Push: New Thinking About Roleplaying

I opened my mail recently and got a copy of Push for review. As I said in my last column, sometimes I wonder if I get it at all. There are some very interesting ideas in the "Indie" game scene. Sometimes I think that they are all written in another language because I just do not seem to have the frame of reference for it. I glean brilliance from the work, even if solely from the presentation.

Push is a PDF or print product that is the brainchild of Jonathan Walton and an incredible cast of characters that include Emily Care Boss, Clio Chang, John Kim, Shreyas Sampat, and Eero Tuovinen. This is serious work, from some very serious people. In case you are wondering, I liked Push very much, but it isn't flawless (or I do not get it).

I had said many years ago that roleplaying was not mature until we had social satire and an academic journal. That was realized in the 1990s when Interactive Fantasy was published, along with Hol. While I was peddling body modification and gunplay there were people really trying to stretch the hobby. They succeeded in many ways. I consider them very much the ancestors of Push, and of serious roleplaying in general. I must also mention Theatrix, which drastically changed the way I looked at my games at that same time. Push picks up that gauntlet, long thought lost, and runs with it.

The book is well laid out and very easy to read. At first blush, I did not think that there was enough text on the page, and then I started to read the commentary. Each issue of Push will have a commentator, or commentators, who offer running commentary in the margins. This is a neat idea and allows for a more clearly communicated discourse.

In the introduction, Jonathan answers the question, "Can we define roleplaying?" I think that we may be guilty of the hubris of youth here. I think that truly our perceptions of what we are doing as roleplayers changes much more than what we are actually doing.

The introduction finishes up with what is commonly referred to as a "Call for Papers". Jonathan goes to a lot of trouble to point out that Push is not an academic journal, only he is wrong. Listen, roleplaying needs a serious academic journal. These are serious academics writing in a very scholarly style. Go with it! Embrace what you are and do not hide from it. Similarly, I think that too progressive an attitude runs the risk of those not studying history being doomed to repeat it.

With these criticisms in mind I will say that the idea of independent games are alive and well, and as the hobby becomes more sophisticated the place for ideas like Push becomes clear.

The Fringe

Those of you masochistic enough to read this column for the last few years know how much I loves me some Wu-Shu, Dan Bayn's wonderful take on high-action, high-concept roleplaying. The Fringe is a new setting for Wu-Shu, set in the "not now" of schizophrenia and gunplay. Some players will choose to be hunted by secret conspiracies, and others by aliens or vampires. The differences in those supposed perceptions of these raving lunatics are the main source of internal conflict in the group. Of course the reality, or unreality of the external conflicts are obvious. Be it a coven of vampires or a secret cabal of Atlantean scientists, the players can only overcome the unspeakable evil by banding together and finding the middle ground between their psychoses.

Leave it to Dan Bayn to realize in 28 pages something that would take many roleplaying writers ten times as much to say. At $4.00 for the PDF this is one of the best values in games I have read this year.

GenCon

GenCon went off without a hitch in the purest sense. One of the best run and best content shows in America just gets better every year. The staff is fantastic, the traffic and commerce was brisk, and the games were new and different for the most part. There was so much to do and see that I failed miserably at both. I will try to hit some of the highlights.

The "Indie" game scene gets a bad wrap in many ways. Much of that is deserved, but much more is not. One of the most deserving of these criticisms is in the definition of what is Indie, and what is not. Too many of the Indie crowd despises anything corporate or established as a game company. They should not. People like Chris Pramas and Steve Kenson have worked for themselves and companies of every size. Chris went on to build his own company, Green Ronin, that carried home several Ennie awards this year. They certainly are corporate in several senses of the word, but they are also an independent RPG publisher whose products have pushed the envelope of accepted practice in RPG design and content. Far too many Indie game designers eschew lessons learned from experience and profit.

Green Ronin's True20 is awesome, and it is everywhere. Chris and Steve must have been exhausted after the Ennies. Almost every category seemed to have one or more of Green Ronin's products nominated. Frankly, I cannot wait to see the new Warhammer 40k RPG. If it has half the success of Mutants & Masterminds, the future looks bright indeed for Green Ronin.

Elsewhere in the Indie game scene, I played some awesome new games that take a very different tack with roleplaying. Hero's Banner is Tim Koppang's game of choices and compromise in the callings of life. I liked that the game has a generational aspect all but built in to the mechanics.

Luke Crane's Burning Empires is the fusion of SF themes and ideas with The Burning Wheel. The Iron Empires graphic novels by Christopher Moeller provide the SF themes. I hope to more fully cover the game in a column soon.

Adam Dray's Verge has dice, aside from that most of the trappings commonly associated with a more traditional cyberpunk RPG are missing. In place of a character sheet and a list of guns is the network; an interactive map of characters, edges, flaws, and ideas that provided one of the unique play experiences of the show. Now I just want him to finish the manuscript so the rest of the world can experience it along with us.

Joshua A.C. Newman's Shock: Social Science Fiction also debuted. Though I was not able to demo the game, I look forward to pouring over the book. Hopefully to look at it more depth in a future column.

The most innovative product at GenCon that was not an RPG was the Züca rolling bag. Not only is the bag innovative it is also incredibly functional and durable. The frame and bag can be purchased separately, or you can purchase multiple bags for different styles or uses. The frame includes a built in seat, which was incredibly useful in impromptu meetings, pick-up games, and just flat out being tired at the show. After managing a luggage store for several years, I have seen hundreds of so-called innovative products. Few fit the description. Not only does the Züca fit that moniker, it does so in many ways.

The idea came from the Laura Udall. After seeing her young children experience back trouble from the loads they were required to carry in school. So she and her husband created and designed a bag cool enough for kids and sturdy enough to take the daily punishment necessary to do the job. Usually all I talk about for weeks after GenCon is that new games. The Züca was so impressive I bought one, and it does not disappoint.

Not to give the impression that the Indie scene, and luggage were the only things going on at GenCon, I also have a copy of Promethean from White Wolf, Faery's Tale from Firefly Games, and a new pulpy goodness Hollow World RPG.

Friday night at the Ennies I had the honor of accepting two awards for my friend Chad Underkoffler for Truth and Justice. I thought the Judge's award for innovation was especially apt, and I very much look forward to the Zorcerer of Zo later this year.

Godspeed

Thursday morning at GenCon I got a horrible phone call on the convention floor. Amy Santos, nee Freeburg, had succumbed to leukemia the day before. I had known her for almost twenty years. Amy was the kind of friend that would tell you what you needed to hear, even if it was not what you wanted to hear. She was an amazing woman, friend, as well as a fantastic roleplayer and GM. I am without words to describe the courage, determination, and humor she had in facing her disease. We had talked just a few days before about GenCon. She attended my first GenCon with me in 1992. I had promised to guilt everyone I knew in to sending her free stuff to read in the long hours she faced alone with chemotherapy.

Alas, that was not to be. The rest of the show was a struggle, but Amy would have been pissed if I had not pushed on, so I did. I will miss her terribly, and 36 is just too young to die. The anger and sorrow gets in the way of knowing she is in a better place. My heart goes out to her family whose sorrow must dwarf my own. Especially to her mother, there simply are no words.