Eiru: Part 2 - Danu

Continuing my description of the new fantasy world I've created, we now look at the second race, the Danu. (Danu, by the way, is both the singular and plural form).

Again, to be safe, we shall have the official disclaimer:

The material presented here is my original creation, intended for use with the GURPS system from Steve Jackson Games. This material is not official and is not endorsed by Steve Jackson Games.

The Danu are giants, standing around 9 feet tall, but otherwise, they look like muscular humans. They live underground; specifically, they live in communities called 'sheehers' which translates roughly to 'hollow hills.' They find a hill, dig a passage down to the centre of the hill, and then tunnel a massive underground city off of that first passage. In essence, they build massive underground settlements vaguely similar to anthills, but they always have a single entrance/exit, which must be bored into the side of a hill.

Eiru: Part 1 - Humans

As mentioned in the last post, I will start detailing the fantasy setting I've created. I could use this setting for a book, but I think it would be more fun and more rewarding it to make it freely available for anyone to use. Tell stories in this world, and if you like, tell me about them!

This setting is designed for use with GURPS, 4th Edition. If you know GURPS well enough, you should be able to easily convert to most other systems. Even if you don't, you should get a general idea of how it works. Obviously, I can't post the actual rules here, but you can get GURPS Lite for free from the SJ Games Website. This also means that I'm required to post the following disclaimer:

The material presented here is my original creation, intended for use with the GURPS system from Steve Jackson Games. This material is not official and is not endorsed by Steve Jackson Games.

Ok. That's out of the way. Now, to start with, I will detail the first race: the Humans.

New Fantasy Setting

Perhaps I should have mentioned this a while ago, but I'm finally gaming again. I've joined a co-worker's D20 Star Wars campaign. I'm playing a Kel Dor Jedi. Not an ideal situation, but better than not gaming, right?

I tried to get the group to give GURPS a shot, but one of the players was adamantly opposed to learning a new system. So instead, I've begun a short game for the other two players, just as a brief GURPS intro/taster. We settled on a fantasy/supers crossover; one of them is playing a flying elf who shoots bolts of flaming spirit energy from his hands, and the other is playing a super-speed human. Much hilarity has occurred.

But this has given me the motivation to start reading my gaming books again. I recently started reading the 4th Edition version of GURPS Fantasy. Thus, I have developed two new ideas for fantasy settings.

Survey of Roleplaying Games

Ok, let's get this thing started again. We'll start with an idea inspired by this article on inkwellideas.com. The idea was this: if you had to teach somewhere between five and ten roleplaying game systems with the goal of giving your 'students' an idea of the basic ideas involved in gaming, what systems would be best suited for this 'class?'

I started thinking about this, and here's what I've come up with. I think the best way for what I have in mind is to have three groups of three: the first to cover different rules systems, the next to cover rules/setting integration, and the last to cover artwork/production. There will be some overlap.

With that in mind, we start with group one: rules systems. The three games I've chosen for this set are Dungeons and Dragons, GURPS, and the original Storyteller System.

• Dungeons and Dragons: An example of level-based systems. Really, any edition would work equally well for this, although I think 3.5 is probably the easiest for new players to learn. Alternately, you could use almost any d20 system game, like the Farscape RPG or the d20 Star Wars. Another advantage of 3.5 is that it is a good example of the 'attribute+dice' style of game system.
• GURPS: An example of points-based system. It also demonstrates the possibility of creating a 'realistic' game system, rather than the epic style represented by D&D. Also, of course, a perfect example of a universal system. A perfect example of the 'attribute vs. dice' style of game system.
• Original Storyteller System: An example of a non-points skill-based system. Also an example of how rules can encourage players to focus on character and plot, rather than combat. Good demonstration of how a core system can be modified slightly to accomodate different settings without requiring a universal system, but still allowing crossover between different games. Finally, an example of the 'attributes=dice' style of game system.

Success and Failure

Thanks to the glory of the Order of the Stick, I have just learned of the existence of the Edition Wars. If you, like me, are one of the few people in the gaming world that doesn't play D&D, then you won't know that apparently there are heated debates raging across the internet about which edition of D&D is better. Personally, I don't care; if I'm going to play a fantasy game, I'd rather play GURPS.

Anyway. In googling the Edition Wars to find out more about it, I encountered an argument between two players. A minor point of the argument was one debator was saying that he feels that in 'modern' gaming (as he calls it), there is too much of an assumption that the players will succeed. He feels that at no point is there consideration that the players will fail. This is a problem primarily because the players, under the belief that the GM will not allow them to be unsuccessful, enter situations that are too risky for them to handle.

This is an interesting viewpoint. I don't know if it says more about me that I've never made that assumption, or if it's just proof that I'm an 'old-school' gamer. But either way, it seems like a silly assumption to make.

Board Game Review: Bananagrams

To be fair, this isn't really a board game, as there's no board. The game equipment consists entirely of 144 letter tiles and a banana-shaped zipper bag in which they are all stored. Even so, it's a lot of fun, and I'm going to review it for you now.

For starters, we have the statistics: 

Strategy: 2
Randomness: 4
Complexity: 1
Humour: None
Attractiveness: Useful
Expected Length of Game Play: around fifteen minutes.

Google Wave

Hello and welcome to another installment of the Game Dork's Gaming Corner. First, a quick note: I'm sorry it's been two months since I last updated this blog. I recently got a new job which has been taking up a large quantity of my time and the vast majority of my energy. Every time I sit at the computer, I think to myself, I should update my blog. But I just don't have the mental energy to think of something to say. So, for that reason, I'm going to change the way I update this. It's not going to be an 'every Sunday' activity. I will update this blog when I have something to say. Hopefully that will be roughly once a week, but probably not. Just be aware. It may be easier for you to use the RSS feed or to use your Google account to follow me. That way, when I update, you know, without having to come here to check for yourself.

Now, on to the actual post. I have recently been able to get on the test version of Google Wave. This excites me because I read an article about gaming on the Wave. I have managed to find some people who are interested in trying this with me, so hopefully once everyone has activated their Google account and shared their contact information, we can begin the preliminary details of deciding exactly which game we're playing, agreeing on ground rules, and character creation.

What really amazes me about this is how some people, especially some of the more hard-core gaming fanatics that I know, are opposed to the idea of gaming on Wave. I mentioned on Facebook that I was trying to get people to join me for a play-by-email game on Wave. This seems remarkably obvious to me, since Wave allows for easier organisation of the emails in the gaming thread, messages to specific people in the same thread, and simple and easy integration of images and other objects within the messages themselves.