year and a half late?

Its pretty unforgiveable,

isnt it? Not so much a late issue as another period of
hybernation followed by a return from the dead.
In this case, though, the return is different to my
return after the long gap between issues 20 and 21. It has
been evident that I cant continue to produce imazine in the
way I have been, not so much because of a lack of time
(although that has also been a problem), but because I refuse
to work on the zine unless Im fully behind it. The fact that
this issue is so late demonstrates that I havent been suffi-
ciently motivated, energised, enthused by what Ive been
doing with the zine. So next issue (if there is a next issue)
will probably see some changes.
I started the zine originally to provide a place for discus-
sion. Since then the Internet has come along and most peo-
A
ple now prefer their discussions at the speed of a net connec-
tion (and with flames to match). So Im going to be thinking
about how to modify the method of discussion I use in the
zine, as well as trying to make it easier for me to edit. This
issue sees much larger chunks by way of an experiment.
On top of all this, this issue marks something of a break
with tradition as I discover that I am prepared to publish art-
work: though in this case as part of an article on the subject
of artwork in rolegames rather than as decoration. Because
of this art, and the extra length from letters, reviews and
articles I believe the file is rather larger than usual; sorry
about that.
Oh, and in the other news department, Ive recently
secured a new full-time job and will be becoming a father in
February. So, little prospect of much extra free time... *
ROLEGAMING MAGAZINE ISSUE 37 EARLY 2002
issn: 0267-5595
Editor: Paul Mason
This publication is freeware. It may be freely
copied and distributed on condition that no money
is charged. All material is copyright 2001,
original authors and artists, and may not be
reproduced without their permission.
Contributions may be sent on paper, on disk, or by
email. The less formatting you insert, the better.
Please dont try to imitate the layout, especially
using tabs etc. Italics used for emphasis and for
product names are fine, but no more. Preferred
format is Word or Rich Text.
Let me know if you want to be advised by email
when a new issue is out, or if I should email it to
you direct (all 400K1Mb of it!)
Post
Imazine/Paul Mason
101 Green Heights, Shimpo-ch 4-50,
Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-0072 japan
Email
panurge@tcp-ip.or.jp
Web
www.tcp-ip.or.jp/~panurge
www.firedrake.org/panurge
ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/panurge
2 Reviews
2 Everway
4 The Dying Earth RPG
6 Hero Wars
9 Chivalry & Sorcery: The Rebirth
10 The Fantasy Role-Playing Game
12 Abstraction v Mess
Some level of abstaction is necessary in a game
system, but how much? asks Paul Mason
14 The Need For A Free World
An interview with Phil Gallagher published in
Warpstone magazine demonstrates how
intellectual property is strangling one game
setting. By Robert Rees.
17 Lingua Fruppa
A look at the coverage of language in roleplaying
games and why it is so poor with suggested
solutions. By Gianni Vacca.
19 Colloquy
The usual array of letters, this time presented with
a little more of you, and a little less of me.
Understanding of terms like adequate and
zunder is not obligatory, honest!
27 Brilliance & Dross In RPG Artwork
Artwork and rolegames have always been
intertwined. Matt Stevens gives a personal view
of the this tempestuous relationship.
ust about every issue I resolve to ditch the reviews
section, and just about every issue something comes
along that makes me feel I should postpone its demise.
This issue, though, demonstrates the way I see things
going in the future: fewer commercial promotions and more
examinations of games from the point of view of what use-
ful ideas we can obtain from them. By coincidence, and
probably partly as a result of the long delay, the reviews are
interelated, not only with each other, but with other con-
tents of the zine.
Everway
Dissected by Paul Mason
But, but isnt this a crazy
idea? I mean, Everway was a
notorious flop: it has been
unavailable for ages. Well, if I
was merely doing a review,
that would be true. As it is,
the very fact that Everway
was a flop is what inter-
ests me in taking a look
at it. For just as Last
Action Hero was a
notorious flop that
was nevertheless
one of Arnold
Schwarzeneggers
best films, there may be
all sorts of precious nuggets to be
found in the unlikeliest places. And with the
release of Dungeons & Dragons third edition, helmed by
Jonathan Tweet, who has wowed us in the past with such
delights as Ars Magica and Over The Edge, this seems like a
good opportunity to look at his great mistake (why no
review of Dungeons & Dragons? Thats a question you should
be asking yourself, not me).
In an issue of Alarums & Excursions over a year ago,
Jonathan modestly commented on the subject of Everway
that It dates from a time when I thought I knew how to
make something accessible to new gamers. (Now Ive
learned to test my assumptions rather than believe them.)
That parenthetical comment is something I am very familiar
with myself. Its bizarre how a neat system or idea can
translate into total rubbish as soon as it is exposed on the
mountainside of actual play. In the case of Everway, most of
the basic ideas are fascinating. Indeed, had it not been
J
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pitched as a newcomers
game, I suspect it wouldnt
have performed as badly as
it did. Because the strange
thing about this game is that it
is a newcomers game, but one
which requires an experienced
referee to run it.
In this examination of the
game, Im going to be mainly con-
centrating on two of the games fea-
tures: the cards used to drive the
mechanic, and the background
against which the game is set. There
are, of course, many other points of interest
to be found in the game, but I think these two have the
most to tell us about designing games of our own.
beginners luck
But before I start concentrating on these two features, a
word about the idea of Everway as a beginners game. There
are many theories as to what is and isnt required in such a
game, and I wouldnt like to claim that I have the answers.
One thing I did notice, however, was that I found myself,
while reading a large proportion of the main book, continu-
ally asking myself: Yes, but what do you do? How do you
play the game? Given the effort which was put in to make
the game accessible by removing highly culture-specific
information from the background, there is a tremendous
amount of cultural information to wade through before one
is given any concrete information on how to play the game.
My impression of beginners is that what they crave, more
than anything, is concrete information, specifics on how to
play the game and what is expected of them. Like it or not,
that means the game mechanics. And Everway doesnt seem
to me to make this information easy to acquire.
A related point is the notion of using the four elements as
characteristics. Firstly this is a culture-specific element,
though this neednt matter (it does, however, undermine
the games carefully cultivated ethnicity this is a back-
ground of many peoples, all of whom speak with an
American accent). My worry is that the vagueness of the
characteristics, while attractive to established players who
will find such a means of describing characters full of reso-
nance and possibility, will leave beginners nonplussed. Here
I am happy to be contradicted by those who have experience
running the game with actual beginners. But it does seem to
introduce an unnecessary level of abstraction. Dungeons &
Dragons, for all its faults, allowed a character concept to be
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grasped rather quickly through its characteristics. Where it
was weakest was with the vaguer terms, like charisma,
which werent immediately graspable. But beginners could
quickly understand Your strength is 13, rated on a scale
from 1 to 20 (or 3 to 18 or whatever).
Elsewhere in this issue I examine the notion of abstrac-
tion, and why I think it can so often undermine immersion
in the game experience or, to be more precise, in the
gamed experience. Its to do with the gap between the
mechanics and the gamed reality they are supposedly repre-
senting. Everway makes an interesting attempt to close this
gap by making the Elements and the Fortune Deck them-
selves parts of the background. Thus, while it might seem
excessively abstract to refer to someone as having a fire
score of 7, the game is set up such that we understand that
it might be said of someone that she is full of fire thus
that the system models a belief of the worlds inhabitants.
This made me think that I should have had the courage of
my convictions all those years ago when I determined to
based the Outlaws system on the I Ching. Except that only
represents one particular (immensely popular, though not
universal) strand of thought in China, and by basing the sys-
tem on it I would have immediately set up a monolithic,
arbitrary structure which wouldnt have been comfortable
representing certain other aspects of the culture. Everway
does not suffer this problem, of course, since the back-
ground is synthetic, but it does mean that the background,
for all its apparent variety, is likely to be a monolithic, arbi-
trary structure.
worlds apart
Talking of the background, lets have a look. For starters, it
is unavowedly and unashamedly fantasy based. Having said
that, it is multi-planar. Now I had better straightaway put
my (collectible) cards on the table: I am suspicious of multi-
planar game environments. Its not that I object to the idea
per se: Tkumel has multiple planes, but I dont feel they
interfere with the background. Rather, Im suspicious of
multi-planar settings because
they so often feel
like an excuse for
background-hop-
ping. Never mind the
quality, feel the
width. They obviate
the need to root the
player characters in a
background culture, and
to derive much of the
story from interactions
between them.
In this respect, Everway
is odd, and no mistake.
While the authors work on
Over The Edge suggests that the
multi-planar setting is a deliberate
attempt to minimise the necessity
for background, as I mentioned
above, you have to wade through
dozens of pages of essentially
background information before
you even reach character cre-
ation. And theres the setting
of Everway itself, a Tanelorn
(or perhaps a City-State of
the Invincible Overlord?) for
a new generation. Its high-
ly quirky, thats for sure.
The aspects I like about it
(and this goes for the
game in general) are
those which go against fantasy tropes. Instead of awful fan-
tasy names Thrak the Barbarian and his ilk all the names
are words. This lends a mythic cast to the game, and
extends its associations beyond European mythology and
into some of the Asian, African, American and Australasian
cultures depicted on the cards. Ive seen write-ups of
Everway games which really did seem to exploit this feeling
to great effect.
But mention of the cards brings us circling back towards
the rules. The idea of a diceless game is not new (it had been
discussed and done years before Eric Dicelesss Amber
Wujcik hit the stands), nor, for that matter, are cards such a
great innovation (the original never-published Games
Workshop Doctor Who RPG was based on a card deck). But
pitching an interpretative card-based system at the begin-
ners market was certainly a brave move on the part of
Wizards of the Coast. Was this a contributory factor in its
failure?
It is often imagined that beginners are put off by the
dice-rolling in games, and sometimes they are. To replace
dice-rolling with what amounts to resolution-by-Tarot-read-
ing is a leap a little too great for me. My own, limited, expe-
rience is that beginners are far more disturbed by the vague-
ness, the lack of understanding of what game terms mean
and represent than they are by the dice. The notion of a
game representing a story is easy to grasp. More difficult,
however, is becoming familiar with the way the game mod-
els reality how the rules relate to the gamed experience.
Funnily enough, as D&D demonstrates, abstraction isnt
necessarily a problem so long as it is clear. Those levels and
characteristics may be nonsensical, but they have clear
numbers attached and they can been assimilated with a lit-
tle effort of willpower. Everways system, while in my opin-
ion far more interesting, is going to be far more difficult to
assimilate because it relies on interpretation, which super-
ficially brings it far closer to the playground games and their
arguments, which rules came to save us from. I could well be
completely wrong here. But this is my feeling.
Leaving aside the suitability of the game to beginners,
Everway
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4
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r e v i e w s
lets look at the system itself. There are actually three reso-
lution mechanics: the Laws of Karma, Drama and Fortune.
Karma means that the referee decides all outcomes, based
on the characters abilities and the situation. Drama means
that the referee decides all outcomes, based on the needs of
his or her plot. Fortune means that the referee determines all
outcomes, based on his or her interpretation of a card drawn
from the Fortune Deck. Youll notice that there is a common
element here
chaingang blues
Well, card-carrying advocate of player-power that I am, I
was never going to find myself cheering a game which
expends so much space in detailing a basic mechanic of the
referee decides all outcomes. But digging a little deeper
than my rather unfriendly characterisation, is there any-
thing worth taking note of?
Of course there is. The license to railroad that is the Law
of Drama can quickly be wrapped up and disposed of in the
bin for those who love such things. The Law of Karma is an
interesting formulation of the proposition that many role-
playing game situations dont actually need the rules to be
invoked the result is obvious in context. In some recent
rules speculations in Alarums & Excursions I have extended
this idea to players, and labelled it privileged assertion.
That leaves us with the Law of Fortune. One consequence
of this mechanic is that it cultivates the feeling that in-
game consequences are being determined by in-game
forces. So if we can get beyond my distaste at the idea that
it is dominated by the referee, and perhaps accept player
interpretation, we have an interesting random mechanic
which operates within the game and which should therefore
stimulate immersion. The draw of the Fortune Deck repre-
sents the way in which the turn of events might be consid-
ered by the characters. By analogy, think of the way in which
gamers apply game terms to everyday events. If I knock
someones beer over, I might comment that I fumbled my
roll. Since the Fortune Deck exists within the world, its
metaphors guide the way that characters consider the
events around them. What better resolution mechanic?
What this suggests is that in games in general, we might
consider implementing mechanics which reflect, in some
way, the beliefs of the culture in which they are to be imple-
mented. This probably only really works in closed (ie fanta-
sy) cultures, but its still worth a thought. I can certainly see
using the Tarot in order to determine results in a
Renaissance-based game (yes, I know its strictly anachro-
nistic, but it certainly feels close), and Ive already men-
tioned the possibilities of using the I Ching in a Chinese
game.
The main issue is how you actually implement the
mechanic, and here I think is where Everway cops out rather.
Its implementation of the Law of Fortune is little more than
a souped-up version of the referee decides, which may sat-
isfy the railroaders, but does little for me. This doesnt,
however, mean that it cant be made to work. For myself,
Im inclined to think that some sort of structured diffusion
of power (a concept Im exploring in my Alarums &
Excursions ruminations) may do the trick.
Though it was one of the greatest flops in roleplaying his-
tory, I nevertheless admire Everway and its creator for the
bold steps it took in exploring alternatives. That I have prob-
lems with some of the directions taken is irrelevant; what is
admirable is the way in which Everway opened up hitherto
concealed gateways. The greatest shame is that its commer-
cial failure may have frightened off other companies from
innovation. And so we find ourselves in a world which has
returned to the dungeon-bashing 70s, albeit in smarter
apparel (courtesy, once again, of the versatile Mr Tweet),
and in which d20 is the new standard. In such a world, I find
myself warming to Everway and its foibles
Everway
The Dying Earth RPG
Reviewed by Matthew Pook
Dungeons & Dragons owes a substantial debt to the
author Jack Vance and his Tales of The Dying Earth. Gary
Gygax has acknowledged Tales of The Dying Earth as the
inspiration if not the source for the concept behind AD&Ds
magic system. Further, some of the Dying Earths magical
artefacts also appear in AD&D most notably Ioun stones.
Beyond this, the inspiration for D&D is more Tolkien than
Vance and as far as the roleplaying world is concerned, The
Dying Earth has been left far behind. All that is set to change
5
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with the release of The Dying Earth
Roleplaying Game published by a new
English company, Pelgrane Press.
the world
The setting for this game is that of
the stories the 21st Aeon, a time
far beyond the distant future where
our own time has been long forgot-
ten and science and magic have
become the same. The Sun, fat and
reddish, hangs low in a mauve sky
and is given over to the occasional
quavering as it threatens to extin-
guish itself and the Earth with it. All
acknowledge that the Sun is nearing
its end and though none can say
when, all have resigned themselves
to their fate. Thus the time of the
Dying Earth is not a world of great
ambitions, but one where scoundrels
and magicians explore, lie, cheat and
exhort their way through ageless
ruins, beast-filled forests and isolat-
ed communities with peculiar customs in search of magical
artefacts, strange knowledge or if all else fails, a fine meal
and a soft bed for the night. It is these scoundrels and magi-
cians that the players will take as their characters, using
their cunning, their wits and their persuasive tongues to
survive and persevere, for as the old adage has it, violence
is the last refuge of the incompetent.
The Dying Earth RPG is written and designed by Robin D
Laws, the renowned creator of Atlas Games Feng Shui,
Hogsheads Pantheon and Issaries Incs Hero Wars; and
comes with a magic system designed by John Snead.
Although the cover does little for me, Allen Varney nicely
lays out the inside of this hardback book in black and white.
Mainly illustrated by Ralph Horsley [whose work appeared in
imazine many years ago Ed], The Dying Earth RPG acts as a
showcase for his art, a mixture of pen and ink and painted
pieces. Many of these illustrations come with witty cap-
tions and quotes from the Dying Earth stories liberally sprin-
kled throughout. Only one thing lets the presentation down
and this is Peter Freemans map of Cugels journey. It has
bitmapped quite horridly and is rather difficult to read.
Peter Freeman also contributes several pieces of fiction for
those not familiar with the works of Jack Vance. These are
rather successful in emulating the singular style of the tales
of the Dying Earth.
The game begins with an excellent first chapter aimed at
both the novice new to role-playing, and the veteran gamer
new to the Dying Earth. This is a necessity as there are fun-
damental differences in feel and tone between this and the
more traditional goal-orientated fantasy rpg. These differ-
ences ooze out of the games rules,
writing and advice. For example,
players are asked to select a suitably
exotic name, but warned that if they
choose a mundane or anachronistic
name such as Nigel or Sue, the gm has
full permission to brutally slay the
character within the first few min-
utes of the game!
the characters
The type of campaign determines
the type of character the players
design. A Cugel-level game provides
characters with a few good skills and
little in the way of magic who must
rely upon their wits and guile to sur-
vive, whereas Turjan and Rhialto-
level campaigns are increasingly ori-
entated to magically capable charac-
ters. Each level provides points to
spend on Ability Ratings in numerous
abilities Persuade, Rebuff, Attack,
Defence and optionally Magic. A
style is selected for each rating or determined randomly to
gain bonus points. gms should be careful here as it is possi-
ble for players to roll most abilities and thus gain a lot of
points here, so I would recommend limiting the number of
times that ratings can be rolled for. Points are spent on
skills, health, possessions and resistances to round out the
character. Each Ability Dating determines the Ability Pool
for each skill and it is from these Pools that players spend
points to accomplish things. Finally three taglines are noted
down for the character to use within the game more of
those latter.
The game system is very simple, and to be blunt, will not
please everyone as it is highly random and there are no skills
as such in the game to modify any roll. It uses a simple D6,
with results three and below indicating ever-worsening fail-
ure. Likewise, results four and above indicating ever-
increasing success. Literally it is as simple as that! The first
roll on any action is usually free, but subsequent rolls if
involved in a contest of skills, or the roll was not the result
desired, each cost a single point from the appropriate
Ability Pool. A player can go on rolling until such times as a
contest is lost or won, or the Pool is emptied. There can be a
bonus or levy to a roll because of a tasks difficulty or
because the opposed rolls are employing Abilities include
one style that might trump another. For example, in combat
the Speed Attack style trumps the Dodge Defence style. In a
persuasion attempt, the Charming Persuasion style is
trumped by Contrary Rebuff style. Ability Pools can be
refreshed through suitable actions and these are given for all
styles and skills. The simple game engine reflects the ebb
r e v i e w s
In A Nutshell
Highs: Fantastic evocation of the
setting through both rules and writ-
ing, with an engine geared towards
role-playing not roll-playing.
Lows: None really, but some may
object to the more Vancian aspects
of the rules reversals in the fortunes
of their character and occasional loss
of control of their character within
the game.
Overall: A fantasy rpg in a differ-
ent vein, not so much Swords &
Sorcery but Chicanery & Sorcery that
promotes the use of brains over
brawn and where the play is as much
about entertaining the group as it is
about achieving objectives. If you
love Tales Of The Dying Earth, then
youll love Pelgrane Presss Dying
Earth RPG.
Dying Earth RPG
6
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and flow of a characters fortunes upon the Dying Earth and
means that characters with higher Pools are just as likely to
fail as those with lower Pools. Their advantage instead,
comes in the fact that they have more to spend from their
Pool in subsequent attempts to buy off any rolled failure.
One aspect of a successful Persuasion attempt against
your character (from either an npc or another player charac-
ter) is that you have no choice but to acquiesce to the sug-
gestions put to you. The game strongly advises that you do
so, because refusing gives the gm the right to take control of
your character for the duration of the effects of the persua-
sion. Some players may object to this, but again it is very
much a part of the books, and thus of the game.
Magic, of course, plays a large part in the game with the
campaign level also setting the type of magician allowed:
dabblers at Cugel-level, Magicians at Turjan-level and Arch-
Magicians at Rhialto-level. Dabblers may know common
magical tongues and a few simple spells or cantraps. Arch-
Magicians know this and much more, commanding the near
omnipotent, but surly Sandestins, that have the ability to
create almost any effect. This makes Arch-Magicians
amongst the most powerful and learned of figures of the
21st Aeon. John Sneads rules cover a simple, flexible and
potentially powerful magic system, including guidelines for
creating new spells and enchanted items. This is backed up
with a grimoire of thirty-eight spells, most taken from the
books, though six are original creations. They include the
famous Excellent Prismatic Spray, which unlike its anaemic
Dungeons & Dragons counterpart, is most deadly.
A Magician or Arch-Magician campaign is a different
prospect to a Cugel-level one. Designing a character for it
takes longer as players must select their grimoires, build
their manses and possibly create a Sandestin or two. Such
campaigns are neither bound to the Earth nor the 21st Aeon,
as the magicians search for knowledge, new spells and cre-
ate new artefacts. John Sneads provides good advice to run
this style of campaign, especially how to stop potential
abuses that the simplicity of the system can allow.
the parlour
Beyond the rules, The Dying Earth RPG is stuffed full of infor-
mation for both players and gm. Each has a separate chapter
of tips that serves as a thoroughly useful and necessary
guide to playing and running a Dying Earth game. For the
Vance fan there are chapters detailing the places, person-
ages and creatures of note, all culled from the books for the
game. These seem to lack a little depth in places, but this is
more a reflection of the tales themselves and matches per-
fectly the world and the slightly drawn characters that the
players will role-play. The last chapter is a very Vancian
adventure involving the characters in a towns cooking and
eating competition. gms looking for more information and
adventures should check out The Excellent Prismatic Spray,
Pelgrane Press magazine devoted to The Dying Earth RPG.
(Indeed they will be pleased to note that a copy of the first
issue comes with the game).
The Dying Earth RPG is for the mature gamer of a whimsi-
cal persuasion. Its aim is to have the players not just achieve
particular objectives, but more entertain themselves and
the gm. Indeed the only way to gain Improvement Points is
to be entertaining! This is through the use of taglines, such
as Trust me to outwit this moon-calf! and I could also
make threats, were I not bound by the tenets of civilised
discourse. Each player selects two and is given a third
tagline by the gm from the games list taken from the books,
but the players are free to create their own. When used at an
appropriate and hopefully entertaining juncture within a
game, the gm will award points to the user.
If I were to think of a game similar to this, it would be
Hogshead Publishings The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron
Munchausen, as in both the aim is to be entertaining as it is
anything else. The Dying Earth RPG is a more traditional rpg
than Baron Munchausen, but still a thoroughly singular game
all of its own. Once again Robin D Laws has written another
excellent game, one that invokes its source throughout. For
the fan of Jack Vances tales of The Dying Earth, this is an
rpg they deserve to enjoy. For the gamer not as familiar with
the books, but who are willing to try a game in a lighter,
whimsical, but above all entertaining game, then The Dying
Earth RPG is just the thing.
Dying Earth RPG
r e v i e w s
Hero Wars
Reviewed by Paul Mason
Cards on the table: I was never a great Glorantha fan. I
admired the mechanics of Runequest and cannibalised them,
but the games background seemed to me like a bit of a
mish-mash. A very well-realised mish-mash, I grant you, but
far from the mythic edifice it was claimed to be. I suspect
the great achievement of Glorantha, like all such creations,
is to touch on some mythic associations within the psyches
of its admirers; thus its cues and references activate atmos-
phere and emotional reactions inaccessible to one such as I
who has never experienced a Glorantha aficionados game.
All of this is by-the-by, though. Although they are to a
great extent inextricably linked, it is the mechanical imple-
mentation of this game that interests me rather than the
cultural background. I dont propose to examine the cultural
background here save to comment on how the rules go about
representing it. And since this is undoubtedly a culture
game, and one that expresses some rules ideas that have
hitherto only existed in the realms of theoretical discussion
in magazines/usenet, or in homebrew games, my interest is
considerable.
7
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r e v i e w s
Like The Dying Earth, also reviewed this issue, the game is
primarily by Robin Laws. While my reaction to The Dying
Earth was somewhat different to Matthew Pooks (I found
the character taglines explicitly described as a mechanism
to enable referee railroading a mechanic apparently
purpose-designed to inhibit or interrupt immersion) my
review of Feng Shui should have made clear that I admire the
way that Laws goes about innovating, attempting to extend
the possibilities of roleplaying (though its a shame that in
Pantheon he feels it necessary to indulge in snide comments
directed at players who dont dance to his tune).
One more thing I should point out. Nowadays I find it very
difficult to read roleplaying games. Wading through all the
verbiage; trying to put all the explanations together into a
grasp of the whole: it just bores me. Maybe Im going the
way of a certain famous British roleplaying publisher but
no, I still like roleplaying games themselves as much as ever.
Dissatisfaction with the whole edifice of roleplaying game-
rule explanation is one of many reasons why no progress has
been made on my own Outlaws game for several years; if I
am bored by the rules explanations of others, how much
more will I be bored by my own?
Caveats out of the way, lets dive in to the Hero Wars.
Iconoclasts will no doubt be distressed to learn that the
main book opens with character generation. This raises
some problems (how can you know who your character is if
you know little about where they are?) but as the game is
clearly aimed in practice, if not in theory, at established
Glorantha buffs, its not unreasonable.
origins
Character creation is one aspect of this game I like; I like it
very much. But I would say that, as it is more or less the
same system Ive been using in practice in my own game for
a decade. Three options are presented: writing a 100-word
description of your character; writing a list of keywords;
discovering your character in play. These three options span
the divide between design at start and design in play
without straying into needless complexity. All three end up
supplying the traditional numerically defined traits and
characteristics. What I like about this approach is its econo-
my. You describe what you need to and dont waste time on
unnecessary details. The only wrinkles come in when charac-
ters attempt actions for which they dont have skills explic-
itly defined: you can either assume that all other such skills
are average (the Outlaws approach) or you can have a sys-
tem of defaults.
When it comes to the rules themselves, we are in familiar
Robin Laws territory. Roleplaying is best served by aping the
narrative conventions and logic of film and television, runs
the Laws Law. There is certainly something to be said for
this. It does, at least, recognise that the goal of pure simu-
lation, a hangover from roleplayings wargaming roots, is
rather nonsensical (though I dont think very many people
actually advocate pure simulation). On the other hand, there
are certainly some roleplayers like myself who dont see any
reason why our entertainment should be so determined by
the demon box. So much of our life already is, anyway, and it
sometimes seems there are many people for whom televi-
sion is more real than lived experience (Ally McBeal produc-
er Alice West reputedly wired the White House to say that I
wish Ally McBeal and other shows could be there [in
Afghanistan] to show them what the real
world is like.).
Personally I want to explore the
distinctive narrative conventions
which emerge from the roleplaying
method itself. But this is a stylistic
cavil. How does Laws go about repre-
senting his televisual narrative structure
within the game here? By betting, it
turns out.
systems
The basic superstructure of the mechanic is
admirably simple. Skills are rated, with high
being best. You roll a D20, and if you get lower
than your rating, you succeed. For all the attempts
to reinvent the wheel that weve had over the last
25 years, this basic mechanic is still all we really
need. But one reason why people have been soldiering
away at wheel-replacements is that this basic mechanic
runs into problems at its extremes. Here, we have a sys-
Hero Wars
8
imazine
tem of masteries which unfortunately introduces arcane
symbols and nerd-notation into the mix (which is better:
Fight 17 or Fight 5w2? Hardly intuitive, is it?). It does, how-
ever, enable the modelling of an immense range of ability
level while maintaining subtle gradations between those of
similar ability. Masteries enable you to bump up your
score, from failure to success, or from success to critical
success. Thus someone with a score of 17 taking on some-
one with a score of 5w (the arcane symbol indicates a mas-
tery) would have to roll a 1 to obtain critical success, while
his opponent would get one on a 15, and would only fail on
a roll of 20.
What happened to the betting I mentioned? Well, this
comes in when you decide to resolve something in an
extended exchange. In traditional games, combat is an
example of an extended exchange; instead of deciding
everything with just a single roll, or an opposed roll, you
extend matters. Hero Wars is admirable in that it extends
the idea in principle to any opposed activity, and it makes
some attempt to counteract the problems that led me to
write about fractal rules. The implementation, though, is
highly abstract, and this causes difficulty for some people.
You have a certain number of action points (APs) and each
round of an exchange one character stakes a number on that
rounds roll. This is interesting in that it enables the simula-
tion of relative commitment (though in a somewhat
abstract way). The exchanges continue until one or other
opponent is reduced to zero APs. Then you determine what
it all means. Here is a problem. While you are actually
rolling, the system is abstract. It isnt really possible to
decide in concrete, game-level terms what any particular
exchange represents. Thus this system works fine for those
who want to experience the game at a (narrated) distance,
but runs into problems for immersivists. Laws provides
advice on how to modify descriptions during a combat con-
test (basically it advocates vagueness rather than specific
physical consequences) but it feels like what it is: a compro-
mise to the system.
bookies
As with all systems, there is a swings-and-roundabouts pay-
off here. The betting system does enable a number of very
useful consequences. Instead of the usual tedious attrition
of most game systems, you can model a more cinematic
conflict of opponents sparring with each other before a
final, decisive blow. Which is all very well so long as the con-
flict imagined by the participants matches up with the
after-fight rationalisation.
This system demonstrates perfectly the knife-edge upon
which the whole issue of rules abstraction (discussed else-
where this issue) is balanced. I certainly admire it, and I
may even like it enough to try using it, but I cant help feel
that a couple of tweaks might be necessary
There is also the problem of the betting mechanic itself.
This perfectly simulates certain forms of conflict but may be
out of place in others. It may also fail the Jamie Test, in that
it may lead to players spending a long time making deci-
sions, and figuring out the odds, which can be very tedious
for those not so inclined.
Perhaps the most significant criticism comes from within
the book itself. Describing events in the past tense, says the
Narrators Book, is death to the immediacy of a shared role-
playing experience. The problem is that by introducing
deliberate vagueness about the nature of actions as they
happen, the system encourages a past tense view of things.
One can rationalise this in some cases in the heat of battle
you dont always know exactly how wounded you are but
its a rationalisation, and it isnt appropriate to all conflicts.
experience
One other system artefact I should mention is that of Hero
Points. These are basically eeps writ large, with all the tradi-
tional characteristics (theres a whole debate on whether
you should get experience points for good roleplaying
which has been rumbling along for years) as well as the more
modern spend them to boost your chances, and those who
have a problem with eeps and luck/hero points in other
games are likely to have a problem with these.
For those of us who cannibalised Runequest in order to
make Chivalry & Sorcery playable, the magic system was
always the weak point. Hero Wars improves the portrayal of
Gloranthan magic, primarily through its connection to
myth, as well as to the surrounding culture (which
Runequest did achieve to a certain extent). Hero questing
was always the holy grail of Gloranthan gaming, the game
always promised but never emerging, and Hero Wars pres-
ents the opportunity for characters to participate in, and
even change, myths, in a manner that brings to mind Robert
Holdstocks seminal Mythago Wood (Hero Wars is too much
of an auteurs product to feature a bibliography, though).
Actually a very large chunk of the basic book is devoted to
detailing the different approaches to magic and how they
work. This makes a very refreshing change from spell lists.
The Narrators Book goes into more detail on heroquest-
ing. As it now stands, this offers an interesting alternative
to the primeval dungeon as a structured adventure setting.
Indeed, here Laws has found a means of legitimising his
beloved referee railroading, far superior to the Dying Earths
treatment. Comparing the two, however, the dungeons
structure is defined by its limited physical dimensions;
within them it is based on freedom of action. Conversely the
heroquests structure is a narrative structure derived from
the re-enactment of myth: its very nature is restriction of
freedom of action. Both methods have interesting philos-
ophical ramifications. The heroquest, from a postmodern
perspective, is interesting in that the activity itself is a
reenactment of an abiding modern myth: the concept of
the universal mythic story described by Joseph Campbell in
Hero Wars
r e v i e w s
9
imazine
Hero With A Thousand Faces, and elsewhere. It may be worth
asking to what extent the nature of a mythic reenactment is
altered by a transcendent awareness of the enactment of a
pattern (or were the myth-spinners of old also consciously
aware of the monomyth?). The dungeon, on the other hand
(and here I am using the term in its loosest possible sense),
does not preclude the operation of the monomyth, but it
does raise problems of its own.
One more thing I like in Hero Wars is the extensive body of
material devoted to integrating a character with the world
background. Material about communities, followers, depen-
dants etc ensures that there is no excuse for the sort of indi-
vidualistic, alienated characters so anachronistically found
in many roleplaying games. The game includes the idea of
hero bands to form a justification for the roleplaying
party and integrate it into the background. I suppose this
idea originated with Runequest and its cults, and then came
into full flower with the White Wolf games, but here it feels
more natural than the mere taxonomy of its predecessors.
looks
I havent mentioned layout, have I? Messy and uninspiring
are the two words that spring to mind, though I do like the
large paperback format. Unfortunately the sloppy typeset-
ting leads to stray symbols appearing in the text which is
confusing in places (especially when it is evident that they
are meant to be other symbols: and apparently represent
fractions, but which ones?). It also leads to tables in which
the headings are on a different page to the rest of the table!
While the basic book usefully has headers which tell you
what chapter it is, the Narrators Book adopts an annoying
inconsistency in heading versos Narrators Book and rectos
Hero Wars. A moments thought would have revealed that
the function of a running head is navigation. From the point
of view of a reader it is far more useful to be told which sec-
tion of the book a page is in, than which book (I imagine
that most readers of the book will be sufficiently clear-head-
ed that they can tell which book they are reading without
being told on every page). In other respects the Narrators
book seems slapped together: horribly inconsistent spacing
and use of dashes, for example.
Overall, I only have the main book and the Narrators
Book. In practice, to play this game properly you would need
either additional books, or to do a lot of planning or impro-
vising yourself. I think in terms of advancing roleplaying
game design this takes two steps forward. I am inclined to
say that it takes a step backwards because of its authors
penchant for railroading and TV analogies, but that is mere-
ly my own prejudice speaking. Ive heard mixed reports on
how effectively the betting mechanic works in practice; I
think much depends on the level at which you want to expe-
rience the game. For those who operate at sufficient dis-
tance that abstraction poses no problems, Hero Wars has a
lot to offer.
Chivalry & Sorcery:
The Rebirth
Reviewed by Paul Mason
It seems to be my fate with imazine that every so often a
new edition of Chivalry & Sorcery rolls up, and I feel com-
pelled not only to buy it but to review it. As with the previ-
ous occasion (imazine 33) I find myself having to precede
my comments with a disclaimer. This time it isnt that I
have any personal involvement with the game Im glad to
say that Francis Tiffany has taken over as the head of the
C&S China project, something which will not only give it a
fighting chance of coming out (which it wouldnt had I still
been weighing it down) but will ensure that its contents are
as thorough as you would expect from a C&S supplement.
No, on this occasion my disclaimer is because I simply
wasnt able to read the game through. Im accustomed to
skipping occasional bits when I look at a game, but here I
went well beyond this. There were whole swaths of this
game which I was just unable to read, and had to merely
glance over before flicking to the next page.
This is not, you may be surprised to learn, because of any
fault in the layout of the book. Its not pretty, certainly, and
it does some ugly things with fake-italic fake-small capitals
that didnt exactly cheer me, but on the other hand it is
highly functional. Id rather more games looked like Chivalry
& Sorcery, to be honest unpretentiousness is a virtue.
No, the reason I found Chivalry & Sorcery such heavy
going is because this rebirth is exactly that. It is a return
to the authenticity which made the first and second edi-
tions legendary. In my review of the games 3rd edition
(imazine 27) I applauded the rationalisation of systems,
while bemoaning the way in which the game had been repo-
sitioned as a generic fantasy game, a pointless manoeuvre if
ever there was one. Who on earth would imagine we need
yet another generic fantasy roleplaying game? No, C&Ss
strength always lay in its detail, and in its portrayal of the
mediaeval setting, and Im glad to say that this edition
marks an emphatic return to that tradition.
r e v i e w s
Hero Wars
10
imazine
Chivalry & Sorcery: The Rebirth
r e v i e w s
At the same time, the rules rationalisation is retained
though I should note that it still remains about four levels
more complex than I could bear myself.
So why a new edition? Well, leaving aside the unfortu-
nate legal reasons deriving in part from the previous pub-
lishers behaviour, The Rebirth sees a more thourogh-going
exposition of the feudal background than ever before. While
I am assured that there are still niggles with certain terms
(man-at-arms for example, is apparently anachronistic: if
used in the Middle Ages it would have meant a knight), over-
all it has been given a historical once-over.
And the tables... by Crom the tables! I wouldnt say that
every page has a table, but I dont think Id be far wrong to
suggest that the game has an average of one table per page
(and at three 100-page books thats a fair number!).
It is actually these along with the magic system which
has had much of its previous arcanity restored which are
the reason Im reviewing the game here. For while I cannot
say anything much about the rules themselves (them being
way too complex for me), the game does constitute an
extraordinary resource for anyone who wants to add a bit
more mediaeval verisimilitude to their games. And if you
need extensive equipment lists, phobia lists or curse tables,
you know where to go, right?
The Fantasy Role-
Playing Game
Reviewed by Paul Mason
There have, inevitably, been a few academic treatises
on role-playing games since 1974 (though perhaps not
enough for some people). Heres the latest, subtitled A New
Performing Art. You may remember an article on art by
Brian Duguid which appeared in imazine 34, and which pro-
voked a slight argument afterwards. The article originally
appeared in Interactive Fantasy in response to an article by
Robin Laws (who wrote both The Dying Earth and Hero Wars
rpgs, reviewed this issue). I printed it because I thought
Brians points were right on the button, but of course the
next issue saw a swath of Is it art?, What is art?, Who
cares letters.
So you might expect that the mere sight of A New
Performing Art on the cover of this book would raise my
hackles right away. Actually, no, because I dont tend to
scrutinise the covers of books until Ive have a glance at
their insides, and in this case I was intrigued to find that
Daniel Mackay, the author, actually opens his text with quo-
tations from both of the articles I mentioned above, and
goes on to
quote such
luminaries as
Andrew
Rilstone and
Gary Alan Fine.
So he is at least
aware of the
arguments that
have gone on, and
we cant dismiss
him as another
ivory tower gimp
desperate for publi-
cations, dipping his
dick into whatever
subculture he lights
on.
Indeed, as we read
on in this book, we learn
that Daniel is one of us. Which is a silly way of expressing
the fact that he has run games, and although the book is
written in standard academicese, he is unable to obscure his
enthusiasm. In places, he even comes over as the classic
gamer, regaling you with stories about his characters.
So all of the superficial reasons one might have for adopt-
ing what was once dubbed (in imazine 13) the Mason sneer
wither on the vine and we can turn instead to the actual con-
tents...
Oops, no. I wouldnt be me if I didnt comment on one lit-
tle niggle. I know the Redmond pod people are taking over
the planet, but in some corners of the globe it is still a little
much to insert [sic] marks after every quotation which uses
which. Those of you who use Word will know that it gets
flagged by the grammar checker. Scant excuse for flagging it
with sic, especially when done by someone who cant spell
exemplar and doesnt know the difference between allu-
sive and elusive. Hrrumph!
Anyway, Id like at this point to throw in an instructive
quotation. In a sense, this is the books thesis.
The theater of the role-playing game restores the product
art of popular culture while cloaking the process with the
shimmering mirage of an alternate reality far, far away
from the voluminous excess of the popular culture behind
the mirage. Each role-playing games sessionof people
who think they are escaping to another world is, in actu-
ality, a restoration, recapitulation, (sometimes) critical
evaluation, and even recuperation of the buried social
potential embedded in the forms of popular culture.
Got it? I think its well worth thinking about. Theres no
doubt that ideas such as these inform the design of games
such as Over The Edge. And I think it is also supported by the
experience of gaming itself. Interestingly, it also ties in
with Keith Johnstones Impro, reviewed in these pages not
so long ago. One of the main problems I had with
Johnstones approach was that it did seem to be almost
11
imazine
The Fantasy Role-Playing Game
r e v i e w s
entirely based on recapitulation.
So where does this leave me? In a similar situation to
Foucault in his history of madness: chasing after an Other
which can never be attained. When the Other is grasped, it
becomes assimilated and is no longer the Other. Foucault
later realised that his attempt to conceptualise an Other
form of Reason was doomed, but that it was nevertheless
possible to push back boundaries. And this is what I want to
do with culture games.
You might therefore expect me to rail against the thesis
of this book. I dont, because I recognise that as an observa-
tion of what actually takes place in roleplaying games its
quite perceptive. Moreover, as with all talk of approaches,
the boundaries are never so clear-cut. Even the most earth-
bound game, with character names plucked straight from
Dragonlance, will nevertheless contain sparks of the numi-
nous. My own games contain frequent recapitulations of
popular culture, just as Mackay describes.
Instead Im grateful to this book for identifying more
clearly the direction in which I want to strive. Mackay
makes a compelling case for why people would want to play
an imaginative game in such an apparently derivative fash-
ion. While I accept this, I still want more myself. I want to
escape from the limits of my own consciousness (this is why
I find casual dismissal of the term escapism somewhat
annoying). As my comments about Foucault above demon-
strate, this is actually an impossible goal, as the very act of
escaping the limits of my consciousness pushes out said lim-
its. Nevertheless the process carries with it something that
I, at least, feel is of value. This thing is what keeps me play-
ing rolegames when I nevertheless feel the urge to flee, as so
many others before me have, to fiction or even computer
games.
Mihali Csikszentmihalyi, in his book Flow, describes how
most moments of optimal experience (when you are
engrossed in some activity that provides a real challenge to
your skills) involve a loss of consciousness of self. The para-
dox is that after such experience, consciousness of self
floods back in sharper than before. This is the sort of thing
Im after: a mind-expanding experience. Scoff if you will
(but you might as well bugger off and stop reading imazine
if you do), though roleplaying seems to have relatively little
to offer in competition with, say, an evening down the pub,
if you dont aim for personal development of some kind or
another.
Back to the book.
Mackay attempts to analyse the roleplaying experience,
taking full account of its complexity. While his analysis can
be a little opaque at times, resting heavily on performance
theory with which gamer readers may well be unfamiliar, it
neverthless contains some fascinating insights. It starts by
pointing out that not only is the in-game character con-
structed, but the player role is also a social consstruct. He
goes on to explore the various levels (or spheres) of inter-
action. He does this by adopting an analysis of theatre
developed by Richard Schechner, and it is here that I think
some of the rough edges enter the picture.
One point, however, is clear: that roleplaying involves
switching between multiple levels (frames) through which
the game is approached, and that skill in switching thus con-
stitutes skill in the game. The frames in this book expand on
the three suggested by Gary Alan Fines Shared Fantasy to:
1) the social frame inhabited by the person:
2) the game grame [sic] inhabited by the player;
3) the narrative frame inhabited by the raconteur;
4) the constative frame inhabited by the addresser;
5) the performative frame inhabited by the character.
Most of the above are obvious, though I should explain
that the constative frame refers to those parts where the
referee sets the scene, employing for the most part descrip-
tion.
Mackay goes on to explore social implications and con-
text for roleplaying, including references to the already
mentioned Csikszentmihalyi. Some of the most interesting
for me were where he refers to Michel Foucaults Discipline
& Punish in order to isolate the power structures at work in
the average game. Experience points are identified as an
example of one of the disciplinary structures within the
game. He takes the metaphor further, wondering to what
extent the power structure is used to inhibit player expres-
sion, and provide some fascinating real-world examples of
where certain areas of expression (for example sexuality)
appeared in one group to be informally prohibited
Another interesting area of exploration is the game expe-
rience itself. Mackay notes that like a dramatic perform-
ance, a roleplaying game disappears in the act of becoming.
He then identifies the way in which the experience is recon-
stituted in the memory of its participants, which I think is a
very useful point, especially as it relates to that problematic
phenomenon, the game write-up.
Finally, as hinted at at the start of this review, the book
tackles head on the issue of art. Mackay doesnt shrink from
pointing out the relatively recent, arbitrary foundations for
our modern conception of art, and he points out ways in
which, perhaps, roleplaying could be somewhat more than
art. After all, the modern (post-Renaissance) concept of art
is as something dissociated from everyday experience
though this, like most other things, is being challenged by
postmodern artists. Roleplaying, at least in theory, operates
in such a way as to bridge the artificial divide between art
and life, performer and audience.
When it comes right down to it, I dont think this latter
direction of speculation is all that important. I couldnt give
a toss whether people regard roleplaying as art or not. But
performance is undoubtedly is, and Mackays book contains
enough performance theory-derived nuggets to offer new
ways of looking at roleplaying. And in my experience, new
ways of looking at roleplaying can be very helpful in stimu-
lating better ways of doing it. For this reason, at least, I rec-
ommend this book. I dont agree with everything in it, by a
long shot, but Id very much like to see some of its points
followed up.
12
imazine
a b s t r a c t i o n
v
Mess
a designers dilemma
by paul mason
What are some of the problems involved
in abstracting game systems? What
effect does abstraction have on the game
and how do you decide if it is necessary
or not?
ow do you deal with money in your game? Do you
keep track of every coin carried by your characters? Do
you represent every trivial purchase and expenditure? I
dont think its too presumptuous of me to expect the
answer to this question to be no.
On the other hand, in my experience, relatively few role-
players represent money in completely abstract terms. It
was quite a wrench for me to switch to this model for
Outlaws, turning spending power into, effectively, an abili-
ty, rather than a matter of how many taels you happened to
have written on your character sheet.
In the Sengoku game Im playing in at the moment,
money is effectively abstracted, but thats just because we
dont explicitly concern ourselves with it. When I (which is
to say, my character, the shmy Kamiya no Kiyotomo)
recently had occasion to buy a consignment of muskets
from Tanegashima gaijin, we didnt worry too much about
the precise quantity. I simply said that Id take some gold
(which I didnt need, as it happened the gaijin betrayed us,
so we fought them off and nicked the muskets).
In this article, though, I want to consider this issue of the
level of abstraction, not only as it applies to money which
is the area in which Ive encountered it most glaringly but
in systems in general. I think its one of those areas with
hidden depths, and perhaps unexpected conclusions to be
drawn.
For starters, lets return to this issue of money. For a long
time it struck me as odd that, no matter how much a set of
rules was simplified, no matter how abstract task resolution
became, personal finances still came down to bean-count-
H
ing. There would be that box somewhere near the bottom of
your character sheet in which you would record the number
of gold pieces your character possessed.
Although I went along with this state of affairs, I was
often disappointed with it, because it suffered so obviously
from that bane of roleplaying games: the bias towards
adventuring activity. What I mean by this is the skills sys-
tem which has 30 different combat skills, but a single gener-
alised skill for engineering. This can be defended in terms of
what is required in a particular game the focus of events,
but it is patently ridiculous from the point of simulation.
And while pooh-poohing simulation has been de rigeur in the
roleplaying community for many years, its hard to defend a
system of anything other than the most elementary com-
plexity without appealing to the likes of realism, believ-
ability, consistency or even genre-authenticity, all of
which secretly require a minimum level of simulation to
function.
As with all such things, an extreme state breeds a reac-
tion, and so I found myself with an abstracted finance sys-
tem. What mattered, when it boiled down to it, was
whether you could afford something that might have a
material impact on the game. If you could, that was enough.
So the obvious solution was to have wealth represented as a
skill, and all purchases rated for difficulty. Any purchase of
difficulty less than the skill could be bought without further
worries: otherwise a roll would have to be made.
Neat and simple, with little bookkeeping who could ask
for more? And to be honest, it does work cleanly enough.
The systems I want to use are those which can be ignored
easily by common consent, being called upon only when the
referee or player sees a point in using them. And this fits the
bill admirably.
The trouble is that there is something missing. Its some-
thing that always bothered me about D&D, so I dont see
any reason to stop worrying about it now. Its to do with a
distancing from the events portrayed. Any game exists
somewhere along a continuum between chess at one end
and full-immersion virtual reality at the other. While there
may be occasions when it may be better to move chessward,
I find that roleplaying has more to offer when it tends more
towards immersion, and that means representing things in
terms that feel real. Any abstraction comes at a price: the
13
imazine
enactment of distance. In most cases the price is worth pay-
ing because the alternative would be tedium or rules com-
plexity which would interfere even more with immersion
and involvement (not to mention enjoyment, which strange-
ly enough does seem to be the main point of the whole busi-
ness).
The consequence of the above is, however, that when an
abstraction is not being done in order to save you from a
greater evil, it shouldnt be done at all.
direct problems
Coming back to my example of money, I think the main
problem was that my exposure to traditional roleplaying had
brought me up to feel that any direct representation of
money within the game had to be bean counting. With my
particular aversion to accounting (it was part of my bache-
lors degree) I wanted to avoid it at all costs. Yet I have
noticed over the last few years that something is lost when
money is no longer directly represented within the game
reality. It seems to diminish the story, to make it feel less
authentic and directly experienced. While I dont like mak-
ing such analogies very much, I am inclined to consider that
such abstractions are rarely found in novels.
This means that what I want now is to have the direct
experience without the bean counting. This is trickier than
it might appear at first thought, but if it can be achieved,
the principles will be of use in all kinds of other situations.
First of all, then, I should consider some of the problems
with direct experience, that I have so far labelled bean
counting.
The first is the necessity of writing everything down. In
the adventuring days, just about the only activities involv-
ing money were obtaining treasure in the dungeon, and buy-
ing things with it. Even that could become rather tedious,
but once any pretence was made at representing everyday
expenditures, something had to be done. Here abstraction
came onto the scene. Everyday expenses (and in some cases
income) could be stated as average sums, or rolled for or
whatever. So we ended up with a combination of bean
counting and abstraction. This certainly didnt keep me
happy, mainly because it increased complexity.
A second problem is the elusive nature of direct experi-
ence itself. In the case of money, its a fiendishly complex
subject. If I were to try to represent the reality of 12th cen-
tury Chinese money correctly in my game Id be looking at a
500-page section on money alone. I kid you not. The various
discount rates available for different forms of currency; the
ambiguous nature of flying money (proto-paper money);
taxation laws and privatised minting: its bad enough hav-
ing to boil it down to some sort of workable abstraction. As
a roleplaying system it would be unworkable for all but the
worlds most anal-retentive accountant.
A third problem, oddly enough, is the potential for argu-
ment that direct experience raises. One consequence of my
living in Japan is that I have gained a greater appreciation of
the purposes of vagueness. Many gaijin rail against Japans
notorious vagueness, but it is there for a reason. Where
there is vagueness, there is the possibility for two conflict-
ing perceptions of reality to coexistb peacefully. Such an
attitude is not very popular in the absolutist West.
Westerners, though we may pretend otherwise, are One
True Wayers. Although the use of vague terms in our games
may lead to argument, the notion that some kind of precise
specification, tying matters to concrete details, will obvi-
ate it is evidently flawed. Theres not only the problem that
every historical game faces, of the pedant who knows more
than the ref (or thinks he does). Theres the science fiction
game facing the onslaught of physics or engineering gradu-
ates. Theres any game at all facing an anthropologist and
so on ad nauseam.
Given these problems, and the fact that Hero Wars, by the
golden boy of rolegame design, Robin Laws, basically uses a
money system identical to the one Ive had in Outlaws for
five years, why do I now find myself rejecting abstraction?
The answer is relatively simple. Every time the game rules
abstract a game situation, you are pulled out of the narra-
tive. This probably doesnt matter much in Lawss games,
which are more about representing genre and impressing
others with ones own genius. But Ive played enough cha-
rades, fictionary dictionary and Whose Line Is It Anyway?-
inspired games at conventions that I dont especially need
such an approach to invade my roleplaying. I want an immer-
sive experience. I want what Mihali Csikszentmihalyi
describes as flow.
vague problems
Unlike these postmodern prodigies who can effortlessly
dwell on multiple levels of game consciousness, I find that
anything that draws my attention to the artificiality of a
game inhibits my ability to immerse myself in my character,
and thence in the story which is being discovered. The more
abstracted mechanics are, the more they draw my attention
to themselves rather than whatever it is that they are sup-
posed to represent.
This is an old problem. Original D&D abstracted human
adventurers into character classes, and the arbitrary limits
this entailed was one of the great turn-offs for many who,
like me, rejected the game after a few years of play. It is
instructive to note that in many cases this aspect of D&D
was solved by redefining the game world to accord with
the rules. Thus character classes became fixtures of the fan-
tasy worlds people played in. Is it any wonder that the
majority of post-D&D fantasy fiction is such a load of crap?
The problem can be observed most clearly by trying to
describe the events of the game. A clich of roleplaying was
always the nerd who insisted on collaring you and describ-

a b s t r a c t i o n
continued on page 16
14
imazine
purpose of the business is lost does not bother business
peopleafter all it is all business at the end of the day isnt
it? The impression given is that Phil does legal stuff for a
games company but really it could be any old thing. Hey, I
do legal stuff for a cheese cracker firm. It sure beats work-
ing!
abstraction
So Phil isnt a passionate committed gamer, get over it! Well
no, I refuse to accept this for two reasons: rstly it makes
for bad business. Its unusual, perhaps, to take this tack but
from my own observations of British industry and business
it seems that the worst kinds of managers and executives
are those who are disengaged from their product. All too
often the abstraction of business allows people to hide away
form the fact they are producing actual goods or services
that they themselves would not use or even want to use. I
would think it the saddest thing if a copywriter could not
bear to read their own advert, a car manufacturer drove
another companys car, a sausage maker would not serve
their own bangers to their children. Thats pride and involve-
ment in your business but beyond this you have to be inter-
ested in the whole field you work in if you want to excel.
How do my competitors products work? Are they better,
easier to use, more innovative? Could I imagine ever using
something other than my own product?
The reason GW has released W40K umpteen times in the
last decade and studiously failed to create a new area or con-
cept in the gaming field is because they are increasingly
referring only to themselves. By failing to engage their com-
petitors in a constructive and critical commercial dialogue
they are stagnating, relying on the old tricks on ever larger
scales to get them through. [Such stagnation has led them to
success beyond the dreams of LivingstoneEd]
Secondly, how can Gallagher make informed decisions
about the activities of his licensees when he has only the
memory of what they actually do day to day? If Gallagher
or why
Phil Gallagher
is so wrong
by Robert Rees
t h e n e e d
for a free
w o r l d
ast year phil gallagher, one of the writers behind
the original wfrp books and former Company Secretary
for GW gave an interview to UK fanzine, Warpstone.
The result was published in Warpstone 10 and if you
have not read it, while I recommend picking up a copy, do
not worry as Ill be reproducing some of the more interest-
ing parts here. Generally the tone of the interview was that
of someone who is generally given an understanding press;
if Warpstone was an adversarial periodical in the imazine
style I think Phil might have received a roasting for some of
the more dodgy statements he made.
For me the interview was shocking, partly because of the
candour but mostly because despite frequently decrying the
rpg industry you often think that its problems are those of
the system rather that the result of those who work within
it.
Early in the interview, Phil answers the all-important
question; do you game?
I have two small children and the demands of fatherhood
make it difficult to spend too many weekends playing
games These days I cant make the commitment to a
regular slot for role-playing.
At first glance this seems a normal answer, echoed count-
less times in the imazine letters column. I used to be a
gamer but then along came the job/girlfriend/spouse/kids/
life, something Im sure were all familiar with. Hold on
though, isnt Phil meant to be working with a games compa-
ny? Surely if his personal time is so crowded there should be
plenty of gaming in his work hours?
[Im] now all round in-house legal personbeats working
for a living, thats for sure! I keep tabs (in, hopefully, a
quiet unobtrusive kind of way) on Hogsheads proposals
and drafts.
Right, so Phil is the kind of gamer who doesnt game but
can tell others what constitutes a good game.
Phil seems to embody a certain attitude. Business can be
considered purely in abstract terms, a process that leads
subsequently to prot. The fact that in the abstraction the
L
15
imazine
last wrote a rolegame in the Eighties how can he have some-
thing meaningful to say to a modern rolegame publisher?
Indeed Gallagher then goes on to admit that he has little
to contribute:
Ive tried to stay in touch, but wont pretend to have my
finger on the pulse. It seems to me that more than any-
thing its become a players gamebelonging to the
gamers rather than the publisher.
Despite this the mindless hand of the corporation keeps a
firm grasp of the helm.
The control is about quality and consistency. The artwork
is very precious to us. New illustrations have to be consis-
tent with the world and of a comparable quality.
Translations have to use the same terminology as our own
translators of Warhammer. Otherwise the licensee can do
what they like I dont like surprises! Every licensee has
to get approval before they publish.
You see? As long as the artwork is good then you must be
getting something kosher innit just? Youll probably notice
that imazine doesnt have that much artwork, stands to rea-
son it must be rubbish. Already the Gallagher theory of quali-
ty is benefiting you in your everyday life.
Id be very reluctant to let someone casually introduce a
new race to wf rp, say, or to publish a Nippon or Cathay
supplement. The very fact that they were entering
uncharted waters would attract so much interest that the
pressure to please everyone would be overwhelming; and
yet, of course, it isnt possible to please everyone.
The ultimate corporate conservatism bound up with sur-
prisingly nihilistic pessimism. You cannot please everyone
so why should we even try?
Apart from that it does not have to be bound by what
we publish for Warhammer.
Ahem, maybe with such a vested interest [Robert is in the
process of publishing Dave Morriss Nippon supplement for
wfrp] I should not be trying to rock the boat. But goddamn
it Im not the only one involved in a half-life project.
Warpstone is constantly adding bits to the wfrp universe
and I bet they have not been run past Phil!
Wake up Foody! Cant you see that by editing a wfrp zine
youre doing the whole of roleplaying fandom a disservice?
You cannot please everyone so why do you constantly try to
please some people?
fan effort
Seriously though, and this is the crux of my argument so
bear with me, reading this kind of thing makes you reassess
the relationship between commercial roleplaying publishers
and roleplayers.
wfrp is a players game dropped from its original pub-
lisher because:
Games Workshop is a business It has a responsibility
beyond that of the individual gamer a bloody awkward
sod who can never be satisfied to its shareholders
looks whats happened to the rpg companies Steve
Jackson Games, White Wolf, Chaosium? rpg publish-
ers who are happy to stay small and exclusive
So when the game is finally unearthed essentially by dint
of the effort of its fans why the hell should the original pub-
lisher suddenly re-appear from the wings and get to decide
whether this supplement gets made or whether that sce-
nario should be allowed to be published?
Now do not get me wrong, all of the above is legal and the
only complaint I have with it is from the ethical and moral
dimension of things. Still, why do we allow companies to
use the law against us like this? Why do we as gamers allow
ourselves to get given such a raw deal?
When I first read the interview I could not understand
how the editorial team of Warpstone could bear to finish the
issue let alone put it all into print. How could you find the
will to continue when some ex-rpg writer could shut you
down if he does not like your artwork?
The truth is that when a writer, sorry, when a gamer cre-
ates something that is used in a roleplaying game they
should realise that what they create is only the original
image of something, not the totality of it.
At the time the interview was published I was writing a
wfrp scenario for carnel; I decided to try and change the
background and setting damn sharpish but let us use it as an
example.
In the scenario there is a character called Keenan. I made
him up and barring any subconscious plagiarism the charac-
ter is original. Now technically speaking I own Keenan. I
can proceed to write new scenarios, fiction, biographies,
etc. with him. I can also make badges, posters and any other
kind of Keenan merchandising I want to. If Keenan becomes
popular enough I could even him.
The one thing I cannot do though is tell you who Keenan
is. When (if) you play my scenario you will not encounter
my Keenan. The gm might add an accent, a mannerism,
change the description of his clothes, appearance. Keenans
motivations might change or his life story might be tweaked
subtlety. In short the gm will put their own particular spin
on the character.
One reason why roleplaying is not clearly identifiable as
Art is that it is unconventional in respect of the fact that it
is a collaborative process rather than an object that is con-
sumed or transmitted to an audience. The gm and the play-
ers create the thing (space, construct, entity, idea) known
as the Game. The creator of any material used to create the
Game is reduced to a ghostly third party, they are not autho-
rial figure that an artist is. This is the essence of Punk rpg
for me. It is a philosophy that guides not dictates what role-
playing is. It is whatever you are doing with your games
now.
habeus lud(icro)us
All game companies try to claim the Game. WoTC, WW, GW
they are all the same in this respect. They say that as they
created the rules or the characters or the background of the
a f r e e w o r l d

16
imazine
game they, in fact, own the Game.
The truth is that the minute that any of these elements
were created they did not assume the immutable nature of
Truth. The written words were not the fact. The fact was
that each reader of the original manuscript creates instanta-
neously a copy of the original idea that is uniquely their
own. My Keenan becomes hundreds of Keenans, each slight-
ly different.
At most a commercial product creates a mutual founda-
tion for the Game. It is a collaborative bridge between the
participants. Any attempt to claim ownership of the whole
entity is unjust. Any attempt to control the Game is unjust.
Furthermore any attempt to control the recording of the
Game is unjust.
If I play a wfrp game set in Cathay and record the result
as a write-up, supplement, scenario, whatever, GW should
not and in fact does not own the result. It as a body has
become a witness to the creation of my players and myself.
Companies need to accept that they are not producing con-
sumables, they are in collaboration with us the gamers.
We need a free world and we deserve a free world. *
ing his xth level fighter with a +y sword. A key point about
these descriptions is that they were codified in rules terms.
What fantasy produced prior to D&D describes people in
levels and rates magic weapons with a number? Just as my
goal in character creation was to take a description of a
character containing no rules terms and translate it seam-
lessly into the rules (this is also the approach of Hero Wars,
reviewed this issue), I also want the reverse: I want a game
experience that is remembered without reference to
mechanics. While there may be some dice rolling involved in
the actual play of the game, it is entirely subservient to the
in-game reality. This is to say, using the terms of Daniel
Mackays book (reviewed elsewhere this issue), I want to
privilege the performative frame, the level of game experi-
ence inhabited and activated by the character.
Thus, wherever necessary, the terms used at other frames
of experience in the game (such as the game, narrative or
constative frames) should correspond to those of the perfor-
mative frame in order to minimise dissonance.
It was dissonance that led to my dissatisfaction with an
abstracted money system. Characters who should have been
talking about strings of cash were being represented by
rolling against levels of wealth. In fact, its interesting to
note that within the game we did start referring to strings,
taels etc, even though these werent explicitly part of the
abstracted system (and D&D has shown how this sort of
thing can break a system).
How do we encourage this immersion, this privileging of
the performative frame?
resolution problems
So far Ive been bouncing back and forth like a pinball
against a couple of targets: abstraction is bad; direct repre-
sentation is bad. How is this all to be resolved? Well, the res-
olution obviously has to be some sort of compromise. Thats
hardly a revelation. Is it possible to specify a little more pre-
cisely what sort of a compromise we need?
My solution involves a quality which I am going to dub
expressibility. What this means is that any abstract game
mechanic should be directly expressible in in-game terms.
Directly means without the aid of tables, or any calculation
more difficult that a multiplication by ten. Obviously there
is still a grey area, but I think the idea of expressibility
makes it easier to establish principles on which a decision
can be made.
So, to return to my point of departure money I find
myself accepting that some sort of abstraction is necessary
if we are not to see our game disappear under a mound of
financial details. Part of this abstraction can be achieved by
simplifying our representation. In Outlaws, for example, I
quietly forget about the complexities of varying discount
rates for different commodities, and the variability of
exchange rates for different forms of coinage. Some of these
can be reintroduced, if necessary, as spice in a scenario (as
long as the inconsistency problem can be skilfully avoided).
But overall they add far less than they take away.
The remaining abstraction should be guided by the princi-
pal that it could easily be converted to in-game expression.
These means that rather than the Outlaws and Hero Wars
approach of rating purchasables in essentially skill-system
terminology, they should be rated in price terms within the
game, and any superstructure of game abstraction should be
built on top of this. Questions of wealth and income can
profitably be represented by an abstract number, but when
it comes to buying little things in an inn, if its worth repre-
senting at all, it should be represented in terms of the actual
monetary units being used within the game.
This may seem unaesthetic, in that it may well lead to a
non-unified system. But as has become obvious, a unified
system is something of a conceit, an imposition of an exter-
nal abstract form upon a multifaceted in-game reality.
The implications of all this for rules design in general
should be obvious, and it messes up a lot of grand plans. At
the same time, once we (and I probably mean I there,
because most of you are way ahead of me and never were
seduced by the pristine form of a unified system) rid our-
selves of an obsession with form, it provides opportunities.
Actually, it doesnt even mean that we have to return to the
ramshackle ad hoc mechanics of AD&D as its probably still
possible to develop a core mechanic, so long as we remem-
ber that rather than impose our core mechanic on game real-
ity, we have to use it to express game reality. *
Abstraction v Mess

a f r e e w o r l d
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imazine
l i n g u a f r u p p a
Language in Rolegames
by Gianni Vacca
introduction
This article is a mere rant on the subject of linguistic real-
ism, or at least verisimilitude, in a pseudo-mediaeval frpg
campaign. I know it does not make any sense to write about
realism with regard to frpgs. In a universe where beasts
breathe flames, men can walk through walls and, above all,
where resurrecting dead comrades is routine, the word real-
ism should be avoided at all costs. Nonetheless, I shall try
and establish what limits we can put to linguistic delusion,
by drawing on what after all is the source of all these
imaginary worlds: ours, and more specifically between
antiquity and the Renaissance.
language in rolegames: ouch
In all fantasy worlds, settings, or campaigns, were always
served the same junk food: a common language. I know of no
single frpgwithout this fundamental myth of common.
Even in Outlaws, a culture rolegame, we are given the fol-
lowing:
In modern China, a large proportion of the population
understand Mandarin Chinese, as it has been propagated
as a standard language by the government. This certainly
wasnt true in the past: Mandarin (which was far more
complex than it is now) was, as the name suggests, the
language of the bureaucracy. Ordinary people would
speak different languages, some of which were related,
others of which were as dissimilar as French and German.
I decided to have a standard spoken Chinese to make
play easier.
It is true that it would be most difficult to teleport round
the world, to infiltrate enemy strongholds, to disguise one-
self, to chat with gods and demons alike without this arti-
fice. Ninety-nine per cent of commercial adventures being
based on like stories, it would be nave to assume game
designers would make an effort to take some more linguis-
tics into account when designing their games. Yet this is
what I expect whenever I buy a game or game supplement. If
we analyse the history of our world (i.e. the source, avowed
or not, of frpg worlds), we realise that there never was such
a thing as a common language. In antiquity, for instance,
there were certainly fewer languages than today, but there
were still many, and extremely diverse at that. Ancient
Egyptian had nothing to do with Persian, which in turn had
nothing to do with Phoenician, which in turn had nothing to
do with Cretan. That is why scribes played such a major role;
they not only knew how to read and write (which was
already something of an achievement in those days), but
most of them also knew how to speak foreign languages,
which made them invaluable for diplomatic or commercial
missions.
I expect to hear the usual counter-example of the
Hellenistic world or the Roman Empire. Well, in Alexanders
empire, as in the successor states, only the upper classes
spoke Greek. In each province, the people kept speaking the
language in use before the Macedonian conquest. In
Ptolemaic Egypt, for instance, if Greek was the language of
court, ethnic Egyptians still spoke their language inter-
spersed with Greek, yet purer and purer as you travelled far
from Alexandria.
The same situation could be observed in the Roman
Empire. Only the ruling classes spoke Latin (and not always!
At certain times, it was trendy to speak Greek). People usu-
ally spoke a patois consisting of their original language
mixed with Vulgar Latin, and all the less Latinised as the con-
quest of the land was recent. In those provinces that had
been conquered a long time ago, people spoke Gallo-Roman,
Liguro-Roman, Veneto-Roman, Rhaeto-Roman, etc. In
Britain, people still spoke Celtic; in Africa, Berber; in Illyria,
Illyrian. In Rome, people spoke Vulgar Latin, as in the
colonies that had been settled with war veterans who had
been given some land as their pension savings (which
explains Swiss place names such as Romanens or Rmerswil).
But even in the very heart of the Empire, in Southern Italy
and in Tuscany, people were not really speaking Latin. We
must not forget that it was the triumphant Christian reli-
gion that brought back Classical Latin, which was all but
lost, for liturgy, communication between prelates, etc.
But even this Church Latin cannot be considered in any
way the common language of Mediaeval Europe. At the
time, there were even more languages than to-day. In the
Kingdom of France, for instance, people from Picardy and
Burgundy, or from Maine and Champagne, were unable to
understand each other. As for Brittany or Lorraine, the lan-
guages there were altogether foreign. If common under-
standing was very difficult between Paris and Compigne
(100 to 200 km), and impossible between Paris and Toulouse
(800 km), I would like it to be explained how it could be pos-
sible between places several thousand km away (like, say,
Damara and Chondath in the Forgotten Realms). This is why I
advocate using, for frpgs, a system at least as good as the
Note: This article was originally written in
French for the French fanzine Holobar Soir in
1992. I quite profoundly modified and
expanded it rather than simply translating it
for imazine.
18
imazine
one in merp. Every country has its language(s), and its
inhabitants understand more or less the neighbouring
dialects. Intercomprehension may vary between very good
and none, depending on the linguistic family each dialect
belongs to. For instance, there are way more chances of
intercomprehension between two langue dol dialects than
between a langue dol dialect and a langue doc one.
writing systems in rolegames: oouch!
Another thing I simply cannot stand (even more than this
common thing) is the way tsr (for instance, though I
doubt other companies did any better) tackled the issue of
writing systems. In the Forgotten Realms booklets, only two
or three alphabets are presented, and they are ridiculous. I
fail to see why the languages of the Forgotten Realms should
be written using 26 letters just like Latin or English. If we
have a short look at the way European languages that do not
use Latin script are written, we can see that, of course, the
alphabets they use do not number exactly 26 letters (Greek:
24 letters; Russian: 32 letters). And yet they are Indo-
European languages, and I guess very much closer to English
than any imaginary Damarese or Thavyan language. Even
two extremely similar languages like Italian or Spanish do
not really have, on a close inspection, the same alphabet: in
Spanish, they use the letters and , which are not used in
Italian.
I could go on at wish (German , French , Scandinavian ,
all kinds of accents, umlauts, tildes, cedillas...). Also, letters
take on very different values depending on the language
(compare the English, French, Spanish and German js:
theyre all pronounced in a different way!); some letters are
mute, other are not always pronounced the same way... The
issue is almost beyond comprehension. And cannot be dealt
with, as in tsrs material, in two or three lines of text. Once
more, merp defines what is acceptable, with logical and
diverse alphabets (runes, Fanorian letters, all having differ-
ent values depending on the language or the age theyre
used... this is good!)
place names in rolegames: yikes!!!
Another laboured constant (yes, another!) in almost all fan-
tasy worlds is the utter stupidity of place names, and espe-
cially of cities. Id say at least half of all frpg cities are
named Xwzlz, Yawalla, Zglurk, or maybe Rhunge.
What people do not seem to have understood is that place
names do have a meaning. Our ancestors just did not go
round and randomly distribute whimsical names; usually,
the place name was created after its owner, or it could have
been a short description of the place or of the kind of pro-
duce it would yield. Some of these names are, as of to-day,
still extremely clear or at least quite clear (e.g. Maidstone);
others can only be deciphered by linguistically skilled people
(e.g. Champreveyres in Switzerland means the priests
field). But, and I know I am repeating myself, all place
names did originally have a meaning, a meaning that was
rendered obscure by the passing of time and by pronuncia-
tion or even language shift.
solutions
Whingeing is all and good, but what about any practical
solutions?
We saw that contemplating a single, universal language
for a whole universe was more than unrealistic.
Yet this does not mean that we should consider each and
every frpg world as a potential Babel. I propose the follow-
ing system: all the languages of the setting are divided in
groups; every group is divided in subgroups; every subgroup
in families. There is no intercomprehension between
groups. There is next-to-no comprehension between lan-
guages pertaining to different subgroups within a given
group (one might recognise the most ancient words, like the
names of numbers or family ties). There is little intercom-
prehension between languages pertaining to different fami-
lies within a given subgroup. Then there is slight intercom-
prehension between languages pertaining to the same fami-
ly.
To illustrate my system, let me use Italian, of the Indo-
European group and the Romance subgroup (for gaming pur-
poses only; this is not a scientific article). Compared with
Italian, Turkish is from another group (Altaic): no intercom-
prehension. German is from another subgroup (Germanic):
next-to-no intercomprehension, one might notice that drei
and tre are similar, as are mutter and madre, but thats about
the farthest you can get. French is from the same subgroup,
but not the same family; one might be able to explain that
hes hungry or thirsty, or that he wants to know the way to
Saint Denis. There is going to be misunderstanding aplenty
(comedies draw inspiration from such situations... so should
a skilful referee, and put the too-confident party on the
wrong foot).
What about writing systems? According to the ones in
the Forgotten Realms booklets, there are no runes for ch,
sh, th, etc, and the latter are written, just like in Latin
script, c+h or s+h! I am wordless in face of such profound
incompetence.
Ancient or mediaeval languages always went for syllabic
writing systems or for alphabetic scripts yet always pho-
netic ones (in Old English, light was pronounced as it is in
German to-day) or for logographs. Game designers and ref-
erees, please bear this in mind! No more c+h runes to write
ch, create a new, additional one. Or maybe decide that in a
given alphabet the sound ch is represented by the k+j
combination. Be inventive and consistent. Also devising a
phonetic alphabet is very useful for naming people and
l i n g u a f r u p p a

continued on page 26
19
imazine
c o l l o q u y
nother bunch of letters for you here, this time in
some quantity because of the delay in the publication
of this issue. This means also that many of these letters
are rather old, and I would like to apologise in advance
to anyone whose views are thereby being misrepresented.
Just call me an immoral butcher; its all the rage nowadays.
Still, butcher or not, youll find more letters intact this
time, and less intervention from me. It happens occasional-
ly; make the most of it.
hors doeuvres
Ian Marsh
I liked the new layout. What happened to the content?
Youve become as bad as I ever was...
Well, the content is still all about roleplaying games. Is it
possible that what happened to the content was that it
continued to be about roleplaying, while you were look-
ing for something else?
Rob Alexander
I am pleased to say that although I have suffered a total loss
of interest in tabletop gaming, I still find Imazine to be fine
and readable.
I also wish it to be known that Imagine is the first thing I
have won in over a decade.
Robert Rees
I liked the idea of Zundering; almost as good as adequate.
Tom Zunder
Nice issue, best in a series of good ones.
Good wodge of reviews.
Layout... well if you must
Bill Hoad must die
Hiya Bill!
Nobody zunders like the master...
Kociak aka Kitten
As for the reviews in this issue, while I find their content
both amusing and informative, I am somewhat surprised by
the amount of space devoted to Dragon Fist, as it seems nei-
ther a seminal work nor a very major release (or a possible
A
'cult classic,' for that matter). I suppose the reason is its
Oriental setting, which you seem to be quite fond of, but I
would have still preferred a shorter rebuttal (as this was
basically what it amounted to).
Oh no that wasnt a rebuttal! By my standards it was
pretty favourable. The main reason for its inclusion was
the Asian setting. And the opportunity to discuss some
general issues relating to this idea of publishing culture
games which appropriate elements of an Earth culture yet
locate them in a fantasy setting.
Robert Rees
I was deeply insulted by Matthew Pooks insinuation that I
actually read Imazine. Of course I dont! Writing letters to
Imazine is the job of my crack team of untrained drunken
monkeys. The very idea!
I do think that this is another competition time though. If
anyone can answer Matthews question and my own pet vex-
ation Why do so many people called Robert write letters to
Imazine? then I would be happy to chip in part of the prize.
How about Lords of the Rising Sun by Dave Morris and Jamie
Thomson?
That, like most of the other Fabled Lands books, is appar-
ently something of a collectors item. Feel free to enter
the competition if you like...
Jeff Diamond
I am offended at your remarks regarding my alleged use of
big breasted alien cat-girls to sell copies of my sci-fi rpg,
Orbit. There are also some excellent ass shots inside the
book.
Jeff is issuing a more professional edition of Orbit soon,
and has released another game, so check out his web site
at http://www.geocities.com/~allianceprime/
George Pletz
All this heady talk about games and gaming has really start-
ed me to wondering how you run a game. Have you written
about this and I just missed it? How one runs things is really
indicative of what one wants from a game.
If thats the case then I apparently want interminable
journeys from a game Im reluctant to write about how I
run a game. I dont think Im very good at it, for starters.
On balance I prefer being a player to being a ref, though
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when a bunch of improvising players start bouncing
things off each other in my games I might change my
mind.
Robert Rees
I liked the immoral butcher tag, sums up your letter editing
style to a tee.
Didnt Traveller have Mazon guns? I think they damaged
the crew but not the ship by squirting overly complicated
game design theories through the targets intercom system.
Ashley Southcott
I thought Imazine had died around February after its non-
appearance, the reasons probably being uni work and efforts
towards your forthcoming Masters thesis. It was thus a nice
surprise to find it had merely gone into fandoms no mans
land for a while. Incidentally, shouldnt the Imagine guide
have gone to Robert Rees as part of his hobby elite initiation
kit?
Having first looked at Puppetland when it came free with
an old copy of Arcane it seems that John Tynes has come up
with a genuinely novel idea for a roleplaying game. I sus-
pect it was never thought of as a potential boardgame, yet
the subject matter might make for an entertaining one.
Being disposable would you recommend it to newcomers
precisely because it can be immediately picked up?
Never having seen the H*gsh**d edition, I cant really rec-
ommend it.
art & character
George Pletz
Most of the talk about gaming I have had in real-time life is
more about how things went and how they can be improved.
Never has it come done to someone saying too arty or not
geeky enough. And to extend even further, no one has said
there is not enough culture or hey this doesnt follow genre
convention. All the players Ive had, from good to poor,
either grasped what was going on intuitively or didnt. Much
of rpg as I have played it and seen it played is an unspoken.
When something is askew or missing, you know it.
Sure I probably missed out on a lot of good insights but I
learned as much from running something as I had from play-
ing in other peoples games.
Robert Rees
As a good post-modernist I am suspicious of arts need for
consumers to act as an audience. Art is one-way communi-
cation from artist to audience; the audience is often shack-
led to the role of consumer. Thats why I hate all the exhibi-
tion rules about no touching, no photographs, no fun just
admire the greatness of the elite. Roleplaying is a collabora-
tive system in which you rightly point out the roles of cre-
ator and audience become hopelessly muddled until the dis-
tinction is almost irrelevant.
I think the question is not so much is roleplaying art? As
shouldnt art be more like roleplaying?
Bill Hoads suggestion that roleplaying has no right to
bring raw emotion to the players seems daft to me. What is
he suggesting? That rpgs introduce only rarefied emotion
or no emotion at all? From the outset rpg have relied on the
player having a strong emotional connection to their protag-
onist in the game. I might be able to agree that creating a
game that has deliberately been structured to offend the
players might be poor taste I cannot really agree that you
have to set out to disconnect the players from the game
though. The latter seems pointless, if I were to play a game
of CoC that genuinely had me feeling proxy fear through my
character I wouldnt call foul on the gm for introducing raw
emotion I would be more likely to congratulate the gm for
running a great game.
I couldnt agree more that not all art is one step
removed, perhaps that is true of well-known or familiar art
where its status as art precedes its content. Perhaps also
true of abstract or abtruse art where the meaning of the
piece takes time to unravel but there is far more art that
connects on a visceral emotional level before acquiring an
intellectual level. In the latter I would offer examples from
Hurst, Chapman brothers, Goya, Otto Dix, Picasso; exam-
ples of the former Richard Long, Picasso (again too prolific
and varied for his own good), Warhol, Henry Moore.
Straddling the divide Pollack, Vietnam photographers...
what the fuck is this? Art Today?
More generally music often connects purely on an emo-
tional level and rarely on the intellectual level. Performance
art ditto.
Kociak aka Kitten
I'd like to point out to Robert Rees that it was Marcel
Duchamp rather than Piet Mondrian who exhibited a urinal
entitled fountain.
Apparently this is Art Today. And why not?
Andy McBrien
I thought Id send some thoughts on different approaches to
playing characters in roleplay. Our last session got quite
heated which has lead me to thinking about this aspect of
play.
You could perhaps simplistically split the issue into two
broad camps: those who play their characters such as to
make what they say in character sound like they (the play-
er) really mean what theyre saying, i.e. when another char-

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acter pisses them off they might call them a fucking dick-
head, in other words say exactly what the player really
would say if he was pissed off by someone. The other camp
are those who play their character such as to make what
they say in character sound like they (the player) do not
really mean it (though their characters do), i.e. the player
makes it clear that they are just pretending in the situation
being played. For example the player might call someone a
pointy-eared old-aged fairycake, thus making it obvious
that the sentiments expressed are not directed personally
towards another player.
As you might expect, I am very much of the former camp.
From my experience the first approach compares to method
acting, and the second only to ham acting (given that role-
players are usually crap actors). While in the method
approach you obviously will not be talking in the style of
your character: this is sacrificed. But what is expressed is
done so with conviction. All attention is concentrated on
making it seem as real as possible. In the ham approach,
the player makes sure that nobody confuses the sentiments
expressed for their character, with those of themselves. But
he sacrifices some conviction in the way those things are
expressed.
The key thing about the method approach, I think, is that
you are not trying to pretend to have particular
feelings/emotions. You just express the feelings you have (as
a player), assuming the conditions described for your char-
acter. This means that when another player in character
pisses you off, you (the player) get pissed off with them. If
they havent pissed you off, you dont try and roleplay/pre-
tend that they have.
Cutting the number of pretence elements of a game down
to just those necessary for the needs of the game, is very
much what I advocate in roleplay. Another example of this is
excluding players from the room when their characters
arent present, so the players dont have to pretend they
dont know stuff that they do know. I suppose the method
approach relies on the players having a certain amount of
confidence in their roleplaying, so that when things do get
really heated they are really enjoying it, rather than just get-
ting really upset.
I dont know about you, but whenever Im revising my
attitudes to roleplay, one of the things I do is look back to
my best roleplay experience as a player, when everything
clicked. And use this as a sort of model to test whatever idea
Im thinking about. One of the chief elements of the exam-
ple I go back to, is that although me and another player got
completely pissed off with each other, instead of the role-
play suffering as a result of this, it sort of got pushed further
than we had gone before. So we ended up basking in all the
excitement instead of frustrated by our inability to roleplay.
One of the really exciting things about it was the discovery
that losing control was nothing to do with bad playing: in
fact it was good playing. It was something to promote not
something to avoid.
But thats not quite right. Losing control is a problem.
What I should have said is expressing emotions you feel as a
player is not something to be avoided (and regarded as poor
roleplaying) but is to be promoted. Provided they are the
result of identifying with your character. If the player (as
well as his character), is completely pissed off about some-
thing/someone it doesnt mean the hes lost control/isnt
roleplaying. It isnt a problem. Its good not bad! Thats
what I meant.
This makes it sound such an elementary matter and no
doubt its completely obvious to very many players. But I
think it is an issue worth highlighting because its not obvi-
ous to everyone.
The really exciting discovery was that losing control is
not a problem etc, etc... provided you keep roleplaying in
character.
What motivated me to write was not the idea to convert
those who prefer the alternative (equally valid) approach to
playing a character. What I was shooting at was the attitude
that if the player isnt pretending then they arent roleplay-
ing (and then are thought to be a problem). My own atti-
tude (the immersive approach) is that the roleplay tends to
be better the less a player is pretending.
What I see as a problem are situations where players iden-
tify out of character influences on the way a character is
played and see this as not roleplaying. But I suggest its
much more productive if its not reacted to as a problem
even when non-character issues are obviously influencing
how the character is being played. For example if John is
pissed off because he had to go for the chips again and then
plays his character pissed off, the other players can either
suggest hes not really playing his character, or they can
accept that the character seems pissed off.
It is of course better if outside influences dont intrude so
much on play (John is not roleplaying very well). But they
inevitably do to some degree and its better to play with
them rather than let play break down as a result of them. The
most productive attitude is to avoid letting out-of-charac-
ter issues dominate the way you play your own character,
but to accept that they will influence the way the other char-
acters will be played, and that their emotions are valid
whatever way they are played.
layout
Sergio Mascarenhas
Ive read your column with interest, since this is one of my
preferred old issues about rpg design. I must say that I
agree with most of the points you raise.
For instance, the idea of an introductory fast-play section
is something that I think should be standard fare by now in
rpgs. In a sense, I learned this with my first rpg, Runequest
II boxed set which included the Basic Role Playing game
booklet. This was a short, fast, wonderful way to introduce

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a new player to the game. Yes, it had no setting or adven-
ture, but it allowed one to understand the rules, and then
just move on to more complex issues. The key thing is that,
in order to do this, the whole game must be developed
around a core set of basic concepts, instead of being an
accumulation of disparate elements.
Most companies seem to be heading in this direction any-
way, at least to a certain extent, by providing free, rules-lite
modules.
A second aspect where I agree with you is the idea of a
game book as a reference instrument. It seems that, as rpgs
departed from their wargame and boardgame roots, they
also departed from some basic game design rules that great
wargames and boardgames seem never to forget. One of the
things that was lost is the notion of scalability. Many
boardgames and wargames have scalable rules: Both rules
and scenarios are organized according to complexity and
depth, so that the player learns to play while playing, each
step leading to new rules and new scenarios that apply those
new rules (while the players can re-play the scenarios in the
previous steps with the new rules, and get new twists in
their gaming experience). I think that rpg rules should fol-
low this example, and be organized according level of com-
plexity/depth; and that any scenario should be playable at
any level of the rules. This means that players can do two
things: learn the rules step by step, alternating rules acquisi-
tion with playing; decide at which level they want to play.
So, we may have two players playing fighters where player
decides that he wants to play combat the basic level, while
the other player wants to play combat at the advanced level.
Or a player may want to play combat at the basic level,
magic at the advanced level, and social interaction at the
intermediate level; another player wants to play combat at
the advanced level, no magic, but alchemy at the intermedi-
ate level, and social interaction at the basic level.
One of the problems with rule book design is that, when
they undertook the literary paradigm, they chose the
wrong paradigm (novels and storytelling). I mean, this para-
digm may be valid for actual play, but its completely wrong
for game books. Game books should follow two other para-
digms instead: one is the one you mentioned, reference
books. This is useful for presenting rules and the system.
The other is journalism writing. This is to be used for pre-
senting setting material. Another thing that people writing
rpg books should familiarize themselves with is the tech-
niques for producing books intended for distance learning.
After all, many players are distance learners: they buy a
book, read it, and attempt to play without a tutor. (They
may also learn with a playing group, but usually suffers from
the fact that the focus is on playing right away, without tak-
ing time to learn how to play... unless the gm is also learning
the game.)
Finally, what I would like to see is a book that:
1. Presents setting information separate from system infor-
mation. Of course, system information should be illus-
trated with situations that comply to the setting.
2. Organizes both setting information and system informa-
tion in a simple-to-complex way.
3. Has two types of indexing: based on complexity vs. based
on content. What I mean is, one may separate info by lev-
els of complexity: In this case we have, first the simpler
rules for all the different aspects of the game, next the
intermediate rules, next the advanced rules. Or one may
separate info by content: magic, combat, social interac-
tion, etc. The ideal game will have both these types of
indexing. This means that it will have pagination, tables
of contents, and indexes based both on content, and
based on complexity. Of course, the book as sold would
be organized according to order of complexity, since this
facilitates learning, but latter the player would be able to
separate the pages of the book, and put them in a binder
organized the way that suited his tastes (he may even
separate the sections he knows he is not going to use).
Whats more, this ability to separate different info would
mean that, even if setting and system info would be sepa-
rate (see 1 above), it could be alternated along the book,
in order to facilitate the learning of these two compo-
nents. Latter the owner of the book could organize it
according to his tastes, either combining setting and sys-
tem info, or separating it all together.
I know that this can be hard to do, and involve difficult pagi-
nation issues, but Im sure it can be done.
John Morrow
Concerning your comments that:
a Better to have four sentences on a topic, which can be
found very rapidly, than two pages which take time to
find.
b What culture game requires is as much detail as is neces-
sary for whats happening, and no more.
I think you are implying (but not explicitly clearly stating) a
very important point for all role-playing settings. The mate-
rial in a role-playing setting book should be relevant to what
the players will be doing in the setting and should not focus
on elements that no normal person would worry about.
When someone gets off of a space ship onto a new world,
they want to know what the weather is like. Instead, most
space games leave the players and gm with planetary orbital
distances from a primary star, all specified in exact detail.
Player: Whats the weather like when I step off the ship?
gm: Well, the planet is 1.1 au from a G0 primary with a
17 degree tilt and 2 moons and...
Player: But is it hot or cold outside?
George Pletz
As someone who recently ventured into game design (and
decided to leave it to the professionals. House rules is one
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thing, design another.), I found this article particularly

insightful.
Since I am not entirely familiar with some of the games
mentioned, I, as a reformed gurpshead, have something to
add. One of the interesting gimmicks about gurps is how
they do this bait and switch manoeuvre on you. They try to
sell you on this your only limits are your mind and then pro-
ceed to sell a ton of supplements. In the end you are have a
gurps library larger than your D&D library. How they got me
had a lot to do with shoving this is the only book youll ever
need except... philosophy at every turn. (We wont even get
into how gurps is the ideal system for people who started
out playing D&D but got sick of it.) I admit it, the idea of
the one book system is up there with these are guidelines
not rules as a desired trait. Truth is that for gaming compa-
nies to make money, so says the conventional wisdom, is to
get you hooked. How many one book one system games can
you think of?
One book systems are cult items not franchises.
I detected a certain distaste for games which latch onto
genre conventions. It is to be expected with your advocacy
of culture games. I can understand the frustration but the
thing that is good about games like Feng Shui is that is more
universal than so many so called generic rpgs. Sure you have
to ignore the backstory but that is generally the way it is if
you want to create a new thing opposed to play into a
canon. Outlaws is more about a setting than a system?
One of the many insightful ideas I have gotten from the
new breed of games, indie and otherwise, is that rules and
setting are linked. gurps and D&D are the same in that they
are about shoehorning one into the other. A good system is
fused to its setting. It seems to me that an ideal system is
one that mirrors the world you want to play in. While this
does show the universal idea to be bunk, the downside is
that allows for the game world to be the ideal world for the
busy and harried gamer. And that means money for the com-
pany. Not to get all anti-capitalist on you but one of the
appeals of rpg is the inexpensive nature of the hobby.
(And yes it has been made known to me how relatively
cheap gaming is but then again there is movies books com-
puters and living costs to account for. I couldnt be that
interesting a gamer without these things.)
This rule and setting relation, in my mind, brings up, as it
does in your article, the fiction element in game format.
Maybe I am the only one on the planet but I wish there was
less fiction in games. And this has nothing to do with quali-
ty, which is fair at best, but instead with the fact that gam-
ing is different than fiction. Writing for a game is like writ-
ing for a weekly television not a novel. You have real people
putting demands on you in a game. They have wants and
needs! Game fiction perpetuates this idea that a gm tells
players what to do and they do it. It is deceptive. Id sooner
read examples of play than stories. This dovetails with your
idea of the example scenario which teaches mechanics and
gets the player accustomed to play.
And play is the thing. I dont care how cool the system
seems in the reading it comes down to how it plays. The for-
mat of a rpg comes down to getting across how a game will
play out. Demo-ing a game is the only ideal way to know if a
game is going to fly or not and the format should focus on
getting us to that point as swiftly and easily as possible.
Which brings up an interesting problem. How to make a
game that is interesting to the novice as well as the experi-
enced gamer? And I am not sure if another cleverly written
what is roleplaying chapter is going to cut it.
Much of this talk of explaining a system or game does
more harm than good. It makes it seem unnatural when the
art of telling a story is actually one of the most natural
things a society does. So how do we demystify the game to
seem natural and not some sort of arcane divination or
mathematical equation? To be honest I dont know. Perhaps
this is why roleplaying will be a fringe hobby. How do you
tell people at large that anyone can be an actor or a writer?
(if thats even true...)
Even though you managed to slip Lawss Law into the
middle of that comment, I will forgive you, George.
Perhaps telling people at large that anyone can be an actor
or a writer is the problem? We are constantly seeking to
legitimise roleplaying by making analogies with other
forms, as you do with tv, and as many others do with
storytelling or whatever. I cant help feeling that the
more we do this, the more we constrict our possibilities,
and dilute the form. While it is no doubt true that
anyone can be an actor or a writer (usually a crap one),
shouldnt we rather be saying that anyone can be a role-
player?
George Pletz
I was looking over the New Outlaws New Layout article
again the other day. I had an idea about layout. You were
talking about trying to express background and mechanics
in a measured holistic way. I detected a slightly disparaging
tone on the use of colour and fancy design tricks, so I am
not sure of how any of these suggestions will go over.
Couldnt you do a split column page with one track being
mechanics and the other track being setting? If not that
what about opposing pages with every other page being the
other track? ( ie Page one setting, Page two mechanics) It
would make locating information a little easier. Maybe cer-
tain sections of the book could be in one of these styles
every set number of pages. Well at least it is not as busy as
overlays of colour coded boxes, the first idea I had.
This of course should be in tandem with a good detailed
index. Most games which have indexes read like the indexes
found in the back of appliance manuals. Simply useless when
it comes to the nitty gritty.
Other aesthetics like rules briefs at strategic locations as
well as easy on the eyes fonts also seem crucial. I can see
that presentation of rules in an user-friendly pattern is key
but, if the structure of the book were somehow symmetri-
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cal, for lack of a better word, then the density of the materi-
al would be evenly distributed.
My quick example of informational density is First
Edition dmg with all its information weighted at the centre
with its not as dense intro and outro bits. Not that youd
noticed with that awful tiny print.
Another element of this density is how you see the book
in your head. Most rule hunts are not leisurely searches but
mad by the seat of your pants dashes for pertinent informa-
tion. Dont you hate when you think you know where some-
thing is but it isnt there where you thought it was?
Finally running a game again , I am using highlighters,
post it notes and a rule cheat. It is like an open book test
where opening the book is a sign of defeat. Opening the
book means the rules arent taking. A structure which could
be grasped intuitively would go a long way towards welcom-
ing people inside.
After the fear and loathing I had to overcome before wad-
ing into the games I reviewed this issue, I find myself in
total agreement with you. I want a rule book that is easy
to read, but rarely read during a game.
Ashley Southcott
Your comments on getting people started are laudable, but
I have yet to see a game which does this and still manages to
contain enough about the setting to reveal how to play a
character according to his place in that settings society.
Take Pendragon. This goes to huge lengths to emphasise a
characters place in Arthurian society. Is this in part because
its rules and background are interspersed? It doesnt imme-
diately spring to mind as a game which gets its players
immersed in minutes in part because of its organisation. Ars
Magica is another example that, in going all-out to empha-
sise the setting and pcs social positions in it, misses the
chance to get players started immediately.
I have no problem comparing boardgames and roleplaying
games. When you buy a boardgame, the setting and the
board layout are both explicit and immediate (well; they are
on any game Id spend my money on). The challenge there-
fore is to transfer this explicitness and immediacy to narra-
tive games. Granted that boardgames impose a certain lin-
earity on play, but a rules setup that insists on your going to
jail and not passing Go isnt a must. The artwork on a
boardgame constitutes not just a selling point but also con-
veys a feel for the setting in which the game is set. Im sug-
gesting something similar for describing settings.
I can live with short fictional pieces to set the stage but
this isnt an ideal solution and doubtless unpopular with
Colloquys regulars. Decent artwork for a game, and I dont
just mean industry-published games is one idea Id like to
bandy around, properly supported by rules on task resolu-
tion and combat (which are down to personal taste). Im
toying with the idea because good artwork allows you to
get a feel of the setting without having to wade through 10-
point text. Participants different views on the setting
viewed through the artwork are a possible conflict area, of
course.
If youre really not looking at the rules much during
Sengoku games, why gripe about its rules layout? It sounds
very much like youre merely adapting the game to your
groups style and referring to the rules whenever youre
uncomfortable with making a personal judgement.
In transferring your ideas for teaching roleplaying onto
paper, I think a minimalist rules preference (or at least a
style where a minimum of rules in published systems are
used) is now one taken by the majority of experienced
gamers. Most games seek to encourage non-slavishness to
their rules (funnily enough, unlike boardgames which rely on
adherence to the rules to make them work). Going back to
character generation, however, why bother with back-
ground in any detail? Old hands will probably say because a
characters background helps explain his actions and define
who he is. Not necessarily. Insane characters actions are
defined by their warped viewed of the world, which may
derive from a freak event, e.g. falling into a snake pit or los-
ing ones family during an earthquake. It strikes me that
defining a character closely is better done in play, since his
actions in front of other characters in part contribute
towards his definition. You can see this through npcs reac-
tions in social situations, but Im also thinking of other pcs
reactions to a characters behaviour within the party. A
discovery style of character generation merely serves to
bolster design-in-play over design-at-start. Show me a so-
called disposable rules setup that insists on defining a char-
acters past.
I understand why the likes of C&S and Pendragon go to the
lengths they do to define a character, but would argue that
defining a character to the nth degree particularly at the
beginning takes something away from the players free-
dom to play. You will correctly have spotted the magic con-
cept limitation (been there, discussed that). The length of
time these systems take to complete detailed definitions is,
of course, one of the reasons they remain very small niche
games. I guess players of such games adapt those parts of
lengthy cg systems they like and discard the rest what was
your reaction when you played Pendragon?
As to your conclusion that a brief indexed set of notes on
background is preferable to two or three chapters in a rule-
book, this is all very well at the beginning, but sooner or
later everyones going to want more. Conventional games
respond to this with supplements; is this really a viable
route for Outlaws?
Its been too long since I played Pendragon to have a clear
recollection of my reaction, but I dont honestly recall its
character generation being overly long and detailed not
in the C&S league, for sure.
The last point is dead easy one of the reasons for bas-
ing Outlaws on the world rather than constructing some
artificial simulacrum is so that the games supplements
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will be the huge corpus of published material about China,

a suitable selection of which appears in the Outlaws bibli-
ography.
systems
Robert Rees
On interesting results: more thoughts, one thing that
annoys me about a lot of combat systems is that they often
involve a lot of mechanistic calculation to finally resolve the
fact that someone has been hit for 1 hp damage. I think its
okay to have involved systems providing they ramp up in
complexity as the result becomes more critical. For example
I dont think any armour resolution should become involved
unless it is actually going to save your life or offer the differ-
ence between being mauled or being able to continue anoth-
er round.
As a side issue as laptops and mini-computers (Palm tops)
become more prevalent is it possible that complex statisti-
cal calculations can be hived off to machines that simply
have the initial conditions entered in and then feed critical
moments to the gm for incorporation in the narrative?
I think the problem with gaming geeks (and this is pure-
ly a personal perspective) is that they see the game as being
the alpha and omega of the gaming experience. It is the sys-
tem that matters, the stats of the character and so on rather
than the experience of the game itself. I think it must be
rather liberating to have players that are not used to role-
playing but are willing to be open-minded and take the game
for what it is rather than having to draw from the corrupt-
ed pool of gaming geeks who enter the game determined to
win or build kick ass characters rather than go with the
game as it stands and see where it takes them.
With these people I firmly side with Robert Irwin (after
all us Imazine non-readers must stick together) I dont know
how to create a meaningful dialogue with these kinds of
people. There is a mental block as they understand roleplay-
ing to be the tangible books, rules, dice and I understand
roleplaying to be the intangible the resulting narrative.
Then again maybe its just my poor social skills. One inci-
dent sticks in my mind though: I went to my local university
gaming club intent on running a kind of sci-fi game with
some home-grown rules based on fudge. I tried to interest
people but no-one seemed that interested and they said they
would rather play AD&D. I couldnt get across the idea that
the game wasnt in the rules but in the scenario I was going
to run. In many ways I thought I would have been better off
with complete novices who would have accepted that there
were some rules but that they were not wholly relevant and
that the rules would work around the character concepts
they came up with once they had heard the background.
I think the failure to explain to get across the point of
the game and my failure to think of an alternative tack to
get the idea across have contributed in my inability to
return to an organised gaming club and try to recruit more
players. I just have the feeling that unless I say something
like its <name of system
TM
> set in <name of
background
TM
> then Im not going to persuade people to
give it a go.
I have also noticed a certain amount of prejudice based on
not using the right rules for a setting. For example recently
I have been running a Greyhawk campaign with the
Runequest (Avalon Hill) system even with my established
players this seems to cause concern.
culture
John Morrow
In many articles on writing science fiction and fantasy,
authors and editors say that you can only change so many
things in a setting before it becomes impossible for people
to keep track of all the changes and you should establish
those changes early and quickly. Many suggest only one or
two changes. Similarly, if you try to change too many cultur-
al elements on a person playing the game, they will find it
difficult to grasp any of them. If someone needs to become
an expert on a culture before they role-play, it will be diffi-
cult to find players. And if even only the game master has to
be an expert, it will still have only limited appeal. For better
or worse, I think that when other people play Outlaws, they
will probably drop out large hunks of authentic Chinese cul-
ture that they have trouble grasping and stick with the
basics.
Fiction and role-playing games are (once you get beyond
the visceral mind-candy level) about exploring issues and
events in a milieu that is clearer than reality. Since few peo-
ple are experts at everything and since these media are lim-
ited by the failings of language to fully convey an experi-
ence, they work by emphasizing the dramatic and impor-
tant. Why do so many science fiction and fantasy settings
have mono-cultural races despite the fact that most 20th
century Americans would be horrified by a non-fiction book
that says All blacks are X or All Irish are Y? Because identi-
fying a culture with a race serves much the same purpose as
putting a white had on the good guys and a black hat (or
dark goatee moustache) on the bad guys. It removes the
uncertainties and vagueness of reality and makes sure that
everyone gets the same point the same way. Is it cheap and
obvious? Yes. Does it have impact, though? Oh yes.
The book The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes
(And How To Avoid Them) by Jack M. Bickham makes quite a
few suggestions that are sure to annoy someone who
doesnt like cheap literary devices. Among them, he sug-
gests dont use real people in your story (Chapter 7), dont
have things happen for no reason (Chapter 10), and dont
worry about being obvious (Chapter 26). Those sections
26
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c o l l o q u y

(along with a few others) make the point that fiction isnt
reality and that you need to take liberties with reality for
the fiction to seem worthwhile and even plausible to the
reader. What may seem obvious or important to you when
you are writing can easily be lost on a reader unless you
hammer it home. What seems real or even is real can seem
inauthentic or fake to a reader when presented on a written
page. They might not get that the bad guy is evil to the core
unless you have them kill one of their underlings or wear a
black hat, even if you feel you are being too obvious.
Otherwise, they might actually start sympathizing with the
bad guy (as I often do on Star Trek: Voyager) because the bad
guy has a valid point to make or an understandable motiva-
tion.
In several science fiction writing books, they discuss the
role of aliens. In short, most agree that if aliens are too
alien, the readers will be unable to relate to them. But why
have aliens at all? In many cases, the purpose of an alien is
largely to take an element of humanity and amplify it to
make it easier to explore. If I discuss race relations using
real races, people are going to be influence by sympathy for
their own race. If I move a race relations story into elves and
dwarves, I dont have to worry about people being too close
to the issue to get the objective point.
Remember that historical and non-Western cultures are
more alien to modern Western thought. In his essay Living
the Future: You Are What You Eat, Gardner Dozois writes
(while describing Rome in space Star Trek), The Roman
Empire was vastly more complex, contradictory, surprising,
and multifaceted than the simplistic version we get from
television, movies, and bad historical novels. And the people
who inhabited it were as different from any citizens of
2100ad are likely to be. In fact, the Old Egyptians and the
Old Romans would be more alien to us than most authors
Martians.
While Im not a fan of over-rating the similarities
between rpgs and fiction, I do think there is a parallel here.
And the parallel is that in order to get the effect you are
looking for, you often need to emphasize things to an
extreme, much in the way that stage make-up emphasizes
facial features so that the person in Seat 19 ZZ can see the
expression on a stage actors face during a scene without
opera glasses. And you often need to simply things so that
people wont get lost in the details, much as a talking points
list or outline can convey important points more quickly
than an essay. It is a matter of compensating for the limited
time and data transmission speed of language.
All of which brings us to the end of another colloquy with
plenty to chew on. While I cant promise the next issue
any time soon, I do imagine it wont be as late as this
one. If it is, Ive probably folded.
places (see below).
Depending on your gaming style you might or might not
value immersion in the imaginary world you are playing in.
If, like myself, you do value immersion, then verisimilar
character and place names are paramount for the gaming
experience. For games who are not featuring a well-devel-
oped background (ie not Tolkiens Middle Earth), the burden
is on the referee.
The first step is setting up a limitation in sound patterns
for any given language or culture of the game world. In the
real world, for instance, if you meet someone called Arnaldo
or Roberto, youll guess hes from Southern Europe or Latin
America by the very sound of his name: lots of vowels, and
liquid consonant clusters. This can be achieved in an easier
way if the referee has already devised a phonetic alphabet
for each language/culture of his world (see previous para-
graph) hell have a pool of phonemes to draw from to cre-
ate names, and this step then is limited to creating rules as
to how names are built (e.g. no names shall end with a con-
sonant, or all male names shall end with an -a).
The second step is deciding how people are named in each
culture. In the real world, for instance, most Europeans have
a name and a surname. Americans love the additional middle
name (or initial), whereas Russians have a patronymic.
Arabs may go by a variety of names, and even change their
name in the course of their lifespan to reflect an important
event (the birth of a male child). Most Asians also have a sur-
name and a name (in this order), the surname being used
more frequently than the name.
Primitive cultures tend to use a given name only: in a vil-
lage of sixty, that is usually enough. They still can resort to a
variety of tricks to show family ties (e.g. all names in a given
family might begin with the same sound).
The third step is creating place names. The difference
with the previous step is that this one is for internal use by
the referee, it is not aimed at players. As explained in the
first half of this article, place names do have a meaning,
even if it may be lost to contemporary people. The system I
use for my own campaign is as follows: just as with charac-
ter names, I devise a few patterns or rule for word creation.
Then I draw up a list of the most common words for each
language (colours, terrain, numbers). I then create place
names randomly or on sound combinations I like. Most place
names would be the equivalent of big stone, Johns farm,
etc. To reflect the passing of time, some territories are
given place names of a dead or lost language; some others
are applied known linguistic transformation rules (ds
become ths, ts become tss, whatever). Again to keep
verisimilitude and consistency the referee must always
apply the same set of transformation rules to a given terri-
tory/language culture. If you end up with names that do not
look like anything familiar from fantasy literature or frpgs,
it might well mean that you were successful. *
Lingua Fruppa
27
imazine
by Matt Stevens
ears ago i saw a small gallery
exhibit of pulp magazine art from
the 1920s, 30s and 40s. As I looked
over the paintings, and admired
their power and imaginativeness, I
thought of the art in roleplaying
games. Decades from now, when were
all dead or doddering, will rolegame
artwork hang on gallery walls? Will
future generations admire it, and mar-
vel at the genius of our work, and won-
der why we never appreciated it at the
time? Or will rolegames gather dust in
musty attics, to be regarded as little
more than period curiosities?
I hope rolegames will be cherished
and admired long after the campaigns
have ended and the rolegame industry
is mouldering in the grave. But this will
only happen if people who never play
the games can appreciate our work.
The long-term prestige of our hobby
may depend largely on the books and
magazines we leave behind, and their
capacity to fascinate or entertain a
non-gaming audience. Two factors are
of critical importance: the quality of
their prose, and the quality of their art-
work. In this article, Im going to look
at the artwork in roleplaying games.
pabulum and
professionalism
Like most roleplayers, I think the
majority of rolegame artwork is crap.
On the other hand, and again like most
Y
roleplayers, I think at least some
rolegame illustrations are fairly good.
But when we get down to cases and try
to separate the best work from the
shit, I find I often disagree with many
roleplayers. Most rolegamers, it seems,
judge artwork on the basis of its real-
ism and professionalism. They con-
demn the amateurish scribbling of the
early rolegames, comparing them
unfavourably to the slick colour prints
of today.
Im not sure that rolegame artwork
is getting any better in some ways,
Id say its actually getting worse. The
problem isnt the skill of the artists,
which has improved greatly over the
past 25 years. Unfortunately, profes-
sionalism alone isnt going to produce
great works of art, and we have to rec-
ognize that if we want to promote
greatness in the future.
We could argue for months over
what makes a great piece of art great.
But for the sake of argument, Ill say
that a great piece of artwork intrigues
the spectator. It should catch her
attention, fascinate her, show some-
thing she never saw before. This some-
thing can be an unusual subject, some-
thing fantastic or surreal. It can also be
a strange juxtaposition of common-
place objects, or mundane things por-
trayed in unusual ways. It can even
refer to a perplexing expression, a look
that resists easy interpretation. A
great piece of art should provoke inter-
esting questions, without providing
simple answers to them.
I dont know if theres been any truly
Bri l l i ance &
Dross in RPG
A R T WO R K
The Cthulhoid unpleasantness of Erol
Otus (top) meets the authentic pulp
nastiness of M A R Barkers Tkumel
(bottom)
28
imazine
great roleplaying art, but some of it
has been strikingly inventive, even if
the vast majority has been bland and
unimaginative. The problem, unfortu-
nately, is that as roleplaying artists
have become more professional, and
the industry has grown more commer-
cially savvy, bland, corporate pabulum
is becoming even more prominent than
it used to be.
Its important for us to recognize
that much of todays rolegame art is
worse than bad. Its ordinary. The quali-
ty of draftsmanship has improved
mightily since the late 1970s. Clearly,
there are lots of people in the industry
who know how to draw. This makes it
all the more tragic when they produce
work of little or no value.
Take the artwork in 3rd edition D&D
Players Handbook please. An illustra-
tion by Todd Lockwood is reproduced
above. Its a picture of a dwarf with an
axe, a shield, a bow and a shitload of
armour. This dwarf is given a name,
Tordek, but its unclear why hes dif-
ferent from the thousands weve seen
elsewhere, from Lord of the Rings calen-
dars to DragonLance paperback covers.
Hes a generic short, stocky guy with a
beard. So what?
Wizards of the Coast spent thou-
sands to give us a Players Handbook
with full-colour illustrations of Tordek
and his fun-loving friends, but its
unclear what, if anything, were sup-
posed to get from them. Todd
Lockwood obviously knows how to
paint the human figure. His draftsman-
ship compares favourably to an old tsr
artist like Darlene Pakul, who drew that
notorious bat-winged succubus in the
first Dungeon Masters Guide. But
Darlenes plump, cowering demoness
titillated thousands of teenage boys.
Tordek will never titillate anyone. You
could replace his portrait with a photo
of a tractor or a piece of cabbage and
no one would notice the difference.
I could fill this entire issue with
mediocre art from two generations of
roleplaying games, and heap scorn and
abuse on every wasted artistic oppor-
tunity. It would be far better, though,
to point out the best published work,
and give well-deserved praise to artists
who transcend the ordinariness of so
much fantasy art. In the next few
pages, Ill point to some of the work I
respect, and suggest some paths we
might pursue in the future.
transcending naturalism
Youll almost never see rolegame art-
work that transcends a rigid natural-
ism. We may talk about creating a new
art form, but our art is decidedly reac-
tionary. We act as if the 20th century
or hell, even the late 19th never took
place.
Its too bad. While one could make
an argument for naturalism in rolegame
art one could say it helps make the
fantastic seem real, a vital role in a
roleplaying product one could also
argue that naturalism can never com-
pletely mirror the worlds of our imagi-
nation, and a freer approach may be
more evocative of other worlds and
other cultures. At the very least, in our
efforts to evoke alternate realities, we
should draw upon whatever sources of
inspiration we can find. By ignoring all
Western art after 1850 (not to mention
the indigenous traditions of Africa and
the Americas), weve cut ourselves off
from a huge visual vocabulary. Those
who transcend the limits of naturalism
should be commended for broadening
artistic possibilities.
Some of the earliest art in roleplay-
ing games was more inventive in this
respect. Consider Erol Otus for exam-
ple, an old favourite of mine. His work
was crude, sometimes even revolting,
and I would never claim that he was
consciously attempting to transcend
naturalism. He probably couldnt have
penned a realistic work if he wanted
to, his technique was far too primitive.
Still, I find that many Otus drawings
catch my attention, and stick in my
mind far longer than other early
rolegame artists do. His style evokes
the exotic and the macabre in a way
that few other artists can match. His
depictions of the Cthulhu Mythos in
Deities and Demigods (see previous
page) fascinated me far more than the
much more professional illustrations in
the Call of Cthulhu rulebooks, and I
believe its because his folk-art grotes-
queries suited the Mythos far better
than later naturalistic works.
Another early rolegame artist who
deserves a mention is Professor M A R
Barker, the visionary behind the world
of Tkumel. Im not particularly fond of
Barkers later work, in Swords and Glory
for example, which are often little
more than pin-ups of topless babes,
rendered in a dull naturalist style. His
more ambitious works in Empire of the
Petal Throne, however, deserve lavish
praise. Check out the illustration on the
previous page. You might respond with
knee-jerk hostility to the naked woman
in the corner, but it shouldnt blind you
to the power of the work. The masks,
which seem to float in the darkness,
are an imaginative touch, and there is a
palatable sense of horror and dread to
the scene. Its unfortunate that so little
work in todays rolegames can match
the power and imagination of this
primitive, 25-year old sketch.
Luckily, there are a few artists today
who transcend the limitations of natu-
ralism, and its clear that this is a con-
scious choice on their part, not just a
product of limited skill. Dan Smith is
one artist who should be familiar to all

b r i l l i a n c e & d r o s s
All technique and no soul: Todd Lockwoods
Tordek from 3rd edition Dungeons &
Dragons
29
imazine
of us. You can find his work in just
about any recent gurps product, and in
my opinion he deserves all of the work
he gets and more. As you can see, in the
illo above, Smith uses strong black-
and-white contrasts to great effect.
Hes also one of the only rolegame
artists who combines collages of
photo-realistic images with pure
abstract design. Smiths style, unique
and easily recognizable, hip and ironic
yet unsettling all the same, contrasts
favourably to too many artists in the
industry, who produce works of cook-
ie-cutter sameness. I look forward to
seeing more from him.
While Dan Smiths work can be
found all over the place, other artists
worth noting are harder to find. As far
as I know, Aaron Boyd has only been
published in Daedaluss game Feng
Shui; I dont even believe his work was
reprinted in the Atlas edition of the
game. Considering that the Atlas edi-
tion has only black-and-white illustra-
tions, though, this was probably for
the best, because Boyds trademark is a
loose technique with an inventive use
of colour. Boyd appears to be one of the
few conscious modernists in the indus-
try. His style is clearly inspired by
Cezanne, and possibly the Fauves as
well. I look forward to seeing his work
elsewhere.
Another artist who deserves fulsome
praise is Amy Weber. Like Aaron Boyd,
she hasnt had much work in the indus-
try. Ive only seen her illustrations in
Everways vision cards, one of which
is reproduced above. If Cezanne
inspired Aaron Boyd, Weber seems to
take her cue from Marc Chagall. But
while Chagall painted blissful allegories
of his Russian childhood, Webers
images seem inspired by nightmares
and dread. Weber opens the window to
a sinister alternate reality, one over-
come with darkness and decay, but also
with a striking, eerie beauty. She
shows us how a well non-naturalistic
style can evoke a fantastic world and
make it real. I havent seen as much of
Amy Weber as Id like to shes only
credited with three vision cards in my
Everway box. Based on the work Ive
seen, though, Id say shes perhaps the
most talented artist in role-playing
games today. I sincerely hope we get to
see much more from her in the future.
evoking other worlds
Good work can be done in a naturalist
style, but it requires more than just the
ability to draw realistically. Most
rolegame artwork is mediocre not
because its naturalistic, but because
its subject matter is dull. That portrait
of Tordek (previous page) is typical:
Someone posing with his weapons. Just
about every rolegame illustration is
either (a) a portrait of someone with a
weapon, or (b) a combat scene. Thank
the Gods for creature catalogues and
monster manuals, because theyre the
only reliable sources of imaginative
artwork in the field today.
Still, some artists do good work in a
naturalist style. What sets them apart
is not their naturalism per se, put their
skill in composition. Consider Jim
Halloway. His figures are crudely
drawn, but I think hes better than at
least 80% of todays rolegame artists.
What sets him apart is his imagination,
his sense of humour and (again) his tal-
ent for composition, all of which are
clear in his illustration for Gangbusters.
Another genuine talent is Stephen
Fabian, like Halloway a frequent con-
tributor to tsr products. Fabian is one
of the few rolegame artists who seems
comfortable with landscapes. You
would think landscapes would be a nat-
ural subject for fantasy rolegames, but
most artists, sadly, would rather draw
half-naked barbarians pounding orcs
into oatmeal. Fabians paintings,
dreamy and imaginative, show us what
rolegame illustrations can do: they can

b r i l l i a n c e & d r o s s
Dan Smiths monochromatic moodiness
(above). Everway atmospheres from Amy
Weber (above right). Feng Shui action
depicted with fauvist tendencies by Aaron
Boyd (right).
30
imazine
evoke other worlds and make them real.
The illustration above, from the Manual
of the Planes, is a good example of his
work.
Walter OConnor is another artist
who deserves praise. OConnor, like
Fabian, works largely in landscapes,
but he also seems comfortable with
scenes of everyday life as in the illo
on the left, a depiction of peasants in
the fields. (A refreshing change from
the usual sword fights, gun-battles and
Fireball spells.) As the illustration
shows, unusual perspective is an
OConnor trademark most rolegame
action scenes are strictly eye-level
affairs. OConnor makes peasants in a
field look impressive, while his com-
petitors draw the Battle for Algiers and
make it as exciting as Madison,
Connecticut on a Sunday afternoon.
new ways of seeing
What distinguishes the best rolegame
artists from the mediocre ones? If you
could summarize the difference in one
word, its imagination. The good ones
show us things we never saw before,
while the hacks churn out the same
stuff over and over again. Luckily,
imagination isnt an inherited trait,
like eye colour or blood type its
something that can be developed
through experience. I think most
artists in the field can produce good or
even great works. They have the tech-
nical skill; they just need the courage
to experiment with new ways of see-
ing. Only by doing so can they produce
artwork that will be admired by future
generations. *
copyrights:
Rob Lockwood: Copyright 2000,
Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Erol Otus:
Copyright 1980, tsr Hobbies, Inc.
M A R Barker: Copyright 1975, tsr
Hobbies, Inc. Dan Smith: Copyright
1995?, Steve Jackson Games. Aaron
Boyd: Copyright 1996 by Aaron Boyd
Amy Weber: Copyright 1996?,
Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Jim
Halloway: Copyright 1982, tsr, Inc.
Stephen Fabian: Copyright 1987,
tsr, Inc. Walter OConnor: Copyright
1994, Last Unicorn Games
Peasants in a field brought to life by Walter
OConnor (top), Gangbuster wildness from
Jim Halloway (centre), and plane but far-
from-plain landscapery from Stephen Fabian
(bottom).

b r i l l i a n c e & d r o s s