While Kevin was over in Chicago to hang out with the Jank Cast he got a chance to sit down with Ron Edwards for an hour or three.  I’ve broken the interview down into two parts for ease of consumption. In this first part, we talk a bit about his inspirations for his new game S/Lay /w Me vis a vis early gaming history and the conservative crackdown on all things considered “obscene.” Then we move on to discuss how identity politics can interfere with system discussion, and then a bit about why and how he wrote Trollbabe. Stay tuned for part two!

Relevant Links

• Adept Press
• IPR
• Monte Cook
• Sorcerer
• Skype
• Code of Unaris
• The Forge
• Actor, Director, Writer stance
• Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser
• Henry Kuttner and CL Moore
• H.P. Lovecraft
• S/Lay W/ Me
• Rob Bohl
• Clyde Roher
• Forge Midwest
• Moral Majority
• Scopes Monkey Trial
• B.A.D.D. and The Pulling Report
• Comics Code Authority
• Zap Comics
• Robert Crumb
• S. Clay Wilson
• Gilbert Sheldon
• Meese Report
• Tipper Gore
• Frank Frazetta, Frazetta “Cat Woman” and Boris Vallejo, Vallejo Conan the Barbarian
• Elmore (Red Box)
• Elric of Melnibone
• The Riddle of Steel
• The Shadow of Yesterday
• Dave Arneson
• Blackmoor
• Nine Worlds
• GURPS
• Champions
• Heroes Unlimited
• Vampire: The Masquerade
• Over the Edge
• Prince Valiant
• Chivalry and Sorcery
• The Jank Cast
• The Infamous Five Threads
• Spirit of the Century
• Robert Jordan
• Vincent Baker
• Trollbabe
• Andrea Dworkin (who apparently denies attribution for the quote Ron used, see the 6th question here)
• Liz Danforth
• The Fantasy Trip
• Eastern Promises
• Dragonlance
• XDM
• Jonathan Tweet

Crunchy Bits!

• The Walking Eye Interview 10: Ron Edwards Part 1: 1 Hour 20 Minutes
• Intro and Outro music provided by Oh Possum.

Our review of “Vincent Baker’s Concentrated Awesome” aka Dogs in the Vineyard. We sit down to discuss the dice mechanics, moral ambiguity, and how advancement is inextricably tied into not only changes to your character, but also the damage model. Also, Brandon’s still not over his fear of cows.

Relevant Links

• Dogs in the Vineyard
• Vincent Baker’s Blog
• Dogs in the Vineyards Forum
• Apocalypse World
• State of Deseret
• Burning Wheel
• Diagonally Through the Woods
• Mutants and Masterminds
• D&D
• Warhammer Fantasy RPG
• Mind Flayer
• Arcana Evolved
• Burning Empires
• Oregon Trail
• The Jank Cast
• Call of Cthulhu

Crunchy Bits!

• Discussion Episode 16: Dogs in the Vineyard 50 minutes
• Intro Music from the soundtrack to The Proposition by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (the composer, not the comic writer)
• Outro Music “Palomino” by Tree Adams.

Due to some lucky circumstances, I managed to land an interview earlier this week with Ryan Macklin and Lenny Balsera. This was a serendipitous event, as Evil Hat had just released their official press release announcing the release date and info about the Dresden Files RPG. I sit down with these two and BS about the challenges of creating a game from the Dresden Files license, then we dive into some of the nitty gritty about how FATE was used to create the world of Harry Dresden.

Relevant Links

• Dresden Files RPG
• Evil Hat
• Lenny’s Blog
• Ryan’s Blog
• The Sunless Citadel
• Duke Nukem Forever
• Urban Fantasy
• Perdido Street Station
• Endgame Oakland
• Evil Hat Brick and Mortar Guarantee
• Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies
• Ptolus
• Chris Hanrahan’s Blog
• Scribd
• bittorrent
• GURPS
• Hero
• D20
• Starblazer Adventures
• Diaspora
• FATE mailing list
• Spirit of the Century
• Jared Sorenson’s 3 Questions
• The Wire
• Clark and Amanda Valentine
• Caine  (Kung Fu)
• Las Vegas: The Strip, Sumerlin, Henderson
• Steve Wynn
• Burning Empires
• The Bracelet Problem
• Mage (The Awakening and the older Ascension)
• In Nomine
• In Nomine Fate Fan Conversion
• Robert Bohl (and our interview with him)

Crunchy Bits!

• The Walking Eye Interview 9: Dresden Files RPG with Ryan Macklin and Leonard Balsera 1 Hour 26 Minutes
• Intro and Outro music provided by Oh Possum.

Dogs in the Vineyard wraps up with the small ranching town of King’s Crossing. The players experiment with taking on conflicts solo, and finds some pretty serious challenges facing their characters. The defeats culminate with a very tense final showdown!

Unfortunately this is our last session of Dogs. We had a pretty rough three months this winter and have only managed to record twice due to plague, work, weather, and holidays. It was very difficult to keep the momentum going, but we all feel this is a good session to end on. The conflicts were tough, the morality fuzzy, and the ending suitably tragic.

Relevant Links

• Clancy Brown
• Deadlands: Los Diablos
• Little House on the Prairie
• Wolf Brother
• Conner from Angel
• Silent Lucidity

Crunchy Bits!

• Dogs in the Vineyard Session 3: 2 Hours, 34 Minutes
• Dogs in the Vineyard Session 3 Part A: 65 Minutes
• Dogs in the Vineyard Session 3 Part B: 1 Hour 28 Minutes
• Intro Music from the soundtrack to The Proposition by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (the composer, not the comic writer)
• Outro music from “God’s Gonna Strike You Down” by Johnny Cash.

And here we have our first full town for D. Vincent Baker’s Dog’s in the Vineyard. The gang learns a few good lessons this session. Namely, there’s pretty much no stopping a group of Dogs when they team up, and no matter how bad you don’t want your cousin to be a Sorcerer, sometimes you just have to face facts.  This town was created by Jason Morningstar, and is based on the true story of Olive Oatman. When Jason found out I was running his towns, he shot me an email warning that a few of his early town designs aren’t the most ideal. I thanked him for his concern, but went ahead anyway.

Since then, I’ve done a LOT of reading on the lumpley forums on The Forge about town design, and gotten a bit of play under my belt. I now know what Jason was concerned about. I’m not sure if it comes through in the recording, but this town lacked the tension of some later ones I’ve run, and I know exactly why: The situation was too clear, the antagonist too one-sided, and the problems of the town hadn’t escalated to Hate and Murder yet. Vincent recommends ALWAYS designing a town up to Hate and Murder. I learned a lot from running this town, and my second town is one I made myself, and I think really hits all the right spots for what a town should be. Stay tuned for that!

Relevant Links

• Dogs in the Vineyard
• Vincent Baker’s Blog
• Dogs in the Vineyards Forum
• Kevin’s Post on the DitV Forum about this session.
• January Branch Document
• Jason Morningstar’s awesome play aids
• Mouse Guard
• Wheel of Time
• Detect Evil
• Carnivale
• Deadlands
• Unknown Armies

Crunchy Bits!

• Dogs in the Vineyard Session 2: 2 Hours, 51 Minutes
• Dogs in the Vineyard Session 2 Part A:  Minutes
• Dogs in the Vineyard Session 2 Part B:  Minutes
• Dogs in the Vineyard Session 2 Part C:  Minutes
• Intro Music from the soundtrack to The Proposition by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (the composer, not the comic writer)
• Outro music from “When The Man Comes Around” by Johnny Cash.

Although we’ve had terrible luck getting people together for gaming these past couple months, we did manage to get some time to sit down for an awesome 1-shot of Mutants and Masterminds. Join Claws, Jaquelin Frost, and The Grinch as they save Christmas from a reanimated Hitler (from Mars!) and the vile Corporate Crusader.

Relevant Links

• Mutants and Masterminds
• Green Ronin
• Old Man Logan
• It’s Green and Pissed

Crunchy Bits!

• Mutants and Masterminds Christmas Special: 2 Hours
• Mutants and Masterminds Christmas Special Part A: 53 Minutes
• Mutants and Masterminds Christmas Special Part B: 60 Minutes
• Intro and Outro Music from “Christmas is Interesting” by Jonathan Coulton.

Everyone here at The Walking Eye has been champing at the bit to finally get some sweet, sweet Dogs in the Vineyard action. It marks the half way point of or Vincent Baker Marathon (the final chapter will be Poison‘d) and it’s been an absolute blast. In this first session we handle character creation and establishing the basic facts about the world. It’s a good demonstration of how to pick Traits, and gives three different and interesting Initiation Conflicts. Check it out!

Relevant Links

• Lumpley Games, Vincent Baker’s website and blog.
• Dogs in the Vineyard materials
• State of Deseret
• The Noble Savage
• Blade Barrier
• Mouse Guard
• Deadlands

Crunchy Bits!

• Dogs in the Vineyard Session 1: 2 hours
• Dogs in the Vineyard Session 1 Part A: 53 Minutes
• Dogs in the Vineyard Session 1 Part B: 62 Minutes
• Intro and Outro Music from the soundtrack to The Proposition by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (the composer, not the comic writer)

Just in time for Halloween comes our actual play of one of my all time favorite horror RPG’s: Dread, by Epidiah Ravachol. Dread uses Jenga for all it’s conflict resolution, which really ramps up the tension. Joining us this session is our good buddy Troll, who’s right fond of horror RPGs.

Relevant Links

• Dread
• Epidiah’s Blog
• More to come!

Crunchy Bits!

• Dread Actual Play: 2 Hours 25 Minutes
• Dread Actual Play Part A: 1 Hour, 10 Minutes
• Dread Actual Play Part B: 1 Hour 15 Minutes
• Intro Music “Metroid” by The Minibosses
• Outro Music “Vampire Intro” from Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines soundtrack by Rik Schaffer of Womb Music.

The gang spends a good 45 minutes ranting and raving about how awesome In A Wicked Age… is.

Relevant Links

• Lumpley Games
• In a Wicked Age…
• Sword And Sorcery
• Tanith Lee
• Jack Vance
• Robert E Howard
• Iron Age
• Marvel Comics Conan
• Lumpley Games Oracle Generator
• Misspent Youth
• Duel of Wits
• Emily Care Boss
• Mouse Guard
• Conflict Flow Chart
• The Dreaded D&D 3.5 Grapple Rules
• The Dreaded D&D 3.5 Attacks of Opportunity Rules
• Abulafia
• Silver Age Comics
• GURPS
• Grey Ranks
• Spirit of the Century

Crunchy Bits!

• Discussion Episode 15: In A Wicked Age… Review 50 minutes
• Intro and Outro Music from The Prince of Persia by Inon Zur and Stuart Chatwood published by Ubisoft.

Brandon takes over as GM for our final session of Vincent Baker’s In A Wicked Age… We made a distinct attempt at going for non-violent conflicts this time around, and it worked out pretty well. This session focused around a nomadic remnants of the Uesirans coming to a holy site for their coming of age rituals. Many perils awaited them, from without and within!

Oracle: Blood and Sex

Kevin Chose: The seizure of arcane powers by an arrogant and brutal wizard.
A spirit of the wilds, mercurial in form, sister to gazelles.
The celebration of local fertility or harvest rites.
An oasis of sweet water in a barren wilderness, haunted by the shadows of some vast atrocity committed centuries ago.

Roles

Kevin: Ekurzakir, reincarnated into a new, young body.
Best Interests: To Enthrall the fertility spirit and make her my consort.
I will win the heart of the Head Priestess.
Particular Strength: Spellfire

Dan: Aram, Bravest and Strongest of the Tribe
Best Interests: Prove that I am worthy to marry the Chieftain’s Daughter
I will protect our proving ground against outsiders.
Particular Strength: Strength and Bravery

CJ: Sithara, Fertility Spirit
Best Interests: Find the most worthy Youth and give him my “blessing.”
I must punish those who seek to abuse my power.
Particular Strength: Quicksilver Form (shapeshifting)

NPCs

Gemegishkirihallat High Priestess of the Uesiran Nomads
Best Interests: Protect the Young, for one of them is fated to save our dying tribe.
Particular Strength: Talismen and Rituals of Protection

Uesiran Youths
Best Interests: Complete the ritual ahead of their rivals and return to the tribe.
Particular Strength: Youth

Shadows in the ruins of Kal-Nirar
Best Interests: The city must not be disturbed. Remove outsiders before they become corrupted as well.
Particular Strength: Corporeal forms

Relevant Links

• In A Wicked Age
• Lumpley Games
• Conflict Flowchart
• Fistandantilus
• Weapons of the Gods
• Spellfire
• Wheel of Time:  Rhuidean, Shadar Logoth, Balefire, Aiel
• Prince of Persia (again!)
• The Bedouin
• Fullmetal Alchemist
• Magic Symbol
• Feather Fall
• Wu and Swearengen from Deadwood
• Kukri (the Sihks actually use a Kirpan, oops!)
• Simulacrum

Crunchy Bits!

• In a Wicked Age Session 4: 2 Hours
• In a Wicked Age Session 4 Part A: 57 Minutes
• In a Wicked Age Session 4 Part B: 62 Minutes
• Intro and Outro Music from The Prince of Persia by Inon Zur and Stuart Chatwood published by Ubisoft.