The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Last month, there was some talk on the RPGNet forums about the nature of the net and the purpose of online zines. After all, with big guns like RPGNet, Gaming Outpost and Pyramid around, what need is there of tiny amateur publications? They don't get many readers, so why bother submitting to them? And since they must attract less quality material, why bother reading them? And worst of all, there are so many out there, who wants to trawl the net looking for the one good article in the pile of tosh?

There are counter-arguments to this, however, and the biggest of these is this: niche. The big sites on the net are big precisely because they appeal to everyone. They talk about general, meta-gaming issues that everyone will find interesting to read, and indeed everyone can write about. Many small zines make the mistake of taking this same road, if only because it makes it easier to procure material. The end result, however, is far too often they go under, as they cannot compete with the big sites.

Yet the other alternative can be worse. Some zines focus so tightly on one factor they are totally useless to anyone who doesn't think like the small handful of authors. You know the ones - where half the articles are about detailing the setting of the editor's D&D campaign or are anecdotes or rants stemming from the game the editor played last week.

The key is to get the niche balanced. Something tightly focussed so you can serve that niche with great depth and detail, but still open enough to be read by a wide audience. Common ways of doing this include focussing on a particular game product or line (such as The Unspeakable Oath (Call of Cthulhu), Ex Libris Nocturnis (World of Darkness)) or a genre (eg Serendipity's Circle or Demonground, both focussing on horror). Some zines focus on a particular style or type of content: reviews, columns, industry news, philosophical articles or emotional rants, and so on. Each trying to be different in their own way, and with their own levels of success.

And let's face it - in the end, being different is really what it comes down to. Sure, a zine has to be good. But for it to be worthwhile of your time, it has to stand out as well. And to do that, it has to have focus and that focus has to be fairly unique. Far, far too many fail this first test, being just another mishmash of metagaming articles, tips on GMing, reviews and anecdotes that are legion across the net. Or indeed, they have decided that being such a mishmash is their focus. Which is fine, and certainly makes for a good mag. But it doesn't exactly make you stand out and in this crowded marketplace, this is the real key to success.

Then there's the zine that is not only tightly focussed on a niche that is totally unique on the net, it is a niche that no-one has ever though to tap into before anywhere. And yet it is the one of the biggest niches in gaming. That niche is dysfunctional gaming, and the zine is Critical Miss.

What is Critical Miss? It is a quarterly online zine edited by Jonny Nexus and Doctor Bubba, which may or may not be their real names. It can be found at http://www.criticalmiss.com, a URL so bloody obvious you can even remember it while drunk, which is a nice touch. CM has been around for five issues now, and is now very much in the swing of things in terms of smooth production and regular quality.

The web design is smart and good looking, making a very good use of hyperlinks and useful navigation buttons, without ever hurting the readability of the material. The zine features articles, rants, jokes, reviews, thoughts, guides for players and GMs, system and setting examinations, letters, quizzes, surveys and a whole bunch of other stuff that defies classification. It's the kitchen sink concept, but it still works because it is all targeted to the dysfunctional gamer.

What is a dysfunctional gamer? Well, as the zine says: "We all want to be good roleplayers. But somewhere along the way, life gets in the way." For many of us, gaming is very often far from the perfect ideal we like to think it is. Roleplaying disappears for grandstanding and hack and slash. Evenings collapse into the chaos of arguments and bad puns. Campaigns implode after just one adventure. Players are selfish and disinterested, GMs are lazy and power-mad. Household pets are ritually sacrificed, and nobody cleans up the rug.

Most RPG articles and zines don't really dwell on such things. They either say these habits are bad and teach you how to break them, or they sweep them under the carpet and talk about how to add more depth to your villainous NPCs or introduce free-formed romantic subplots to your ongoing campaign. At worst, they even pretend such concerns are unimportant - and that munchkins and their kin should not even be reading their precious article. And yet, one look at how many people read and love Knights of the Dinner Table confirms that in truth, there are probably a lot more dysfunctional roleplayers out there than functional ones. Until now, they haven't had a zine to call their own. Now they do.

Not that Critical Miss actually celebrates the munchkin mindset. But they accept it and embrace it along with all forms of dysfunctional roleplaying, admitting that this is a major chunk of our hobby, and one that should be addressed. Their material can thus be specifically tailored to be directly applicable to those of us in this category.

Being a dysfunctional gamer myself, I found the material here to be quite a breath of fresh air. Here was a collection of articles, that were, well, useful. Practical, handy information that can be directly applied to my games. I've lost count of how many articles in other zines I've finished thinking, "well, that would work, if I had a good group, but I don't". That never happens with Critical Miss articles.

Some highlights? "GMing with nothing" impressed the hell out of me - an article on how to keep the players fighting among themselves so they don't realise you didn't have time to prepare a plot that night. Then there was "Playing Magic Badly And Still Having Fun", a list of devilish tricks to losing at Magic but without letting your opponent have any thrill of victory. Issue three featured an excellent piece on the virtues of Rules Lawyering, and how to teach yourself to do it better. The star of issue four offered GMs advice on putting the smack-down on smart-ass Jedi PCs in Star Wars.

As an example of content, this article points out that a Jedi can use Detoxify Poison to win any drinking game, and thus never need want for money ever. I know my players would think of this idea, and I bet I'm not the only GM in the same situation. Before Critical Miss came along, we had no way of being warned of such things. Now we do, and I must say that makes me very happy.

The latest issue, #5 is just out and is the most extensive and best yet. It contains three free games, a whole stack of articles, a few brilliant jokes and a wonderful story about a psychotic washing machine. The washing machine one is another good example of CM's style: it's got a great point to it underneath, but it's mostly a cracking story about possessed appliances. A CM article might not always have a incredibly useful or illuminating point to it, but it will never, ever be dull.

Problems? Sure. CM takes a pretty flippant, light-hearted approach to most things, so if you're looking for real meat, you won't find it. The articles here are short, sometimes very short, and packaged for quick and easy digestion. This limits the scope and depth of analysis the articles can take, but it also means you can get one crystal clear idea very quickly, rather than wading through a ten page rant before hitting the point. What they sacrifice in depth they make up for in convenience.

To make reading even easier, articles more than a few paragraphs are almost always broken up over several sequential scenes, something people might find annoying. It annoyed me too at first, but now I find it quite useful. If you've got plenty of time to read over some detailed essays, you don't need CM. But if you are like me and like to read a website in snatches while at work, CM is perfect for diving in and out of whenever you have a few minutes to spare. This is not only a welcome change to many sites, it is also perfectly in keeping with the tenets of this zine - dysfunctional gamers don't even have time to prepare, so they certainly don't have time to churn through a few thesis worth of gaming theory.

This wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am attitude runs through the content as well, and very often the brusqueness is accompanied with crudeness. If you don't appreciate an undergraduate sense of humour, you'll find a lot of the material here offensive. In fact, no matter who you are you'll probably find some of this zine childish, stupid or just plain pathetic. There's a fine line between funny, ironic rudeness and plain unfunny, annoying rudeness, and this line is crossed regularly (and with wild abandon and fervent glee!) at CM. Every reader will draw their line in a different place, and this will determine just how much you enjoy this zine.

If you're not a dysfunctional roleplayer, and can't understand how RPGs and video games can be very similar things, or take your hobby too seriously, you won't enjoy this one. On the other hand, if you have ever picked up a Knights of the Dinner Table and thought "It's like they listened to my group and put it in these pages", then this is a must have. It's the zine you always wanted, that tells you that you aren't alone in the world and writes articles you can always really relate to. It is to zines what Paranoia is to RPGs, and there's no recommendation higher than that in my book.

Simply put, it's unique focus makes it one of the best zines on the net. Just what the hobby has always needed. Get it before you kill your players in a fit of apoplectic rage.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Critical Miss
Author: Jonny Nexus and Doctor Bubba Category: magazine Company/Publisher: Critical Miss Gaming Society Cost: Free! Page count: n/a Capsule Review by Steve Darlington on 07/31/00. Genre tags: Fantasy Science fiction Modern day Historical Horror Far Future Space Comedy Anime Espionage Conspiracy Post-apocalypse Old West Vampire Gothic Asian/Far East Superhero Diceless Generic Live-action	Last month, there was some talk on the RPGNet forums about the nature of the net and the purpose of online zines. After all, with big guns like RPGNet, Gaming Outpost and Pyramid around, what need is there of tiny amateur publications? They don't get many readers, so why bother submitting to them? And since they must attract less quality material, why bother reading them? And worst of all, there are so many out there, who wants to trawl the net looking for the one good article in the pile of tosh? There are counter-arguments to this, however, and the biggest of these is this: niche. The big sites on the net are big precisely because they appeal to everyone. They talk about general, meta-gaming issues that everyone will find interesting to read, and indeed everyone can write about. Many small zines make the mistake of taking this same road, if only because it makes it easier to procure material. The end result, however, is far too often they go under, as they cannot compete with the big sites. Yet the other alternative can be worse. Some zines focus so tightly on one factor they are totally useless to anyone who doesn't think like the small handful of authors. You know the ones - where half the articles are about detailing the setting of the editor's D&D campaign or are anecdotes or rants stemming from the game the editor played last week. The key is to get the niche balanced. Something tightly focussed so you can serve that niche with great depth and detail, but still open enough to be read by a wide audience. Common ways of doing this include focussing on a particular game product or line (such as The Unspeakable Oath (Call of Cthulhu), Ex Libris Nocturnis (World of Darkness)) or a genre (eg Serendipity's Circle or Demonground, both focussing on horror). Some zines focus on a particular style or type of content: reviews, columns, industry news, philosophical articles or emotional rants, and so on. Each trying to be different in their own way, and with their own levels of success. And let's face it - in the end, being different is really what it comes down to. Sure, a zine has to be good. But for it to be worthwhile of your time, it has to stand out as well. And to do that, it has to have focus and that focus has to be fairly unique. Far, far too many fail this first test, being just another mishmash of metagaming articles, tips on GMing, reviews and anecdotes that are legion across the net. Or indeed, they have decided that being such a mishmash is their focus. Which is fine, and certainly makes for a good mag. But it doesn't exactly make you stand out and in this crowded marketplace, this is the real key to success. Then there's the zine that is not only tightly focussed on a niche that is totally unique on the net, it is a niche that no-one has ever though to tap into before anywhere. And yet it is the one of the biggest niches in gaming. That niche is dysfunctional gaming, and the zine is Critical Miss. What is Critical Miss? It is a quarterly online zine edited by Jonny Nexus and Doctor Bubba, which may or may not be their real names. It can be found at http://www.criticalmiss.com, a URL so bloody obvious you can even remember it while drunk, which is a nice touch. CM has been around for five issues now, and is now very much in the swing of things in terms of smooth production and regular quality. The web design is smart and good looking, making a very good use of hyperlinks and useful navigation buttons, without ever hurting the readability of the material. The zine features articles, rants, jokes, reviews, thoughts, guides for players and GMs, system and setting examinations, letters, quizzes, surveys and a whole bunch of other stuff that defies classification. It's the kitchen sink concept, but it still works because it is all targeted to the dysfunctional gamer. What is a dysfunctional gamer? Well, as the zine says: "We all want to be good roleplayers. But somewhere along the way, life gets in the way." For many of us, gaming is very often far from the perfect ideal we like to think it is. Roleplaying disappears for grandstanding and hack and slash. Evenings collapse into the chaos of arguments and bad puns. Campaigns implode after just one adventure. Players are selfish and disinterested, GMs are lazy and power-mad. Household pets are ritually sacrificed, and nobody cleans up the rug. Most RPG articles and zines don't really dwell on such things. They either say these habits are bad and teach you how to break them, or they sweep them under the carpet and talk about how to add more depth to your villainous NPCs or introduce free-formed romantic subplots to your ongoing campaign. At worst, they even pretend such concerns are unimportant - and that munchkins and their kin should not even be reading their precious article. And yet, one look at how many people read and love Knights of the Dinner Table confirms that in truth, there are probably a lot more dysfunctional roleplayers out there than functional ones. Until now, they haven't had a zine to call their own. Now they do. Not that Critical Miss actually celebrates the munchkin mindset. But they accept it and embrace it along with all forms of dysfunctional roleplaying, admitting that this is a major chunk of our hobby, and one that should be addressed. Their material can thus be specifically tailored to be directly applicable to those of us in this category. Being a dysfunctional gamer myself, I found the material here to be quite a breath of fresh air. Here was a collection of articles, that were, well, useful. Practical, handy information that can be directly applied to my games. I've lost count of how many articles in other zines I've finished thinking, "well, that would work, if I had a good group, but I don't". That never happens with Critical Miss articles. Some highlights? "GMing with nothing" impressed the hell out of me - an article on how to keep the players fighting among themselves so they don't realise you didn't have time to prepare a plot that night. Then there was "Playing Magic Badly And Still Having Fun", a list of devilish tricks to losing at Magic but without letting your opponent have any thrill of victory. Issue three featured an excellent piece on the virtues of Rules Lawyering, and how to teach yourself to do it better. The star of issue four offered GMs advice on putting the smack-down on smart-ass Jedi PCs in Star Wars. As an example of content, this article points out that a Jedi can use Detoxify Poison to win any drinking game, and thus never need want for money ever. I know my players would think of this idea, and I bet I'm not the only GM in the same situation. Before Critical Miss came along, we had no way of being warned of such things. Now we do, and I must say that makes me very happy. The latest issue, #5 is just out and is the most extensive and best yet. It contains three free games, a whole stack of articles, a few brilliant jokes and a wonderful story about a psychotic washing machine. The washing machine one is another good example of CM's style: it's got a great point to it underneath, but it's mostly a cracking story about possessed appliances. A CM article might not always have a incredibly useful or illuminating point to it, but it will never, ever be dull. Problems? Sure. CM takes a pretty flippant, light-hearted approach to most things, so if you're looking for real meat, you won't find it. The articles here are short, sometimes very short, and packaged for quick and easy digestion. This limits the scope and depth of analysis the articles can take, but it also means you can get one crystal clear idea very quickly, rather than wading through a ten page rant before hitting the point. What they sacrifice in depth they make up for in convenience. To make reading even easier, articles more than a few paragraphs are almost always broken up over several sequential scenes, something people might find annoying. It annoyed me too at first, but now I find it quite useful. If you've got plenty of time to read over some detailed essays, you don't need CM. But if you are like me and like to read a website in snatches while at work, CM is perfect for diving in and out of whenever you have a few minutes to spare. This is not only a welcome change to many sites, it is also perfectly in keeping with the tenets of this zine - dysfunctional gamers don't even have time to prepare, so they certainly don't have time to churn through a few thesis worth of gaming theory. This wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am attitude runs through the content as well, and very often the brusqueness is accompanied with crudeness. If you don't appreciate an undergraduate sense of humour, you'll find a lot of the material here offensive. In fact, no matter who you are you'll probably find some of this zine childish, stupid or just plain pathetic. There's a fine line between funny, ironic rudeness and plain unfunny, annoying rudeness, and this line is crossed regularly (and with wild abandon and fervent glee!) at CM. Every reader will draw their line in a different place, and this will determine just how much you enjoy this zine. If you're not a dysfunctional roleplayer, and can't understand how RPGs and video games can be very similar things, or take your hobby too seriously, you won't enjoy this one. On the other hand, if you have ever picked up a Knights of the Dinner Table and thought "It's like they listened to my group and put it in these pages", then this is a must have. It's the zine you always wanted, that tells you that you aren't alone in the world and writes articles you can always really relate to. It is to zines what Paranoia is to RPGs, and there's no recommendation higher than that in my book. Simply put, it's unique focus makes it one of the best zines on the net. Just what the hobby has always needed. Get it before you kill your players in a fit of apoplectic rage. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty)