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I need to preface this photo with a confession. I love print. I find it disorienting and unpleasant to read on an e-reader. I didn't want the RPG PDFs sitting on my computer to go unread, unplayed, and unappreciated. All of this is why I print out my RPG PDFs and put them in binders on my bookshelf. My awesome wife lately came up with a cool way to decorate using those PDF binders and cool album covers that she had picked up over the years. So here is a before and after picture. If you have binders that need a little sprucing up and album covers that need showing off, I highly recommend this technique. 
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+Michael Miller's 2016 edition of With Great Power looks like a really cool game. This version, called the "Master Edition" - and you'll see why in a moment - is a complete reimagining of the game and very different from the 2005 version.
The Master Edition is "Descended from Monkeydome" - aka, it uses the system +Epidiah Ravachol designed for Monkeydome and - dare I say perfected? - for "Swords without Masters." This is the first game that is descended from Monkeydome that I have read, and it blew open a few doors in my mind to how a game can make use of the phases and tone-shifts that are at the heart of play in "Swords without Masters." Character creation looks like a blast, and as the hero players build their heroes, the villain player builds her villain, complete with monomaniacal master plan. There is a fantastic set of tables at the back of the book to inspire ideas for powers, origins, relationships, as well as the elements of the villain's plans. Everything about the game eases the creative pressure to give you something inspired to say that will push the story in interesting and productive directions. This is a tiny, but I think effective, example of what I'm talking about: After you use the random tables to jolt your thinking about your hero, and after you create a quick sketch of who they are, you are not allowed to give your hero a superhero name. Everyone else has to propose a name, and you can choose from that list, or reject them all an call for another round of proposals. It's a simple and effective solution to avoid creative freeze. All the things that make "Swords" an incredible experience are here - the prompting of other players to tell how their hero performs incredible deeds, the creation of a list of awesome things players say that eventually trigger the end game, shifting tones, unexpected stymies, mysterious questions that can only be answered as the game draws to a close. And to that, it adds everything you love about superhero stories, including how the heroes' super lives collide with their normal lives, as well as the piecing together by the heroes of what the villain is up to and how to stop her. The book is a great read, and the game looks awesome. Moreover, if you are interested in monkeying with the Monkeydome, this is a great place to start if you want to see how the game can be adapted and stretched. Check it out. Steal Away Jordan has so much cool stuff going on.
I love the creation of goals and tasks that drive all the action of play, and that the GM is not allowed to know what those goals and tasks are. I love the thematic impact of the GM's determining the PCs' "worth" at the beginning of play and at the end of each session. I love that minor bargaining and conflicts allow the players to gain temporary dice for upcoming rolls. The players are driven to create bargains and conflicts to better position themselves for future trouble. I love that accomplishing tasks builds up your "worth" pool for that major goal. Together, the players drive the entire story as proactive heroes, always pushing for what they want. I love that death is always on the line when you push a roll or gamble for additional luck. I love that you can play your own ghost if you do die. I love the use of "lucky sevens" thematically throughout the game. Steal Away Jordan is a sharply designed game. My only wish is that there was a little more guidance in the book for the GM. Oh, and if you're a fan of Poison'd, you should read Steal Away Jordan. The influence of Ellingboe's game on Baker's is prominent and interesting to see and compare. I just finished reading +Jason Morningstar's Grey Ranks, and it is a beautifully designed game.
Here's a brief overview of the things I love about it: I love that character creation and character discovery happen together in the first chapter of play. A full game plays out over 10 chapters through 3 full sessions. The first chapter is divided into three parts: character creation, the first mission, and the finishing of character creation. You first establish enough details to know how to play your character. Then after you run a diceless mission, you establish what your character cares about and what their reputation is among the other PCs—or in other words, you figure out why you play your character. I also love the built in death spiral that is avoidable, but only with some miraculous rolls of the dice. It is almost inevitable that the losses will pile up and the characters driven toward losses both personal and political. As it was in history, the Uprising is a lost cause. We are playing to figure out what our young characters can make of it and what it will cost them personally. I love the way growth and change is mapped in the game. Characters’ reputations begin as negative traits that can eventually be turned into a positive opposite to show their growth. Similarly, the grid that is the center of play maps the constant ups and downs that makes up the trajectory of the character’s emotional state. I love the support the game gives the players to create missions and personal scenes. Between Radio Lightning (a radio broadcast that precedes each chapter of play with a bit of data about what is the state of the Uprising on that specific day) and the selected situation elements (derived by where your character is on the shared grid) and what has already happened in the story, players have everything they need to create unique and gripping scenes. It is especially cool that elements can be reused and reintegrated into the story to create natural call backs and recurrences. It’s such a simple and effective way to create such a literary technique that it borders on brilliant. I love the use of Reputations to give you larger dice and the use of the Thing You Hold Dear to give you rerolls. These tools create a natural changes in both the characters and the narrative. Players will feel the natural desire to use them followed by pleasure in seeing them enter the fiction both thematically and dramatically. One by one, the Things Held Dear will fall in the name of keeping back the darkness. Players would have to work actively against the system in order to not have a beautifully and painfully tragic tale of loss and coming of age. Everything in the rules takes you where you want to be. There have been several kickstarters recently for RPGs for which there is no paperpack production. Why is that?
I assume there is a straightforward financial reason, but aesthetically I'm a huge fan of paperbacks and not so much of hardback books. It doesn't hurt that paperbacks are generally more affordable, but cost isn't even my primary concern. I'm hoping what I'm seeing is not a trend, and if it is that it will not continue to be a trend. |
Jason D'AngeloRPG enthusiast interested in theory and indie publications. Archives
April 2023
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