Thank Frazetta

Sigh.

Frank Frazetta passed away recently.

I first became familiar with Frazetta’s work when I saw the cover of a fantasy novel my sister’s boyfriend was reading. I must have been nine or ten years old. I can’t remember the name of the book, but the image is fresh in my mind. A muscular hero, under a strange sky. A beautiful woman, almost naked, on her knees beside him. Her arms around his waist. Her eyes turned to him with longing. A serpent of some kind rearing up behind them. Lush, wet jungle all around.

That’s how I remember the image. But I can’t find it anywhere. I think my mind has maybe created a new image over the years, filling in the blanks, working purely on a memory of eroticism and wonder. The image was something like that, though. I can feel it.

I remember the name. Frazetta. “Who painted THIS?” I needed to know. Frazetta. Frank Frazetta. A manly name. A hero’s name. Frazetta. A sexy name. I remember thinking that Frank Frazetta must have spent a lot of time with beautiful women. I remember thinking “Wow”.

I remember trying to read the book. The words couldn’t live up to that cover. The words were dry and sexless. They say “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” They could just as easily say “Don’t let Frazetta fool you.” We’d know what it means. Frazetta could make anything look good.

When I was a teenager, and every day was an awkward climb out of a pit full of hard-ons, it was Frazetta’s women I had fantasies about. There was no internet back then, to give us disposable videos and jpegs of worried, lost, bruised women to misguidedly lust over. What I had was books. Books that fell open to special pages. Book covers that filled my head with incredible, strong women. Savage women who could fight jungle beasts. Women with lumps and bumps and curves and huge hair.

I remember thinking “Wow”.

BOOM! Nae danger!

I think Frazetta’s women were probably the main reason why I got so heavily into Fantasy fiction. Frazetta’s women led me into roleplaying games, and eventually down the path into board games, and here. I would have followed Frazetta’s women anywhere.

Frazetta showed me the truth. He showed me that women are strong, and didn’t need saved. Frazetta is the reason why I’ve been with the same girl for fourteen years now. She’s strong, too. And a bit savage. I worry for the young guys out there today, who form fantasies based on what they find on porn websites. I worry for the women they will meet.

Some say that Frazetta’s work is sexist. The words above are my response.

Thanks, Frank.

Just...sigh.

Back In The Game!

So where have I been?

For the past few months, I’ve been busy working on a BBC TV show. It’s a comedy sketch show called ‘Burnistoun’ and it’s been a huge undertaking. A lot of writing, and six weeks of long filming days. There’s been no time for playing games, and certainly no time to operate a one-man-website.

Here's me in costume for Burnistoun. YUM!

But the work is done. Last night I even got the opportunity to have a 7 hour long pen and paper RPG session. I have a load of boardgames that lie unplayed, untested. I got some great new stuff for Christmas. It’s on. It’s on. I’m back in the game.

I also have games that people have sent me to test. I’m going to get to these too, a huge backlog to catch up with, a huge amount of content for you people to read and watch. I don’t know where to start, there’s so much to play and do. It’s a wonderful problem to have.

It’s been horrible, not having the time to play games. It’s something that you need to make time for, because nothing quite beats getting round a table and losing yourself for a few hours. There’s nothing else that really matches that kind of group fun. Although I imagine swinging might be quite a good laugh, if you’re a bit sick in the head. Dogging too, if you’re even more sick. I’ll stick to the board games, thanks.

So what can you expect from here on in?

More episodes of the show, more reviews, news, features. I’ll hopefully have some guests contributing to the site too, so look out for that.

How long has it been since you played?

Get back in the game!

Going Rogue – Part One

Rogue Trader is the new pen and paper RPG from Fantasy Flight, and it landed in DowntimeTown Towers a couple of weeks ago. Enough time for it to be read, digested, and brought to the table to allow the players to roll up some characters.

I thought it might be nice to keep you all involved in the process as we set out to play Rogue Trader. It might give those of you who are interested in the game a chance to see how it all works, and gain an insight into the new ideas it brings to the table. For those of you who have never played an RPG before, this will be a chance for you to see exactly what an RPG is.

Rogue Trader is set in the Warhammer 40K universe. For the uninitiated, imagine a far future world where everything has gone to shit. The Emperor is a corpse on a throne, surrounded by twisted administrators and political/religious/military bodies operating in His name. The known universe is embroiled in war. Neverending war. Only war.

In this universe, no man is free. Apart from the Rogue Trader. Operating under an ancient Warrant of Trade, the Rogue Trader and his crew have the God-Emperor’s blessing, enabling them to explore the uncharted areas of space in an attempt to establish new trade routes and make CRAZY MONEY.

And that’s where the players come in. The first thing that sets Rogue Trader apart from most of the other RPGs out there is the decision to place new players into the game in a position of power from the get-go. Rogue Trader Player Characters are well-trained, wealthy, own a starship and they oversee the fate of 20,000+ NPC crewmates. Think about that for a moment. No starting out with a shortsword and a pouch containing 10 gold coins here. In Rogue Trader you have a financial empire to control, crewmates to care for, and a ship to maintain and commandeer.

I will be Gamesmastering this foray into the grim far future. Let’s start our series of articles with a look at the first of our players:

PLAYER 1

The character creation process is very deep, and takes a bit of time. It took two sessions to have everybody rolled up, and the starship built and ready to undock. The process is a beautiful balance of luck and design, with players able to make up for any poor characteristic rolls by tailoring their character’s origin and backstory to compensate. When role-playing begins even during character creation, it’s clear something special is happening.

JOANNE

Joanne is the Rogue Trader. The Captain of the ship. Joanne was clear that she wanted her Rogue Trader to be an insufferable braggart with a decadent past. The origin path chart allows her to create a logical and consistent background for her character.

This is not Joanne's path. But an example of how the path works. Each choice on a track allows you to only choose the options directly below and adjacent.

Joanne first chose a Noble Born homeworld from the Home World track. Then, the option directly below, for a Vaunted Birthright. Each option gives your character certain bonuses and penalties. She follows through, right down to the bottom of the Origin Path, where she makes her choice of career – Rogue Trader. The Origin Path ensures that the character you create makes narrative sense. It is, as an example, impossible for someone born on a Death World to become a Rogue Trader. That career is simply “out of reach.”

Joanne’s choices tell us that her character was born into luxury, fell into decadence and drug-taking, and became embroiled in a blood feud that left her paranoid and unable to ignore any insult (the brilliant Brook No Insult trait, which means Joanne must make a Willpower check to restrain herself if someone besmirches her).

Joanne’s characteristics now.

Weapon Skill: 41
Ballistic Skill: 37
Strength: 33
Toughness: 35
Agility: 30
Intelligence: 33
Perception: 36
Will Power: 30
Fellowship: 52

As you can see, Joanne felt that Fellowship, her ability to charm and deceive others, would be her most important characteristic as she plays the game. She’s the leader, the person who will be responsible for keeping morale high, and the person who will have the responsibility of conducting diplomatic exchanges.

(Note for new kids: In an RPG, Joanne will be expected to conduct roleplay conversations with the characters she meets, and when trying to win them round she will need to make a percentile roll on two ten-sided dice. A Fellowship of 52 means she has a high base chance of rolling under that figure, and making a success of her “check.”)

One more characteristic we must note for Joanne.

WOUNDS: 7

Your wound score measures the amount of damage you can take. Joanne feels happy enough with this low total. Happy enough to be a Rogue Trader who can’t take a beating, because she intends to be barking orders and surrounding herself with people who would take a bullet for her.

She chooses her skills, spends some starting XP to tinker with characteristics, and with her starting gear freebie, she buys a Lord Captain’s Baton – a ceremonial staff that will inform onlookers of her importance. Oh, and that she can use to hit people with. Oh, and her ship won’t be able to operate unless she places her baton into the command panel.

The Rogue Trader’s name? Livia. Named after this Livia who held the Roman Empire in the palm of her hand.

And with that, Livia the Rogue Trader prepares to take to the bridge of her Starship.

But who will be joining her on this adventure?

CONTINUED IN PART TWO

The Long Game

Discuss Below!

SPACE HULK DAY

Hopey holds the parcel that's just arrived...

Is it? IS IT? IT IS!!!

SPACE HULK DAY! SPACE HULK DAY! SPACE HULK DAY!

Hopey Versus Space Hulk In Desperate To Open It

Shrinkwrap begone! No foul collectors here!

Sprue The Looking Glass

Full colour Mission Book with plenty of fluff. YES!

The rulebook. Full colour. A Genestealer on front. BAM!

Every single door has UNIQUE ARTWORK. Amazing.

Check out the thickness of the card stock! Swooooon.

Hopey does her very first bit of component bagging.

The soon-to-be legendary debossed map tiles. Beautiful.

Big chunky thick enormous map tiles. Games Workshop have SMASHED IT!

Hopey designs her first mission.

The Broodlord. Oh mammy daddy help me I love it I love it.

The face of a man who has realised that 58 quid was a bargain for the most beautiful production values he's ever seen. And it's SPACE HULK.

HAPPY SPACE HULK DAY!

Please do show me YOUR Space Hulk Day photos in the comments section!

Zaa Ooo Zaa!

Space Hulk – Magic Flavour Ice Cream

This week was supposed to be all about the launch of Campaign Week on the site, but something far bigger and far more important has cropped up. As you’ll have seen in our news section, Games Workshop has announced the release of a new version of their classic board game Space Hulk.

Why is Space Hulk so important? Because it is probably MY FAVOURITE GAME OF ALL TIME.

Space Hulk and I were destined to be together. I want to take this opportunity to tell you the story of how I fell into Genestealers’ arms for the first time, and how life used to be for a Glasgow boy who loved games and toys.

I’m going to be patchy on the ages and dates front, but I want to freewheel this and lay it all out in the way I remember it all happening.

The story is called “Magic Flavour Ice Cream.”

Once upon a time, there was a boy called Robert. He lived in a big Swedish house on the corner of a main road in the North of Glasgow. It was summer, as it always is in stories like this, and Robert had recently been given a very special present by his Auntie Sadie. The present was a big bit of furniture Auntie Sadie didn’t want anymore. A strange big hulking thing. It looked like a much bigger version of this:

It was an impressive big thing, and Robert set about the task of filling it with cool stuff. RPG sourcebooks. Fighting Fantasy books. Action Figures. Piles of Batman and Justice League comics. This Justice League comic was bagged and stuck on the side of the unit, because it kicked off the greatest run of comics in comics history:

The tabletop part of the massive desk/cupboard was used for sessions of RPGs. Robert just loved poring over the DC Heroes 2nd Edition box set of an evening, generating new adventures for his schoolfriends to take part in.

One day, Robert’s friend Graham told him that a boy on the street had some Games Workshop stuff he wanted rid of. Robert, being a boy from a good working class family, could rarely afford to plunder Games Workshop’s wares – which even today seem aimed at a more well-to-do class of youngster, a true negative of Games Workshop’s style of marketing. Anyway, excited at the news of Games Workshop stuff needing a good home, Robert said to Graham “Take me to this boy.”

The boy’s name is lost in the mists of time, sadly, but he lived nearby. Graham arranged the meeting. Robert stood at the foot of a hill, the sun blazing down, waiting for the boy to arrive.

Robert knew of Games Workshop’s activities by reading White Dwarf and seeing an occasional review in old Dragon magazines. He imagined what wonders the boy might be bringing to him. Would it be an old copy of Talisman? Dungeonquest, perhaps?

A small boy appeared at the end of the road. He walked towards Robert. He carried no big boxes, no bags full of lovely stuff. He carried only this: two old-style ice cream tubs. Two big tubs, stacked one on top of the other. Ice cream.

“Ice Cream?” Robert mouthed.

“Stuff’s in here,” the boy said. He popped one of the lids open. Inside, Robert saw a stack of cardboard tiles, and some loose miniatures – monsters of some kind.

“Genestealers,” the boy said.

Genestealers.

Now, this was back in the days when the word “gene” was still part of science-fiction. The word Genestealer set young Robert’s imagination on fire.

A swap was made. Robert barely heard the boy’s explanation as the trade was organised.

“It’s called Space Hulk I lost the box my brother bought me it I have nobody to play it with really so it’s just sitting there yeah those Real Ghostbusters figures look good no I need that one sure if you want to swap aye let’s do it then the rulebooks and everything are all there it’s just the box that’s away.”

All just words, spinning into the summer sky, as Robert’s head filled with visions of being pursued by monsters that don’t just kill you, don’t just eat you, but fuck with your very genes. Steal them, even.

Robert took the Magic Flavour Ice Cream home.

His first games of Space Hulk were played solo. He discovered the concept of Overwatch for the first time. The brilliant, graceful genius of Space Hulk Overwatch. The term Overwatch slipped into his vocabulary.

“Keep an eye out for the teacher, Rab.”

“Nae danger. I’m on overwatch.”

When Robert went to sleep at night, he dreamt this scene:

He was a Space Marine Terminator. And the Genestealers were coming at him from every angle. His heart pumping. Split seconds from death. Praying his bolter didn’t jam. It wasn’t a nightmare, though. It was one of those terrifying dreams young men often have – a fantasy, a joyous liberating fear-fantasy. Like that zombie dream we’ve all had. You know the one.

He was still playing solo. He would be Space Marines, trying to survive, and then he’d be the Genestealers. Every night, after school, laying out the shape of the Hulk. Constructing it from the plans in the Scenario Book. Working from the very blueprints that would make him the man he would inevitably be.

Memories were created that Robert would never forget.

Memories of jammed bolters and the perfect Genestealer flanking maneouvre, while downstairs my Da is watching The Bill.

This isn't my Da, it's Burnside from The Bill.

Memories of a clean Blood Angels advance to mission objective while Robert’s friends Graham and Speil wrestle and punch each other on the floor.

Robert and Space Hulk. For days and weeks and months. Lots of games against others, but the ones that Robert played on his own were the magical ones. Like playing Chess against himself. Punishing himself for his own mistakes. The beautiful design of the game lets strategies get deeper and deeper while the gameplay stays simple and action-packed. Robert needed nothing else. School, home, Claw, bolter, overwatch, jam, flank, kill, survive, die, bed.

One day, Robert suddenly started to get older and leave these things behind. It was like he’d eaten a poisoned apple and had fallen into a sleep. During that sleep games got thrown out and swapped away and lost. Things were completely lost, and Robert, under a spell, would never ever remember what he did with them. DC Heroes. Nightfall. Shadowrun. His original Heroquest. Advanced Space Crusade. Comics. Toys. Space Hulk. All lost. All gone. While asleep.

Robert was very sad about this. As an older boy, when he heard the following song for the first time, he had to go to an open window and stare out of it, pretending he had something in his eye.

He had been asleep. And he’d lost something.

He tried new things. He ate ice cream of many flavours. Something was missing. A man now, not a boy, he made sure to give the video game version of Space Hulk a special mention on his videogame TV show. It was his nod to the boy he left behind.

Then, one day, Robert decided to cut back on his computer game hobby so that he could try to rediscover his earlier ones. That night he had a dream. In the dream, he was a super-soldier in a dark, dead ship. And a Genestealer was hissing in that darkness.

A Genestealer. A Gene Stealer.

Robert bought Space Hulk from a place called “ebay” the very next day. It was the first game of his new board game collection. And this time, it was complete with its box.

Ice Cream in a box? That’s new.

And as you can see from the collection page on the site, they all lived happily ever after!

Exploring Magic 2010

Not long ago, I made my first tentative steps into the world of Magic: The Gathering, a tale detailed in this article. With the recent launch of Magic 2010, the new core set, I thought it might be worth looking deeper into the game with a particular focus on the new cards. I was fortunate enough to be sent a big box of booster packs to run the DowntimeTown rule over, so I’ve got cards “up the wazoo,” as some might say. I hope someone sleeved them before they went up there.

I can’t pretend that I have an in-depth knowledge of the game, but I know what I like, and this article is about something that I’m starting to think I like very much indeed, much to the chagrin of my accountant.

The Magic 2010 Core Set consists of 249 cards. Just under half of them are brand new cards, and the remainder is made up of reprints of “classics.” The classics will, of course, be new to me. Consider this exploration to be very much from the perspective of a new player – the type of person I believe Wizards of the Coast are trying to attract with the new set.

Here we go. Let’s start by opening a pack of cards.

Let's first remove one pack from the big box of packs. What a glorious sight!

The author with a Magic 2010 booster pack. By this point in the process, your heart will be pumping in anticipation of shiny-shinies.

Here they come. The moment of truth approaches. Will there be a valuable Rare in this very pack?! I feel sick.

Whatever else is inside, there's a vampire. Which is good news if you have plans of building a Vampire and Zombie deck of DEATH (and probable failure, but SCARY failure).

The face of a 32 year old man who's just found a bit of cardboard with Ball Lightning written on it.

Opening the booster pack is a key part of the Magic experience. In my less enlightened years, I imagined that this was really what Magic was all about, that this unveiling ritual was the only reason that people really cared about Magic. I imagined that the ugly truth of the game was that in the acronym CCG, only the first letter mattered, and the last existed merely to justify the expense.

But what I’ve discovered is this – Magic is an incredible game. An incredible game. And while the collectable element is appealing (particularly to an obsessive hoarder like myself), it is the game that come first. Every card is a tiny piece of a massive, ever-customisable whole. Every card is a tiny piece of a beautiful game mechanic’s long and dignified history.

Limited experience here, remember, but it appears to me that Magic 2010’s cards give you more than a wonderful introduction to the game – they give you a feel for the vast scope of the whole system.

With that, let’s have a quick video explaining how the game works, for those who don’t know. This video is a couple of years old, but it’s from Wizards of the Coast themselves, and is really quite charming. Look out for lots of awkwardness from the likeable guy on the left, and lots of family friendly trash talk from the lady on the right:

Having quite a few games under my belt now, I can understand where all the “IT’S A MONEY PIT! AVOID!” talk originates from. It’s not, as I thought it might be, about needing to buy cards. Certainly not if you’re not playing competitively. It’s more about wanting to buy cards. The deckbuilding element of the game constantly excites, because with every play you can see how your deck could be configured better. The perfect deck always seems tantalisingly close. You want a big old roster of cards at your fingertips so that you can test your management skills.

Let’s take a closer look at this particular set of 249 cards, then, with some of my favourites. I should say that I’ve only opened 18 packs so far, so this is just a sample:

Mine. All mine! This is a classic card, and one that is a big help when you have a deck dependent on the draw.

That's floating horses there. Floating horses. YES. Creatures that fly can usually only be blocked by other flying creatures in Magic, so this card's lovely for cowardly custards.

I'm not a White player, but I might be tempted to dabble, because this looks like a beast.

I'm told this is an iconic card. It's a flying creature that can generate mana. And it's beautiful. And it also cooks.

And here's my beautiful boy. I dream of the day I manage to get him onto the table. That word there is INDESTRUCTIBLE by the way. BAM!

My favourites don’t have too much to do with how powerful they are, or how rare they are. I tend to like cards that I think will be fun to play. I like the cards with art that appeals to me. ‘Cancel’, for example, won my heart as soon as I looked at it. I mean, seriously, check it:

Cancel. The only card in the world less welcome than a With Deepest Sympathy greeting card.

Just be glad I didn't do my version of Naked Hill Troll.

All in all, I can heartily recommend Magic 2010 as a perfect jumping-on point for the game. It’s hard to imagine any gamer who enjoys clever duel mechanics not enjoying the play experience that Magic provides. With this set, you have an opportunity to learn why classic cards have become classics, and a chance to learn the strengths of the new cards at the same time as the veterans.

I should take a moment to talk about the rule changes that Magic 2010 brings into the game. Being new to the game, I can’t really speak on this with great authority, so I’ll hand over to a veteran player who has played competitively, and knows his shit.

David Whitelaw, of the Sonic’s Ring podcast:

“Let’s not kid ourselves here – the new rule changes introduced with the launch of M2010 have been contentious to say the least. Out of the seven made, everyone seems to be happily in agreement with six of them. Altering the rules of the likes of mana burn makes perfect sense. I have played Magic for five or six years now to a decent standard and out of many thousands, I can count on two hands the number of games where mana burn has been relevant.

But as Bergman suggested, it’s the seventh one that is going to cause problems. Combat in MTG is a wee bit difficult to get your head around initially and the most complicated aspect is the infamous stack. After you attacked, your opponent blocked and everyone was happy, there was a phase where damage went on the stack. Before resolving the damage players could do stuff. In a simple example, it was very common to see a player put damage on the stack then Unsummon their own creature so it could live to fight another day while your opponent’s hit the graveyard.

Now damage resolves instantaneously once everyone is happy with attackers and blockers. A lot of people are suggesting that Wizards have dumbed the game down with this rule change. I disagree with this completely. Under the old rules, if you knew what you were doing, decisions were very obvious – damage went on the stack then you played out whatever trick you had. Now, if we consider my earlier example, you are forced to think through whether to trade creatures or simply stop the damage and then replay your guy.

All that we are seeing here is a knee-jerk reaction to change. People hate change and none more so than MTG players. In my opinion, the changes made to the blocking rules force you to think more deeply about what you do with your resources in game while decision making becomes that much more complex and important. And yet Wizards have achieved this while also removing arguably the most complex, non-intuitive concept new players have to get their head around while learning Magic. It’s a win-win situation.”

I’d like to weigh in on the combat/damage thing here too. The changes that have been made with Magic 2010 might be causing some debate, but the game now plays the way I kinda sorta thought it already did play. Or at least the way it already should. The way it works now seems to be common sense stuff. If I have to explain the game to another player, it’s easier to do now. It makes more sense now. I can see that some little rules exploits and card-combo tactics might be eliminated by the change, but in a gameplay sense, to the new guy sitting here, that old way of playing seems a little bit cheap. The instantly resolving damage moves decision-making to the forefront, and makes the combat more proactive than reactive.

Enough blethering.

Magic 2010 is the gateway that I said the game needed in my last article. It’s here now, and it’s great. Get it ordered and we can shoot the shit about it here on the site.

GamePride: A New Momentum in Gaming – Part 1

You don’t know this yet, but a lot of amazing people play games.

In my time, I’ve seen one prevalent attitude among gamers. We cower a little. We hide our incredible lights under the most baskety of bushels. We seek solace in shady corners of the internet, to discuss games with people like ourselves. We are insecure. We project our insecurities, expecting other people to think we are, at best, “eccentric.” At worst, “a sad sack.”

Despite our hobbies being very social things, we equate our interests with an antisocial lifestyle. We make jokes about not “getting a girlfriend” despite most of us having one, and many of us being female or gay. Or both.

We perpetuate a stereotype. We do it. No-one else does. One glance at a google image search and I can find a photo of a gamer:

He loves Agricola, Dominion and plays Xbox 360

But this guy isn’t a gamer. I’ve just found someone who fits into our collective perverse idea of what a gamer looks like. This guy is an innocent pawn in our terrible game.

It ends now.

It is time for something that speaks to all gamers, be they board gamers, card gamers, pen and paper RPGamers or video gamers.

GamePride is here.

SO WHAT IS GAMEPRIDE?

Good question, although there’s no need to shout.

GamePride is a concept. It’s the idea that people who play games should be proud of their hobby orientation. It’s the notion that we should let nothing change our interests, and that we should no longer ghettoise ourselves in the pursuit of our pastime.

In practical terms, what does this mean?

It means that each of us commit to taking three vital steps:

1. We no longer self-deprecate as a defence mechanism.

2. We actively promote our interests with pride.

and vitally

3. If we aren’t out, we come out. And we out others.

Now, I understand that point three may cause some debate. Let’s imagine you are, for example, the recording artist Usher.

The recording artist and muscleman Usher

The common belief right now is that it would be bad business for Usher to come out and say that he is a gamer. We would imagine that Usher would not benefit greatly from stopping during one of his R&B ballads to tell the front row that the worker placement in Round 13 of Agricola is very stressful, or that the launch of Battlefield 1943 on Xbox Live Arcade was fraught with bugs and annoyances. But we are wrong. Usher’s audience would not care that he enjoys slipping collectable cards into protective sleeves. Indeed, Usher’s audience would likely want to assist with the sleeving, while undressed.

Becoming one with the new momentum, in our new reality Usher “comes out” as a gamer, and all is well.

Now, onto the outing of others. It is perhaps the most controversial aspect of the GamePride movement, but it is essential. Some people will have been brainwashed into thinking there is an element of embarassment in admitting what they are. Left to their own devices, these people will never come to the realisation that ourselves and Usher came to. These people will need a push. So, inform on anyone you know to be gamer, and all will be well.

The Role of Celebrity

As crass as it may seem, the realist accepts that celebrities can normalise activities simply by openly participating in them. The knowledge that a known or notable person participates in the same things you hold dear warms the heart. Let’s look at a few examples.

On the website BoardGameGeek, it is heartening to see Star Trek:TNG star Wil Wheaton exhibiting his GamePride by openly registering his interest in board games. We know from his profile that even this young man below–

Wesley Crusher - never the same since The Game

–has wanted to kick the shit out of his friends during a game of Junta.

Another example – the internet hurrah caused by the beautiful Mila Kunis’ bold exhibition of her GamePride during an interview with Jimmy Kimmel.

Now, we can pretend that celebrities have no bearing on our lives if we wish. But let’s be honest – celebrities have a huge part to play in any movement. They have a voice, and people want to listen. If you or I were to advise someone to try a game of Scotland Yard, we’d maybe have a struggle on our hands. If the lady below–

–suggested that someone sit down with her and take her on in a sealed booster draft game of Magic: The Gathering, she’d probably have no shortage of opponents.

One of our first goals, then, is to encourage gamers who are in positions of celebrity and influence to come out in support of GamePride. We will use all means at our disposal to do this. Ideally, these people will come here and profess their pride. In the comments section below. But any statement of GamePride will do. This will start the ball rolling in a big way.

And we need big balls right now.

It is time to make a stand for GamePride. There is a comments section below that will allow further discussion on the GamePride movement, and more articles will follow detailing further steps in this radical campaign.

If you’re reading this, you’re a gamer who has been fortunate enough to get in at the very start of something historic. You are a pioneer in the GamePride movement. A new momentum in gaming.

And here is our mark. Our flag. Wear it well.

The Red and Green OXO of GamePride

Fighting Fantasy – My Monolith

Where did it all begin for me? This DowntimeTown thing – where did it all actually start? I’ve been asking myself this question for a while, now. Something must have kicked off my interest in gaming, in all its forms. Why am I not one of those guys who smirk and say “Pff! Games? Yeah, right!”

What made me what I am?

Just like in 2001, there was a monolith. And I touched it.

It wasn’t 2001. It was 1983. I was six years old. I was in a shop called John Menzies, in Glasgow city centre, with my ma. It was a Saturday. There was a robotics dancer in a white boiler suit and white mask dancing outside. There was music and laughter. And inside the shop, there was the bold Zanbar Bone, staring back at me. I can remember exactly how I felt looking at him. Nervous. Maybe even a bit scared. I didn’t know his name at that moment. But I knew I would hate him and fear him (and love him) forever. Since that day, whenever I picture the ultimate bad guy, I see Iain McCaig’s Zanbar Bone. I had a dream with him in it only a month ago. He was at a window, with his scythe, looking in at me. I’m almost 32.

The text above him read “A Thrilling Fantasy Adventure In Which YOU Are The Hero!”

Me – The Hero. How could I be a hero? I was a schoolboy. Terrified of my teachers. Anxious.

It was summer, and I played City of Thieves in my back garden for weeks, rolling dice and filling in my adventure sheet. My head was filled with names – Zanbar Bone, Nicodemus, Jimmy Quicktint. I was lost in the winding, labyrinthian streets of Port Blacksand, searching (usually in vain) for the things I’d need to lay Zanbar Bone to rest.

For those who don’t know – Fighting Fantasy gamebooks were Choose Your Own Adventure stories with a combat and inventory system bolted on. The book was split into paragraphs, often 400 or more, and you would navigate between them, making choices and trying desperately to stay alive.

Terror stalks the night as Zanbar Bone and his bloodthirsty Moon Dogs hold the prosperous town of Silverton to ransom. YOU are an adventurer, and the merchants of Silverton turn to you in their hour of need.

Your mission takes you along dark, twisting streets where thieves, vagabonds and creatures of the night lie in wait to trap the unwary traveller. And beyond lies the most fearsome adventure of them all – the tower stronghold of the infamous Zanbar Bone!

I had never experienced anything quite like it. I’d been a reader from an early age. I started young. By the time I picked up City of Thieves I’d read many a Hardy Boys book. I’d even started on Stephen King novels. But nothing had prepared me for this. It was a story, yes. But it was a story with ME in it. Me! Of all people to have in a book, they chose me! A freckly little Glaswegian boy who was missing his recently-passed Granda.

I was staggered.

I was influencing the world of the story. I could choose where to go, what to do. I had always seen narrative as a conspiracy that I could only see along the surface of – a path navigated by a hooded stranger who would let me see what he wanted me to see, and no more. But in City of Thieves I found that narrative was suddenly a collaboration. A beautiful drunken singalong song. A sea-shanty.

It became my mission in life to get my hands on every Fighting Fantasy book in existence. After all, I was the hero, right? I believed that now. I had a responsibility. And I wanted to sing.

This was next:

The Forest was nightmarish. The Hero (that’s me, by the way) struggled with that long, confusing journey to Stonebridge. My dice seemed to be cursed. YOU ARE DEAD. YOU ARE DEAD.

I was in love. I enjoyed failing. I took death on the chin (which was just as well, because there were a fair few cruel Instant Death moments inside the Forest) and loved rolling up a new character and setting out again. You could not keep me down. I was indefatigable.

Fighting Fantasy started to creep into my real-world play. My childhood pal, Matthew Cook, would come down to my garden and I’d persuade him to take on the role of one of Ian Livingstone or Steve Jackson’s creations. And then I’d attack him. Good thing – I didn’t have to roll a dice before that fight. Bad thing – Matthew was strong as an ox and could fling me about at will. But like I said, I loved to lose. I loved the bittersweet taste of heroic failure.

Glorious defeat. It’s something that has stayed with me. When I play a boardgame with people, I only really care about winning if it’s a “Battle of Wits!” style of thing. If it’s very theme-heavy, with a lot of narrative in there, I quite enjoy being punished. I enjoy playing Arkham Horror and being smashed by the King in Yellow. Heroes do heroic things, yes. And it’s great when they do. But heroes should also fail. And die.

And that’s why I loved this beauty:

Stranded miles from anywhere on a dark and stormy night, your only hope of refuge is the strange, ramshackle mansion you can see in the distance…

But entering the House of Hell hurls you into an adventure of spine-chilling and blood-curdling terror. The dangers of the torrential storm outside are nothing compared to the nightmarish creatures that await you within its gruesome walls.

Be warned! You must try to keep your fear under control – collect too many FEAR points and you will die of fright. Can you make it through the night without being scared – to death?

I played House of Hell differently from how I played the other books. I was a horror film nut, and I wanted to behave inside the House the way I knew a Hero from a horror film would behave. I wanted to adhere to horror convention. I set out to make all the worst possible decisions. I’d walk blindly into danger. I’d take the path that looked the scariest. I’d hope to fail with my dice rolls.

It was a bloodbath.

Fighting Fantasy books were a massive part of my life in those formative years. Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson (and Joe Dever of Lone Wolf) are up there alongside Stephen King as people who inspired me to write.

But I see now that they also inspired me to game. Those Fighting Fantasy experiences were the blueprint for a life of seeking out ways of making ME the Hero. Why did I play computer and video games? For the very same reasons I read those books. To feel that sense of empowerment you get from taking someone else’s world and changing it into your own, at least for a little while.

And, crucially, why do I play tabletop games? Why is DowntimeTown here?

Because I love to sit at a table and create a shared narrative with people.
Story as singalong.
That Port Blacksand sea shanty again, as loud and wonderful as it ever was.

We’re going to be doing something quite special with Fighting Fantasy gamebooks down the line. We’ll keep you posted.

Tags: City of Thieves, Fighting Fantasy, Forest of Doom, House of Hell, Iain McCaig, Ian Livingstone, Joe Dever, Lone Wolf, Steve Jackson

Into The Magic Circle

June 23, 2009 by Robert  
Filed under Board Game Articles

15 Comments

Magic: The Gathering.

Somehow, the game managed to pass me by. When the game was launched, back in the early nineties, it coincided with the first bloom of my interest in girls. I was a late starter. I was past sixteen before it even registered that I was a pupil of a school (All Saints Secondary School in Glasgow, fact fans/stalkers) where every girl had a thing for tiny skirts and thigh-high black socks. All of a sudden, there was only one thing I wanted to tap, and it wasn’t a Land Card. Tap? Get it? Just getting the obvious jokes out of the way early doors. (Oh, by the way, I don’t want anyone thinking I was some gigolo type in school. I lost my virginity at 19. A late starter, I told you.)

By that age, my board game buying had slowed. I remember buying the Army of Darkness board game. One of my last purchases before video games stole me away. It was an awful thing. Terrible cheap components. A cash-in designed to exploit young guys like me who would buy anything with Bruce Campbell on the front. It was one of the last straws. Girls and music and video games had lit a fire in me. Board games and pen and paper RPGs? They’d just become so unsexy.

Magic never had a chance. I think the first time I saw people play Magic was in a little shop upstairs in DeCourcy’s Arcade in Glasgow’s Cresswell Lane. I was in buying Funkadelic and Parliament CDs. And there, in the corner, were guys my age sitting at tables playing cards. I actually remember asking someone what was going on.

Me: So what’s the script here?
Young guy: They’re playing Magic.
Me: They’re playing what?
Young guy: Magic. It’s a card battle game.
Me: Is it?

And with that “Is it?” I remember that I was chuckling on the inside. Guys my age playing “card battle games”? When there was funk to listen to and girls to pursue? I was a traitor to the cause back then. Going through that “put away childish things” phase. Pretending I wasn’t the total geek you see before you today.

And so it went on. Fleeting glimpses of Magic: The Gathering matches in comic shops. Overheard discussions of the latest cards in video game shops. I rolled my eyes every time. And yet I’d never even held a Magic card in my hand, never mind knew what the game was or how it played.

Until this weekend just past.

I was in a Borders book shop on Saturday. My girlfriend was browsing, looking for a Father’s Day gift. I was drawn to the SALE section, as ever. And there, alongside some terrible celebrity cookery books and overpriced wooden bookmarks, was Magic. Booster packs. Loads of them. Reduced from two quid fifty to a pound a pop.

A pound. Only a pound. And my days of shameful eye-rolling at things that were actually aimed at people like me were long behind me.

I picked up a booster pack. I only knew it was a booster pack because it said BOOSTER PACK on the front. The trouble was… it didn’t say anything else. Sure, it had a name on it – this one was MAGIC: THE GATHERING – LORWYN BOOSTER PACK. Whatever the hell that is. But it didn’t tell me anything. It didn’t tell me what I needed to play. It didn’t tell me whether it was an expansion thing or a main game thing or if you could mix the boosters or how many boosters were needed to play a game or anything or anything or ANYTHING. But a pound a pack is a bargain, right?

I made a phone call. Phoned Kenny, asked him to do some Googling for me. “Find out if you can mix all the boosters, if you can use different types together.” I rang him back five minutes later. It was a tentative yes. Good enough for me. A pound a pack is a bargain, right? Sure. Of course it is.

I bought 26 packs. The guy behind the counter looked at me with an “Is it?” in his eyes.

Home, with almost 300 cards to open and sort through. Excited. Seriously excited. People like us, board gamers, geeks, nerds, we love opening shit, right? I open one pack. It’s all jibber-jabber. I haven’t a clue what I’m looking at. Lovely art, though.

I look at what’s written on the card. Sure. A Simic Guildmage. We all know what that is, right? A little bit of panic creeps in. I have no idea what I’ve just spent almost thirty quid on.

Then I remember that months ago I picked up a Magic starter set thing when I saw that on sale. I dig it out. There’ll be rules inside, right? There is. A big poster-sized sheet. I spread the thing on the table. I scan the rules. Seems simple enough. I check through the cards that come with the starter pack.

“ENOUGH CARDS TO GET YOU STARTED!” it says. And then casually mentions that there’s only really enough for two smaller-sized limited starter decks, fella. And those decks aren’t actually the proper things at all. Oh, and you’ll have to get out and buy more to make proper decks and stuff, fella. But, yeah, in the meantime “ENOUGH CARDS TO GET YOU STARTED!” Kind of.

I read about Land Cards. You need to tap land cards to cast spells and summon creatures. You need to play and tap Land Cards. Land Cards seem to be the key. I check how many I have.

I have 24 Land Cards. I have 26 pounds worth of booster packs. Almost 300 cards. And only 24 Land Cards. Now, when you bear in mind that my original plan was to buy all these cheap cards and then have fun constructing a couple of good decks for myself and my girlfriend to play with, this Land Card thing becomes a total bastard.

I’m confused again. I re-read the rules. How was I to know you need Land Cards aplenty before you can play the game properly? Is it so wrong to assume that if you buy HUNDREDS of cards you might be able to…you know…PLAY THE FUCKING GAME?

This is me realising I'm light on Land Cards

Have no sympathy for me, though. A man should always take care to inform himself before entering a new world. I didn’t do that, and I paid the price. And it’s karma, for all those times I rolled my eyes.

The game itself? I feel like I have a handle on how it works. Not by playing with the actual cards, of course. (Because, and you may have heard this story, I don’t have enough Land Cards to make decent decks.) But by playing the trial version of the recently released Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers Xbox Live Arcade game. There’s a tutorial in there, and I’ve let it lead me through the basics. And you know what? It looks like Magic might actually be a wonderful game.

It just isn’t an easy game to start. It feels like a world that’s difficult to force your way into. It’s difficult to know what to buy first, or how to tailor your purchases so that you have enough game to be getting on with. I’ve often heard people saying the game’s a money pit. And I’ve always thought “yeah, you just have no self-control.” And yet here I am, with all these lovely cards, and no way to play without shelling out more cash for a couple of theme decks or starter packs or-

And see? There we go again. I don’t actually know what my next step is. I don’t actually know what I’m doing yet. I’m mystified. Baffled. Worried.

Worried because last night I opened a pack and a beautiful shiny thing came out. A shiny foil card. A forspecial. I held it under a lamp and watched it shimmer. For a moment, it seemed to have just as much appeal as any funk CD or thigh-high sock. It was beautiful. Magical. And I knew I wanted more.

What can I tell you? I’m a late starter.

Tags: CCG, Magic: The Gathering

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