The Best of Times, and the Worst

To mix metaphors, when the shit hits the fan, it pours. Not only did we have a PR disaster, a hacked website, and total chaos when I arrived at work today, we've had some Crafty setbacks, idiots abusing our good name, and otherwise shitty shitty stuff. Work sucked and I have every legitimate right to say so.

On the other hand, I got to see DJ Shadow after a 10 year wait. ROOOOOCK! He's my favorite musician, the man whose sound has defined Ten Thousand Bullets, and the show was fucking amazing. Act 1 of the set was a lengthy mashup of his own compositions rather than the sampadelica he's known for, starting with my favorite song of all time, Building Steam with a Grain of Salt, and then mixing work ranging from Endtroducing to the Outsider with a LOT of B-side material. After the first break, he brought on an unannounced guest - The Gift of Gab! GoG is an astoundingly talented MC, and a total surprise since he was not announced on the tour material and generally fellow Blackalicious member Lateef The Truth Speaker tours with Shadow. The first track they performed was brand new, concocted YESTERDAY by Shadow and GoG, called "Gabracadabra" and the crowd of 1500 ate it up. Act 3 turned out with what was essentially an apology/explination for The Outsider, Shadow's latest album (and quite a departure from his earlier work), then rocking a number of his UNKLE-era tracks, namely Cosmic Annhilation, Rabbit in Your Headlights, Be There, and a few others whose names escape me at the moment. Utterly fantastic.

Also got a chance to literally meet Portland's hottest hip-hop group, the Lifesavas, who opened the show. They release their next album, Gutterfly, tomorrow, which is a soundtrack to a blaxploitation film that doesn't exist. Totally awesome - unfortunately I didn't pick up a copy at the show because I was spending all my loot on Shadow stuff. But they're definately my sort of hip hop - intellectual, clever, not mysoginystic, and political (recommended track: "Resist," a very characteristic slice of Portland). Jumbo the Garbageman and Versatyl were worked up into a lather, totally excited about the new album, and spend the 15 minutes between their and Shadow's sets shaking hands with everyone who hung out for their performance. It struck me as a very Crafty sort of approach - making those sales one record at a time.

So, in conclusion today has not really sucked, and my wife, despite all my teasing, is one of the best gift givers I know. Thank you again, honey, for giving me this chance to have such a wonderful experience with an artist whose work brings me great joy. Now...to bed.

Vas is das? Das ist update!
Hello again! Yes, it really is an update. Really. You're not dreaming. Of course, this is the second time I'm writing it thanks to bizarre system failure, so I may be a bit more brief this time. So without further ado...

Alex News
I can't believe it's been nearly a month since I last updated. What a freakin' month. The adage, 'Never say it can't get worse' has been the quote of the month so far - I nearly lost my job a few weeks ago when the people screwing with me at work decided the budget paying for my position needed to be eliminated. I managed, through much creative maneuvering from my boss, to stay gainfully employed, but we continue to be buffeted by the slings and arrows of outrageous idiocy. You know things are bad at work when you realistically must prepare to defend yourself and your colleagues from any comment any person wants to make about you, just because the administration takes any rumors about you to be true without question.

Seriously.

Anyone need to hire a full-time writer, web designer and project manager in the Portland metro area?

Please?

But enough whining. On to the really important stuff - gaming!

Spycraft News
October should be a good month for the Spycraft faithful out there, with not one, but two - yes TWO - new books coming out. First is the much heralded (and probably horribly overhyped) Most Wanted. Yes, the book *does* exist, and yes, it *is* in the Paradigm warehouse right now. It should be released within the next week or so, and be hitting shelves the week after that. I am thrilled to see it happen, because this book should become the cornerstone of the first third-party Spycraft line out there, and because Mark, myself, and all the folks at Paradigm busted our ass to make it a reality. Stuff you can expect to see:

*A new prestige class - the Terrorist!
*New mastermind options, such as new agendas, threat resources and rules
*Rules for crowds, crowd behavior, and terrorizing them
*A new system for your villains - notoriety - that will make bad guys even badder.
*New feats for performing all sorts of villainous stunts

and the bread and butter:

*18 fully developed NPCs for use as masterminds, henchmen or foils in your Spycraft games. Each villain is given a one page dossier, which may be handed out to your players at the beginning of the mission; a complete write-up detailing their current agendas; organization patterns; combat and advancement strategies; stats for use at 3 different levels of challenge; hooks for using them in your game; and a mission seed to draw them in to existing Spycraft campaigns.

The other release this month is the Sixties decade book, a very-well assembled and executed look into one of the most influential espionage periods of the twentieth century. Beyond the historical and contextual bits, there's stuff for forming era-specific campaigns, a huge set of threats and adventure seeds, a breakdown of the world's political and social turmoil, and a kickass rules chapter detailing not only how EVERYTHING from Spycraft works in the 60's, but also how every NEW rule in this book teleports to the current day. I'm hearing the first reports of it appearing in stores today. It's a great book for more realistically flavored campaigns, and it was cursed from the start. I won't get into specifics, but everything short of God himself descending and smiting the entire team happened during the production. Kudos to BD, Scott, Patrick, Clayton, Rob and (very little kudos here) myself for seeing it done. Get it if you love the Cold War, the Vietnam era, classic Bond films, or just really cool setting books. Only gripe I have is I DIDN'T GET CREDITED SOMEHOW!!! Granted, half of my 20k words on the book came from my initial Africa and Faceman/Snoop efforts, but what a bummer :(

Meanwhile, I have recently finished my eeeevil contributions to Stargate: System Lords and am moving on to The Agency. As you may also know, I've taken over part of the moderation duties on the Spycraft boards, so don't make me regulate on your asses...

Other Gamey Goodness
In other news, I just found out today, that Project X has been green lighted and we'll be entering contract negotiations this weekend! Whoohoo! More as it develops...

My good friend Will Hindmarch has completed the arduous task of Smuggler's Run, no thanks to me. Apparently he got shorted by a contributing writer entirely and had to pick up 20k words he didn't expect to have. D'oh! But knowing Will, this will undoubtably kick ass. Well, I have some classes in there at least - I expect you all to read them and tell me how much more powerful they are than standard DnD classes :)

Also this weekend, the Studios will be having a very special guest - Mr. Scott Gearin himself! Scott's coming up NW-way to visit with colleagues, and he'll be in town Sunday and Monday. I'm sure we will be hitting Powell's (largest bookstore this side of the Mississippi), eating gigantic burgers topped with eggs, cheese, and all sorts of pork products, doing our usual BSing and some work on Project X. I can't wait :)

Scott's visit is proof of one of the most kickass things about the d20 boom - it's put the NW on the map as far as gaming goes. When I was growing up, the games I loved were always made so far away - England, Lake Geneva Wisconsin, you know...but now I can feasibly travel to Seattle or Renton and have a business meeting face to face. Just a few weeks ago, I had a chance to go up and meet with the guys from Mythic Dreams (who are behind a little ENnie nominated game, Dark Inheritance) to talk shop and drink some beers with my buddy (and Most Wanted co-writer) Mark Christensen, whose day job is with Privateer Press. It really is awesome to do games, even if they don't pay much...er, anything significant. Now if we can only get Gencon up here, my plan will nearly be complete....

On the Game Table...uh, Screen: Final Fantasy Tactics
This update's OtGT is unusual, in that we're dealing with a different animal: the video game. Like many of my fellow isolated nerds, growing up in the hood with no other local DnD players left me high and dry for gaming experiences. But in 1989, my solitary little nerd dreams were answered with the release of a game called Final Fantasy. It was everything I loved about gaming wrapped up in a colorful, strategic and engrossing story, that I could play on my own. Many nights were spent in my basement, in front of my 30 year old TV, grinding away at Warmechs and Hydras and Ogres in my quest to vanquish Chaos and save the world. Over the following years, I played many other great Final Fantasy games, such as FFII, (the fantastic) Final Fantasy III and (the downright amazing) Final Fantasy VII. Rarely did I finish these games, but I found so much entertainment in just *playing* them that I didn't care. The experience grew more and more satisfying with each system, and continued as I got older.

But all the hype surrounding Final Fantasy VII almost overshadowed what is perhaps the best Final Fantasy, and one of the greatest game purchases I have ever made - Final Fantasy Tactics. Many wrote it off intially for its foregoing of the RPG genre for a tactical combat game, or it's retro sprite-based graphics instead of FFVII's flashy 3-d modeling, or the almost childlike look of the characters. But those of us who gave this little game a chance found a story that was engrossing and very much adult-oriented, characters that were intriguing and well rounded, and a tactical challenge unlike anything seen in video games before.

FFT starts off as a confession of an old man, telling a story that he knows is heretical - a story of a great man who changed the world of Ivalice forever, but never was in any book. You, of course, are this unsung hero - the son of a powerful noble family whose idealism and thirst for justice leads to your being cast out from the family and the rift between you and your best friend Delita, and ultimately your rise to greatness in your fight against an ancient evil. FFT is heavy on plot - so much so you'll want to check an FAQ online to keep up with the spotty translation - centering around a war between 2 princes fighting for custodianship of a princess who is too young to control the throne. This conflict sparks a gigantic war between their armies - one of noble families, the other of commoner men-at-arms who are now unemployed following the end of a previous war. The cast is huge, with much Machiavellian maneuvering and deception, assassination, torture, hostage taking and blood (heretofore unseen in Final Fantasy games).

What's so cool about FFT is it's party management system. Like it's predecessor, Final Fantasy V (which was unreleased here in the US), and the upcoming Final Fantasy X-2, FFT uses the Job system. Essentially, Jobs are like classes, except that you can freely move from one to the other during battles. During a battle, you gain both experience points which raise your character level, and Job points which you can spend to gain the use of abilities within that job. As you gain levels in certiain jobs, other ones are opened to you. With these purchased abilities, you can then mix and match to create unique and powerful characters. Each character has 2 action abilities (such as special attacks and spells), the first of which is that of the current job, the second which is selected by the player; a reaction ability (like a counter attack); a passive ability (such as the ability to equip certain gear, increase the Job Points gained from an action, or increase attacks or defense); and a movement ability (such as teleportation, flight, increased movement or move-HP increase powers). So for instance, my main character currently is a Knight, which gives him the Battle Skill ability to destroy enemy armor and weapons; the Monk's Punch Art gives him ranged powers and special deadly attacks; the Samurai's Blade Grasp allows him to evade most physical attacks; the Ninja's Two Swords lets him fight with 2 blades; and the Monk's Move-HP Up heals him as he moves around the grid. There's literally an infinate combination of abilities to be used, nearly all of which are useful given the right situations.

FFT has been so influential that it has created its own market. Disgaea: Hour of Darkness and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance are only the most recent games that hope to carry on the high standards and leap the high bar this game set over 6 years ago. Fantatical fans (like myself) religiously look for a game that can hope to capture the magic of this wonderful game. I have once again returned to play after getting stuck a few years ago on a critical battle - in 3 weeks, I have logged over 55 hours of game time, a number unheard of since I was playing Final Fantasy back in 1989. Best of all, you can find this game for cheap - it's been rereleased as a Playstation Greatest Hit and can be had at any major video game or chain retailer, usually for less than $15. So if you have a PS2 or Playstation, you owe it to yourself to give this challenging and engrossing little game a whirl - it's definately worth the price of admission.

Wil-E.-freakin'-Coyote
Ever watch those old Warner Bros. cartoons, with the Road Runner and Wil E. Coyote fighting in the desert? You know, the ones where he gets the Acme 50 kiloton firecracker, lights the fuse, and it blows up in is face, and all left standing there is a pile of ash and pair of eyes blinking quizzically? Yeah, that's me right now. Burnout city baby! A month and a half of late nights, ultra-stress at work and bad personal life juju has caught up to me and I'm just very very tired.

On the Game Table
This is a little idea I had about telling you faithful readers out there what those of us on the design team (and friends in the industry) spend our time playing. I love promoting good games, so I'll be infrequently using my space to share it. And without further ado:

On the Game Table: Iron Kingdoms The Witchfire Trilogy and WARMACHINE by Privateer Press
If I were to define my gaming tastes, I would never call myself a 'fantasy guy.' Sure, I started out with DnD like almost everyone else, but I quickly moved on to Top Secret: SI, TMNT and Other Strangeness and a host of other modern or scifi games when I was growing up. Something about fantasy never really grabbed me - maybe it was the shameless Tolkein ripoffs, the bland storytelling of so many games, or just the tired old game feel that saturated many fantasy games I saw. I was excited when d20 came out - the system seemed to make DnD accessible (and cheap) to play again, and I had been playing White Wolf, Cyberpunk and Deadlands for long enough that I had rinsed most of the bad taste about fantasy from my mouth. My group played through the Pool of Radiance freebie module to get a handle on d20 and it was pretty bland, so I ended up trying Oriental Adventures (themed in a homebrew pan-Asian setting) instead. In a 10th level game, I quickly was overwhelmed by the sheer power of the spells and magic items. The bad taste was lingering again, and it was actually starting to break up our group - the former hardcore DnD players wanted to stick with fantasy, while the GM/players wanted to go back to Deadlands, Project X or something less frustrating. In one last ditch effort to get us all back on the same page, having fun again, I picked up the Iron Kingdoms setting, and I can say with confidence it has made us enjoy fantasy gaming again.

The Iron Kingdoms setting is actually developed through the Witchfire Trilogy, which began as a series of modules for standard DnD with a steampunk feel. The land of Caen (similar in many ways to Tolkein's Middle Earth) is a Western European-styled continent, inhabited by 6 large kingdoms established following the defeat of the Orgoth (think Mongols crossed with Vikings and you're on the right track). A key part of this defeat was the development of technology such as gunpowder, the steam engine, and the steamjack, a steam-powered robot driven by a magically attuned brain called a cortex that can be keyed to a wizard for extraordinary feats. The time is 600 years after the defeat of the Orgoth, when these kingdoms are fully established and frequently war against one another using technology ranging across 700 years of human history, from Dark Age to Victorian Era. The story of Witchfire could fit in nearly any standard fantasy setting, but the creative additions and sparing use of technology in the Iron Kingdoms setting creates a unique flavor of the world on the brink of industrial revolution - a time of chaos and definitive change. The players compendium Lock and Load does wonders for enhancing play in the setting as well, providing new weapons, relgions, player races, skills and so forth. At only $12, it's a worthy investment if you plan in playing thru Witchfire

Similarly, WARMACHINE (all caps, per the creators), a skirmish level tabletop wargame set in the IK setting, has a distinct and entertaining flavor about it that sets it apart from its peers. You lead a small army of warjacks (steamjacks built for...well, war) and infantry against opponents from one of 4 rival kingdoms. Each force is led by a warcaster - a fighter/mage hybrid that is the equivalent of a superhero on the table top - who distributes his focus (a representation of arcane power, leadership and inner strength) to cast spells, enhance his 'jacks or increase his own prowess. Warcasters are almost like DnD player characters, host to a handful of special rules, their own unique spell list, named magic weapons and a feat - a once-a-game game breaking power that effects a huge area of the battlefield, from freezing your enemies solid to making single attacks against everyone within 12" to stripping enemy warcasters of all their magic ability for a turn. The overall power level of models in the game, even at the lowest eschelons of infantry, is high, with many special rules and unique abilities - there is nothing crappy or 'cannon fodder' in this game - so if you are a player of GW product, you may go through a little shock. This favors exciting, risky, over-the-top play and tactics, where decisive well-planned actions can turn a game in a single round. And it's cheap - a boxed force contains a warcaster and 2-4 'jacks totalling around 300 points, where 500 points is the standard tournament sized game. Overall investment averages around $100 to play whatever you want in a force - not bad, all things considered. These are the many reasons I love this game to death. Go Privateer!

Next in On the Game Table, I'll probably be talking about Savage Worlds from Pinnacle, Fantasy Flight's Redline, or some other prattle. More later.

I Hate Moving
Well, this weekend I'm making the big move - into my first house, my own house. God what a pain - it's not so much scary as a pain in the ass making your first purchase a private one. Sure, I'm saving a lot of money in fees and even getting the house lower than market value, but it would have been a whole lot easier if I had a realtor helping me out. I'll probably have to duck out round noon to go home and try and pick up the slack with the preparations (everything is pulled to the surface, but its the miscellany that kills you in the end) so we can move tomorrow. My new house won't have broadband set up til the 11th, so blog posts may be a little more infrequent for a while. I'll still post stuff here as I find inspiration.

In Other News...
I got a prepress draft of Most Wanted on Tuesday and I'm happy with it! The writing still holds up (IMO) after 2 months of not looking at it, and the art is cool :) For those of you who are not AEG forumers, the book contains tons of stuff to tool out your favorite Masterminds, Henchmen or Foils, including a new prestige class (the Terrorist), rules for crowds and hysteria, notoriety, a dozen new feats and tons of stuff for beefing up the Fixer/Pointman Mastermind System, including agendas, threat resources, and other badness. Oh, and there's a rogues gallery of 18 new fleshed out NPCs at three levels of challenge to threaten your good guys, in case you were looking for more. The book was well-received at Paradigm and thus far I've not heard any criticisms from AEG - we should know more about a release schedule and whatnot once Origins is over this weekend. Hopefully it'll be ready in time for GenCon Indy - if so, I'll be 'round to sign it!