Alpha Omega Stub

Things have been in-flux in my world. My latest cushy work assignment has made it all but impossible to Role-Play Online for the past year, which is frustrating because I spent the last 4 years cultivating the contacts to do online play because I was unable to game at home. Now I've got the ability to play at home but it took me a while to understand this and develop a player base that was interested. It looks like I have that now so I'm going to attempt a real-world game very soon.

And it's going to be a new one. Alpha Omega.

Alpha Omega excites me. That's the highest praise I can probably give any RPG. Every time I look through the books I get ideas, and I want to unleash them. Not game them out - but blast them forth like gushing pornstar.

Yes. Dwell on that mental image for a second. My gift to you. You're welcome.

Early on I was quite critical of Alpha Omega's dice mechanic (to put it mildly), and I've yet to test it in play but my opinion has lightened somewhat. It's got good probability curves, a nice even scale of capability and the only point it really slows things down is in Character Creation where you're having to reference the dice to the trait rating and write it on the character sheet.

That's just the start of what I like. It's also got a lot of little rules that I wrote myself for Hardkore (rolling multiple skills stands out) that I considered rather innovative when I did them. The fact that they're doing the same things means were on the same page in a lot of ways. I've made several characters as well and I'm really pleased with how each of the different species has a distinct feel but also a lot of diverse options and isn't shoehorned into any single approach. Not even Exalted has this degree of diversity available. For all of Exalted's infinite options most of the classes or castes or aspects have only one or 2 viable builds.

The difference between Exalted and Alpha Omega's diversity comes from it's power and capability structure. Exalted has effectively 4 traits that offer variance to the character. Attributes, Abilities, Backgrounds and Charms. In most cases Abilities (or Attributes) derive charms, and pretty much everyone gets those 4 things in roughly similar amounts across the board.

Alpha Omega on the other hand has Core Qualities, Abilities, Genetic Deviations (2 kinds), Skills, State Shifting, Weilding (3 kinds), and Augmentations (3 kinds). Not every species is able to take all the different options. In fact no species is able to take all of everything. It's these availabilities and inavailabilities that give each species class a unique feel while allowing tons and tons of customization. This allows me and my players to really go nuts on building a concept that we want to make with a lot of leeway to do so, but still enough guidelines that we're not feeling overwhelmed. Character Creation is still pretty daunting at first, and one issue I have is that there isn't much in the way of guidelines regarding what an amateur, professional and master would have for a rating in a given skill. However after playing under a few GM's who forced me to justify every faucet of my character's education regarding his knowledge base to my intense frustration; I think I'm just gonna go with this and simply not care. It's a game after-all.

As for the 2nd book, The Encountered, I find I'm having to stifle tittering like a schoolgirl every time I open it up. The Encountered does a fantastic job of taking existing Tropes from other sources, (Zombies that Shamble, Mutagenic Diseased folks from I AM LEGEND, Imps...) that immediately resonate but have a unique twist. Then there are the truly unique creatures that make me wonder if I can get some of the shit the developers were smoking at the time. They're often bizarre but not implausible and that's the holy grail of game monsters to me.

Anyhow, I'm still ongoing and haven't played anything yet. I'm sure there will be issues I'll have, but so far the impressions are quite positive.

RPG Projects I'm Working On

My operating system is cluttered with windows this morning of the various projects I have on the go. Which means it's a good day so far, I love having too much to do, especially when it's to do with role-playing.

I recently took up some guest blogging for the Core Mechanic which is starting to make me enthusiastic. Johnathan the blog owner is a very bright guy and is managing the blog really well. This is great for me because I'm the sort who (obviously) doesn't care to do much blog management, so this lets me just concentrate on the writing and networking aspects which is what I enjoy. I can see my writing relationship with TCM being very fruitful.

This weekend I also decided that I needed to start moving ahead with playtesting Hardkore, so I took some time to work out a rough campaign outline in a setting I'm developing specifically for the Hardkore system and started reaching out to a few players to join and help me playtest. As usual everyone is quite busy, but I'm tenacious and won't take no for an answer. I'm currently putting together a playtest package for the players so that they have an updated copy of the rules in addition to any setting specific information I feel they need. It's a pretty big package, out of curiosity I opened it into MS Word so I could do a word count. Without any formatting the material is over 25,000 words and 75 pages. Wow, I've been busy.

Currently I'm working on inputting all that into an Adobe Indesign book so that the playtest document is a bit more readable. I'll hopefully have most of that done by the end of the day, right now I'm transferring over all the gun stats.

One of the things I really love about Hardkore is the attention to detail Dixon had when working on the firearms. Currently we have over 40 different firearms with comprehensive stats, our stats are so comprehensive that we actually include different stat lines for different types of ammunition that can be loaded in the gun. Not just slug rounds vs buckshot either, like the difference between a full metal jacket round and a jacketed hollow point round. All this matters because our damage system is the most realistic of any game out there. Thats where I think our niche will be actually. In gamers who want to customize and play out scenarios of war in a tabletop RP environment rather than a first-person shooter video game.

Anyhow that's a bit of an update, so I'll get back to work.

Coming Back to Alpha Omega

In the "before-time" or about a month ago before I started this blog I'd found out about Alpha Omega through one of the RPG Bloggers. I liked what I heard so I bought the PDF. I read through it and while being immediately impressed by the books lovely artwork and fantastic setting the dice mechanic turned me off and I reviewed it on an old blog stating that the dice mechanic was the equivalent to something both stinky and off-putting. But a part of me liked the game too much, I wanted to play this game no matter how bad the dice mechanic was so I passed the book around to a few close friends to see if they could find some redeeming qualities that would make it worth a second look. One of my friends found that quality, or more accurately he pointed out that the dice mechanic wasn't as bad as I'd made it out to be.

So currently I'm adding a bit of pepper to a crow stew that I'm preparing as I work on a try-out character. I'm determined to give this game a fair shake, it deserves that much.

A few observations currently: The navigation layout is great and I am a fan, but this book desperately needs some interactive PDF links. I don't know why they weren't included, it would make navigating through this game so much easier and I could operate entirely in Full-Screen PDF mode without having to zoom out to make use of the (admittedly very good) bookmarks. With a game this complex this would make things a lot easier. I'd put them in myself but the PDF is secure so I'm not able to.

Anyhow, back to this character, I'm thinking a Seraph Nephalim will be fun to try out. More on this later.

How I Role: Gaming Online

I have another life, a life that isn't filled with magic, but has lots of adventure. A life where I venture out into the wild unknowns and work with my allies to bring forth a great energy from the bowels of the earth. It's kinda weird explaining that I have "another" life to role-players, usually the explanations like that are the other way around. (Not that I'd EVER explain Role-Playing as "another life" that's just creepy.)

In plainer terms I work out in the Canadian oilfields most of the time and as you can imagine, being out in the mountains 200 miles from nowhere for a month at a time makes it pretty hard to keep a regular game scheduled. But I've been at this for nearly a decade and I'm proud to say that my gaming has hardly missed a stride.

The wonders of technology - my beloved macbook, a cellular modem, and a cell booster - have allowed me to take my gaming to a new medium and I've been at it long enough that I can honestly say; when it comes to gaming on the internet my shit is tight!

It must have been a bit surreal when I contacted one of the RPG Bloggers over the internet and asked him if he wanted to play in one of my games out of the blue. Even to the most net-savvy gaming vets, the idea of gaming online doesn't hold up to the traditional method and the idea of gaming over the net still strikes most as decidedly "experimental". Something few long-time acquaintances in the blogosphere might take a stab-at to see if it might work, rather than something a relatively new online acquaintance would just offer out of the blue. Regrettably I think schepticsim won-out and he graciously declined my offer, but I'm a persistent stalker so I won't give up. He will be mine oh-yes!

Creepy internet stalking aside, to me online gaming is the norm, not the exception. The tools of my trade are honed to a fine edge, the method of choice: text-based chat over Skype, using a web-page die roller that has a running log of the rolls it makes for everyone to see so to keep us honest. Many might think that text-based IM chatting would be slow, and it is, but that's the only drawback. The benefits of IM chatting over skype are numerous and easily make up for the ponderous speed:

• Skype lets you make rooms with any number of players and allows you to make as many as you want so side rooms are simple, allowing an out-of character room, private discussions, a main room for everyone and a side room for just a few to all be going on at once.

•Skype keeps your history forever!!! Even if you're not online. Game rooms don't vanish at the end of the game either so one game room can span multiple games. If a player misses a session the history will refresh it's self for that player the next time another member of that room is online at the same time as him. Search functions will let you look back at any point in a game as far back as it ever existed. Can't remember the name of that elven innkeeper you encountered 3 years ago? Looking back through the history will find it.

•Skype doesn't limit post size. You can post huge pre-written descriptions of the new kingdom the players entered and the client doesn't balk at all. Got a pesky rules lawyer that won't shut up? Copy the rule out of the book and post it in an out of character room to shut him up. (Rules-lawyers: attempt this on your GM's at your own risk.)

•Skype has FANTASTIC file transfer capabilities. It rarely ever drops a transfer, even if one party has a crappy dialup connection that cuts out often. Skype will simply wait until the connection comes up again and continue transferring the file. Great for sharing game data or passing character sheets.

•I generally use the IM client because out in the mountains my connection can be sketchy and some of my players have similar problems, but if you have a good connection and a microphone on your computer there's no reason why you can't supplement your IM role-playing with some VoIP when the situation requires.

These features allow for a much more fluid gaming environment then most are likely used-to. The history saving and asides, and the fact that the rooms don't go away allow players to casually role-play outside of set game sessions, and the fact that the GM can look over the history later can keep him in the loop. This allows players to get further into character than would be comfortable in a more traditional game because they don't have to use up valuable quest time chatting about how they prefer their steak done. They can carry out in-game romances in private, allowing the GM to capitalize on the dramatic tension by having villains threaten the ones they love. And most of all it keeps the player clearly separate from the character he's playing allowing for much greater immersion.

My games over Skype are supplemented with excel character sheets, online group drawing for tactical maps, I edit blueprints with photoshop, and have been known to put together little setting booklets on PDF for when my players enter a new city. I'm available off hours if a player has a question or wants to do the occasional side quest, and quite honestly I type more eloquently than I speak. So when I say; "my shit is tight" I mean for you to be impressed because somewhere between the massive modern MMO's and the archaic PBEM's of yesteryear is what I do, and it is a sublime place indeed.

Issues I Have With Exalted and Their Fixes: Martial Arts

As I've explained previously, my current favorite tabletop RPG is Exalted. I started playing exalted back just before I graduated and fell in love with the epic setting and Wuxian feel. I've often gravitated to more restrictive rule-sets and settings where characters have to survive by their wits rather than any particular edge they might have, but Exalted is the exception to that, while you still need to survive by your wits, the main characters are often vastly more powerful than the average person in the game world, this new perspective was refreshing to me because it allowed me to escape into a power fantasy without feeling guilty for breaking the game. Over time I abandoned playing in Exalted games because those that I did play in felt like they were arbitrarily limiting what the characters were supposed to be doing with all that power, and I started running games that were as epic as I thought they should be.

One of the major Wuxian aspects of the game are the powerful martial arts available. Martial Arts meld mysticism and combat to create combat like Dragonball Z mixed with Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Mechanically the different Martial Art Styles are available to a wider array of character types and offer exceptional versatility in combat while allowing for you to customize the style your character fights in with a particular weapon. The down-side is that the power trees are quite large and often to gain full effectiveness of a given martial art you need to spend more Experience Points to yield the same capabilities that would be gained from a more focused combat ability much cheaper.

Martial Arts are a pivotal part of the game and they add a lot of flavor, however Second Edition has a few anachronisms carried over from first edition that I think should have been addressed. One of them is the fact that a lot of Martial Arts effects step on other Ability's toes. There's a Martial Art that is based entirely on Singing, and some of the higher-level Martial Arts do Occult-Based abilities like countering magic far cheaper and more effectively than even the Occult charms can. The fact that Martial Arts also allows you to use particular "form" weapons with the Martial Arts ability means that it makes other combat abilities such as Melee, Thrown and even Archery and Dodge somewhat redundant allowing for min-maxing to an extent. There are also certain weapons that are deemed solely "Martial Arts" weapons for no reason other than common association rather than any particular ergonomic reasoning.

These issues though they might seem like they would require a vast overhaul of the Martial Arts rules are actually easily remedied with a few simple tweaks. One of the things I constantly preach is that game design needs to be based on solid fundamentals, and for the most part, Exalted's fundamentals are solid which means minor changes are often all that's needed. The first thing to do is change the Martial Arts ability to Unarmed and detach all the Martial Arts charms from any one particular ability. Martial Arts are depicted as versatile power sets that defy boundaries so we don't need to tie them to any one ability. With no Martial Arts ability anymore I have to reassign the Martial Arts weapons to other Abilities. I choose to make my choices based on ergonomics, any weapon that requires swinging like a staff or hook sword is now under Melee, weapons that are an extension of a fist or kick attack such as iron boots or tiger claws are still governed under unarmed, (knives too are part of this). And any rope or chain weapon are governed under the Thrown ability. Clinching attacks from rope weapons are rolled as unarmed attacks.

After those two solutions are implemented all that's left is to change the Ability prerequisites for the Martial Arts charms to whatever abilities are most applicable. If the charm supplements an unarmed attack then it's prerequisite is the Unarmed Ability, if it Supplements a Unarmed Attack and has an Occult-based effect as well then the prerequisites are Unarmed and Occult and so-on. The designations are pretty clear cut and don't require much interpretation, so they're quite easy to implement on the fly. Lastly while Melee, Archery or Thrown might not be part of the prerequisites, if the style has a "form weapon" that is governed under one of those abilities, to use the charms with that weapon the character must still roll the appropriate skill. This cuts down on min-maxing and allows for the ability charms melee, archery and thrown to be less obsolete and actually supplement the Martial Arts charms allowing to supplement the often more esoteric MA charms with the effective straightforwardness of the Ability specific charms, something the game designers always intended but has been a bit of a grey area within the rules.

These changes allow the Martial Arts to retain their significance and great Wuxian feel without making other abilities irrelevant but are by no means necessary to make the game fun. They do help though.

Issues I Have With Exalted and Their Fixes: Linguistics

As you might have guessed by now, I have a slightly inappropriate man-love for White Wolf's Exalted game which borders on the mildly obsessive. It's not the only game on my shelf, but it's the one I have the most experience with and feel most comfortable running. That's a big thing for a lot of GM's I know, comfort, it's why D&D is so popular, because people are comfortable with it, it's familiar and safe, and being that I've ran my longest running games in Exalted that's what it is for me.

However I do have some issues with the game, and some of those issues can be resolved with a few house rules. I don't usually house rule the games I run, my opinion is that if a game is so bad that I need to overhaul it, I should just run a different game. There are plenty of great games out there and I have money so why not spend it on a product that doesn't suck I say. So in-general my house rules aren't implemented because something doesn't work, but more about personal preference or that I believe my way might capture the feel of the game more effectively.

The first house rule I ever implemented in Exalted was to do with Languages. As written, the game makes it impossible to learn every language in the game. The number of Languages a character speaks is tied to the Linguistics skill which ranges from 1 to 5. You get 1 native language off the bat and 1 additional language per dot in Linguistics, meaning at Linguistics 5 (a legendary level) you know exactly 6 languages. Languages in Exalted are organized according to the overall geographical area they encompass while individual territories have their own dialects of these languages, it's assumed that once you know the main directional language of a region you can understand all the individual dialects. The main available languages are High-Realm and Low Realm (basically noble and peasant languages of the central continent), Skytongue, Seatongue, Forestspeak, Firetongue, Riverspeak, Guildcant, (a secret language of a worldwide merchant organization) and Old Realm (the ancient tongue of lost civilizations). Which means there are 9 languages that can be known in the game, not counting any of the barbarian languages or the secret claw runes of the beast people (not common but it does suck up a Linguistics dot).

So my solution was this, it makes sense that nobles and peasants in the realm would speak differently, but Exalted was a game about exceptional folks so for the High Realm and Low Realm languages I decided that if you had a dot in linguistics and spoke either High or Low then you spoke both. If a character had no linguistics training at all but was native to the Realm he would only speak one. To me this made sense. After that I decided that the 4th and 5th dots in Linguistics would be worth 2 additional languages respectively. That would mean that a character with linguistics 4 would know 6 languages, or 7 if one of them was a Realm Tongue, and a character with Linguistics 5 would know 8 or 9, which would effectively allow him to know every language in the game, which I think is appropriate for someone with an epic level of ability.

Justification for Simulationist RPG Rules

Yesterday the tortured Unclebear who's qualities as a gamer and as an individual are without peer posted a link to probably the most eloquent game design articles I've ever read at the Forge which is an RPG game design forum that I've never known about until now.

The article explains the differences between Simulationist, Gamist and Narrative Role Playing. These I don't think are official terms but in my experience they should be. Most gamers I know of fall into those three categories and writing off what this article states when designing is a bad idea.

The best part of the article is here:

• "Gamist. This player is satisfied if the system includes a contest which he or she has a chance to win. Usually this means the character vs. NPC opponents, but Gamists also include the System Breaker and the dominator-type roleplayer. RPGs well suited to Gamists include Rifts and Shadowrun.

• Narrativist. This player is satisfied if a roleplaying session results in a good story. RPGs for Narrativists include Over the Edge, Prince Valiant, The Whispering Vault, and Everway.

• Simulationist. This player is satisfied if the system "creates" a little pocket universe without fudging. Simulationists include the well-known subtype of the Realist. Good games for Simulationists include GURPS and Pendragon.

Here I suggest that RPG system design cannot meet all three outlooks at once. For example, how long does it take to resolve a game action in real time? The simulationist accepts delay as long as it enhances accuracy; the narrativist hates delay; the gamist only accepts delay or complex methods if they can be exploited. Or, what constitutes success? The narrativist demands a resolution be dramatic, but the gamist wants to know who came out better off than the next guy. Or, how should player-character effectiveness be "balanced"? The narrativist doesn't care, the simulationist wants it to reflect the game-world's social system, and the gamist simply demands a fair playing field.

One of the biggest problems I observe in RPG systems is that they often try to satisfy all three outlooks at once. The result, sadly, is a guarantee that almost any player will be irritated by some aspect of the system during play. GMs' time is then devoted, as in the Herbie example, to throwing out the aspects that don't accord for a particular group. A "good" GM becomes defined as someone who can do this well - but why not eliminate this laborious step and permit a (for example) Gamist GM to use a Gamist game, getting straight to the point? I suggest that building the system specifically to accord with one of these outlooks is the first priority of RPG design."

The game I'm working on is Simulationist through and through, and even more than that we're going for utter realism as well which is ambitious. However my conceit is such that I honestly believe the game can appeal to Gamists and Narrative gamers as well. The mechanics are tight enough that even though things like combat have the potential to be resolved extremely quickly with a few simple player aides so Narration isn't impeded, and our rules are encompassing enough that we can accommodate an extremely wide variety of weapons, equipment, vehicles and overall trickiness in a manner that allows for a Gamist to fulfill the desire to aquire and exploit.

Ultimately I believe that a system based on simulationist foundation is superior to a system that only emulates. The reason for this lies in immersion - which is a Narrative principle. Immersion is where we as players get caught up in the game and lose track of reality to a degree. Immersion keeps people engaged in the goings on of the game. One of the ways a game can lose immersion is when a player is forced to realize that what he's trying to have his character do in the game is not the result that he expected. This might be because the Player's logic was flawed, but sometimes the simple fact is that the mechanical result of the action in the game is not what would have occurred in reality. When a player is confronted with these deviations in how the game world functions with how reality functions there can be a break in immersion.

Now some deviations from reality are preferable, things like magic for example, but magic too should be based on certain principles rooted in reality, if they aren't then again immersion breaks. An example of this is where in the game system, being trapped inside a burning building is somehow less harmful than being hit by a magic fireball because inside the building the flames are "mundane fire".

A similar argument for simulationist principles can be used in modern video games regarding physics engines. The general consensus is that physics engines help give the gamer the feel that the world works on realistic principles and helps him get into the game more. However there is an additional proponent that has only come to light recently because of game modders who are creating new scenarios and adding in additional ideas to games independent of the developer's original vision. When these unique ideas interact with physics engines often the results are quite interesting and beyond what the developer had ever considered. In this the addition of physics principle creates something greater than the sum of the developer's product + the modder's additions. Tabletop role-playing always works like this because players are not confined to what is possible within the computer script, so there will always be unexpected interactions with mechanics. This is a good thing and should be encouraged and facilitated wherever possible.

I think that one of the barriers to entry into tabletop gaming comes from people finding it difficult to swallow the rules of the new realities presented in most games. They feel like they'll be seen as incompetent by their peers because they didn't understand that his big 8 foot tall, barbarian character that's built like a brick-shit-house at 1st level can't even hope to win in a fight against the 4'7" little elf at 10th level. This is something most gamer's take for granted as fact, but someone not familiar with the rapport could become confused and frustrated by such an incongruity. This is why I advocate simulationism and make a case that it has more worth in games than many of my peers. Because I feel that a game that functions on familiar terms - no matter if you're an experienced role-player or a new girlfriend trying to find out what her geeky lover makes such a big deal about - is going to be more fun and immersive than otherwise.

Recommending Burn Notice and Applied Problem-solving in RPG's

There's one TV show I recommend to all gamers. Not because it encompasses anyone's game perfectly or provides inspiration, no this one I recommend for instructional purposes.

Burn notice is into it's 3rd season now and besides the fact that it has Bruce Campbell in it and is probably one of the most entertaining new shows out there currently, you should be watching it because it will teach you how to be a better gamer.

How is this? After all, it has nothing to do with dice rolling or building a character, and isn't even set in a fantasy world which is where 90% of all RPG's are set. All this is true, so how does Burn Notice teach people how to game better?

In a nutshell, it is an instruction manual on how to do sneaky stuff, often with little or no resources.

Burn notice is about a spy named Michael Weston, at the start of the first season he gets "burned" or blacklisted from the spy biz. All his assets are seized, his contacts alienated and he's dumped off in Miami with a few broken ribs and a very grumpy ex-girlfriend. The meat and potatoes of the show is about him trying to figure out who burned him, while gathering new resources and occasionally helping his wacky family out of the occasional bind, but that's not what makes the show such a great instructional tool. The most awesome part is that usually just before the action starts or a plan is put into place, Michael does a little internal monologue. This monologue usually amounts to shop-talk, or why he's about to do what he does, it's almost always common sense and can be applied to so many situations no matter the setting.

Need to get into a guarded building? Get a messenger uniform - here's how.

Need to know a fast exit from overwhelming odds? - Burn notice has a few good tips.

Need to defeat someone without violence? - Create leverage over them, it's surprisingly easy.

The show offers some great tips on how to apply creative logic to common problems that come up in games. These aren't so much about specific techniques but overall common sense approaches to handle them. The first step to handling a challenge in-game is having a plan of action, it's not until you declare that action that the GM will require a die roll, so having a smart plan is often more important than having a good roll.

Don't believe me? Here's an example of a common situation that can be made easier with a better plan that having higher skill will have no effect on:

Say you're in a dungeon and you you know you're about to come into a room where bad things are guarding the loot you're after. There's no back entrance and no way you can sneak into the room without alerting the guards. You're going to have to fight your way through them. So what do you do?

You might have the thief pick the lock while the mage and cleric cast their buffs which is standard. But Burn notice teaches us that if you can't sneak upon your enemies the best approach is to go in with as much fanfare as possible. Make noise as you break in, break the lock rather than picking it, that way all the guards will turn to look at the door. Then cast a blinding flash spell (or in a modern game use a flash-bang grenade) through the hole and blind all your enemies just before your tank kicks the door down and you make short work of your blinded enemies.

See what I mean? Only an extremely generous GM would tell you to do that approach after making a skill roll, but such a simple approach is the difference between a tough fight and a relatively easy one. This is what Burn Notice has to offer and is why I recommend it.

Transcribing Hardkore Sex Rules

Those of you who know me better than just from what you've read of my past 2 posts here know that I'm writing out a game system currently. The majority of the development was worked on by a good friend of mine Dixon, between '98 and '03. The long development cycle was due to his drive to perfect the system leaving it perpetually unfinished until a computer crash wiped out most of his work. In 2008 though Dixon found a CD backup of some of his work, and I persuaded him into letting me take over and finish the project so that it can be published. It's been a year since I've taken over the project, piecing together incomplete editions of multiple iterations of a game that I playtested 5 years ago has been alternately nostalgic and frustrating, but now finally I'm starting to see a playable game taking shape.

The working title of this game is called Hardkore and it's designed as an adult simulation-based Role Playing Game. I can't disclose much more about it than that at this point but today I'm transcribing an old page of one of the features that made Hardkore an adult game, the sex rules.

Sex has never been well represented in RPG's in my opinion. In most cases it's ignored outright by game developers, and even when attention is given to one of the most basic instincts of humankind, it's looked at with an immaturity akin to a bunch of junior high kids giggling at a porno-mag. Something I find rather astonishing considering role-playing is about telling a story, and better than 80% of all stories are essentially derived from 'Boy meets girl...'

I understand that it's pretty awkward to sit around a game table with a bunch of your buddies and act out a romantic scene. In most cases I wouldn't want to, so our sex rules attempt to abstract all the sweaty moaning and whispered sweet-nothings into a bit of a narrative summary that I feel is quite realistic. However there's one thing that you might have picked up on that's missing and that's how can an RPG approximate that basic human desire to get layed? Sure we know it's there, but what makes players actually want to use these rules?

Well... that I can't tell you yet, but rest assured it's there and I think it's suitably awesome.

So now I leave you with Dixon's original introduction to the Sex chapter, which brought back a bit of nostalgia for me. Enjoy.

A Brief Rant on Sex [Or Lack Thereof] in Gaming

"What the fuck? Sex in RPG's?"

Yup.

"Why?!?"

Because your character should have realized by now that they have to take life to the edge and live every minute to it's fullest... you never know if it might be your last.

Because sex is a big part of countercultures and freedom movements, and this is an adult-orientated game based on counterculture and a freedom movement.

Because game writers are willing to write 20+ pages of detailed descriptions of how to maim and kill people, but are either too terrified or too puritanical to write even one lousy fucking paragraph about sex or romance in RPG's.

But mostly...

Because we can.

You see, we think there is a place for sex in gaming, more-so if you intend to play your character with any degree of humanity to them. Do you have to use these rules? Of course not, that's why they're optional.

These mechanics will allow you to flesh out a character, bring a new level of detail and depth to your character's relationships with their romantic partners, and (hopefully) enhance your roleplaying experience. It will also allow social oriented characters the opportunity to strut their stuff in that other battlefield we call the bedroom.

You know, love and war and all that...

That said, our position is that if it might enhance your roleplaying experience then there isn't really any reason not to include mechanics for romantic activity. If you or your GM is uncomfortable with gaming this aspect of life in detail, then don't. It's no big deal.

~Dixon Steele