsequent post) what we’re currently working on. This is not necessarily the best way to design a game, and we’re always looking at ways to get more stuff done, but at the same time we are only two people, geographically separated and both with full time jobs and families. This is what works for us.

Idea

We have lots of ideas. Any time we have an idea that might be game worthy, we put it on our (private) Wiki. Currently we have around 40 ideas that are worth making an entire game from. At this stage the idea is simply a 1-4 line premise. This could be as simple as “A spy game” or as in-depth as

Status: Refugee (working title) - Set today, the Solar System is destroyed by a nova. Luckily for us, the Interstellar government intervenes and transports all 6 billion of us off-world, in the very short space of time we have left before the Sun explodes. We all then become refugees spread across dozens of worlds, with no clue about laws, customs, aliens, technology, where our families are, etc. Many, many campaign and adventure possibilities.

Germination

We let the ideas sit on the ideas page for a while to germinate. Because we tend to read that page relatively frequently, we’ll see something that catches our eye and remember something to add it to the idea. Eventually, one of us will write a piece of fiction or a scrap of a system or background, often as a blog post. This gives the idea enough weight to drop into …

Development

At this point we give the idea it’s own wiki page and move any content to there. Usually we’ve had enough work done on this point to at least fill one page. Our wiki sends us updates via RSS any time someone makes a change to any page, so that’s usually what sparks things off. I’ll check out an update Matt has made, then I’ll add a bit to what he’s done, based on whatever goes click in my head when I read (and vice-versa). This tends to be bursty, so we get 4-5 “bits” done at a time, where a bit can be anything like a collection of relevant links, a piece of relevant fiction, some background notes, or even an entire system.

Our projects hang out in this stage for a while, until they gather enough of these bits that the wiki starts to become an unwieldy place for them to gather any more. We currently have 12 games in this stage, some of which we have blogged about (as seen under our Game Design category). This is one area where we are inconsistent on what happens next, but generally we go into …

Book Development

We create a book outline (with all four parts of course) that gives us some idea of how big the book is likely to be. Then we’ll slot whatever blog posts and wiki material we have into that book outline in a desktop publishing app.

From there we keep adding written material, look for artwork, rewrite things we don’t like and so forth. We currently have 5 ideas in this stage, at various stages of completion. We expect to see one of them drop out of this part of the funnel and into print Real Soon Now.

I’ve just taken over editing of the Game Developers and Publishers area on dmoz. If you are in this arena and want your site listed there, please submit it through the site suggestion link on that page and I should be able to look at it within 24 hours.

In trying to layout some of our recent game projects, I’ve noticed some common components in every book, which has led me to the conclusion that every game book really consists of four parts:

1. Character Generation/Creation (Chargen)
2. Game Rules
3. Setting
4. GM Section

Different games put these sections in different orders or interweave one or more of them into single sections, and put different levels of emphasis on each one. Some games even go so far separate those sections into different books.

Is there a right order for these? Although I’ve put them in an order above that is purely to show that they are four in number. Often Character Creation and Game Rules are intertwined, and the same with Setting and GM Section. Likewise, the GM Section will often contain Game Rules that are not applicable to players. Sometimes games will make the split into Player Section and GM Section, with sub-sections of Game Rules and Setting. Usually Chargen is bundled under the Player Section in that case.

Let’s take a few quick examples (from memory, so apologies if there are any inaccuracies):

• GURPS - Chargen comes first, bleeding into Game Rules, and finally GM Section. There is very little Setting in the main book. Many supplements exist with Setting, and many of those also include extra Chargen, Rules and GM Section.
• Pendragon (4th Ed) - Chargen is again first, bleeding into Setting. Then Game Rules, with more Setting, and finally a GM Section with more Setting. The Setting is tightly interwoven throughout the entire book, which is why Pendragon ranks highly in my estimation. Supplements follow that same pattern.
• SLA Industries - Setting comes first, then Chargen and Game Rules, with many of the Rules surrounded and influenced by Setting. The GM Section is comparatively small.
• 23rd Letter - A little bit of Setting, followed by Chargen and Game Rules and then a GM Section which includes more Setting (given the conspiratorial nature of the game).

I think what is important is that your game (or our games) consciously include all of these sections, whether or not they are labelled this way, or are separate sections. Any game will need to have components that fall under those four headings in order to be complete.

Do you have a preferred order for these? Seen a game which didn’t have all four? Is there one that must be there that I’m blatantly missing?

Half a decade ago, when Crucible was still about, we tasked ourselves with a job to create games settings in one week and bring them back to the fold. The catch was, the group decided what sort of game you were to write. The one that was given to me was subtitled “Roman Empire, No Magic”. I presented it to the group and have been resurrecting material from my old notes for the last few weeks. There’s a lot more written about this but I doubt that it’s mainstream publishable materials. I’ll post a bit more later but if people are interested, comments would be welcome.

Brainstorming: Resurrecting a game idea I had a while back about Earth having developed slightly differently - Saurians evolved into more humanoid shapes and humans and neanderthals had some arrested development. The humans were short, squat, dark haired mutes whereas the neanderthals were literate at the very least and used as slaves and pets.

Introduction
Five days to the Millennium and the Emperor is planning his ascension. Standing upon the balcony and peering down at the plebeian hordes that crowd the streets below. They were preparing his feast no doubt, building the grand throne upon which he would begin his eternal rule. Already he could hear the chanting of the priests as they prepared the way, calling the spirits to attend and the gods to listen. His attendants fussed with his robe, distracting him from his reverie. He narrowed his eye and growled.

Chosen zzLena ilya zzRenu so zzCatha watched her mate, Emperor zzRathu, from her chambers. At the ascension she would be freed from her current duty as his brood female and would be assigned to another. She had provided an egg for zzRathu but she knew it would never hatch. Even now it lay smashed rather than buried in sand and the ashes of former Emperors. zzRathu has offended the Bruot too many times with his words and deeds and though they could not deny him one of the Chosen for a mate, they would all ensure that he would never bear an heir. The ascension was a great honour among the Champions but zzLena knew, as did all the Bruot, that it was a privilege for the Sages and Fools - Emperors who had been so great that they were made eternal or so foolhardy that their removal was deemed necessary.

She barked at her Mur manservant who looked at her with his dark knowing eyes. He fetched her a cup of Celeta - the liquid still warm from the veins of the Celeta (a small rodent) and she drank deep. He walked out of the room, presumably to get more Celeta, and she relaxed letting the warm liquid drip down her throat.

zzRathu watched the Mur enter and smiled his toothy smile. He padded across to his pallet and picked up his ceremonial sash. “It is done” the Mur said. zzRathu strode into the next room and gave a throaty chuckle. zzLena sat, tongue lolling and looked at him with her dead eyes. He ran his hand over her magnificent crest and across her dry raspy tongue. “My egg is safe from your Bruot witches. And my ascension will be on my terms. No flames shall sear this flesh”…

The Mur said nothing. His motives in this were unfathomable to the mighty lizard king who stood before him. Unfathomable to all of the lizards.

The Project in Whitechapel was formed in September 1941 as a subsection of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The SOE was directed to encourage espionage behind enemy lines and build the core of a resistance cell in the event of a land invasion. As a result, they were entirely dependent upon the security of radio transmissions and a lot of resource was allocated to eliminating the circumstances which would lead to a break in communications. Better radio sets, more secure operating procedures and the development of proper ciphers all aided their mission.

The ISRB (Inter Service Research Bureau) operated as a cover for the SOE and was responsible for developing modern clandestine technology as well as recruiting agents for the SOE. The Frythe Estate near Welwyn Garden City was the initial test ground for the use of psychics in espionage under the guise of a wireless research unit code-named “Special Signals”. Later, it became Station IX, a weapons development centre and the Special Signals group was moved to a small building on Fieldgate Street in Whitechapel. The SOE was dissolved in 1946 and most of their operational functions absorbed by MI6. The Special Signals group, however, survived. Their staff roster was filled out with German scientists, recruited from the post-war skirmish between the Allies for their knowledge.

Dr Saul Benedict had been head of Special Signals since it’s inception and guided the group through the post-war political turmoil by forming a significant attachment to the then-prime minister, Clement Attlee. While Attlee could not be convinced of the need for the SOE, the Special Signals group were able to secure their own future and Attlee consulted with precogs and telepaths regularly. He became known as an extremely effective politician and possible the most effective Prime Minister to date. Their consultations helped him decide the correct course of action and also how to build a cabinet of people he could trust. In return he pledged support for Benedict’s special interests and permitted the Project in Whitechapel far-reaching authority.

The establishment of the National Health Service in 1948 paved the way for regular screening of the population for psychic potential and the Whitechapel Project enjoyed a regular stream of enthusiastic recruits, young, cheerful and ready to do their bit for king and country. A centre for psychic research was opened in Huntingdon, funded by the NHS rather than the Special Signals group. When Churchill succeeded Attlee he was astounded his own words were so prophetic when he had accused Labour of introducing “some form of Gestapo, no doubt humanely administered in the first instance”. One of his first actions was to restrict NHS funding to Huntingdon and from that moment on Benedict and his advisors realised their remit had a wider reach than the ephemeral governments

Is it right to design another system for a game?

At the moment we’re still writing War of the Worlds, though we’ve started development on Status: Refugee and a Supers game. In all three, the working system is to be a derivative of ERIS from “The 23rd Letter”.

Part of me wants to use ORE because I like Wild Talents and Reign so much. But the licensing terms for it have been very vague.