Feed Your Brains (through your EARS)

So, driving the fifty-five minutes home from work today, I felt an irresistable urge to pillage, plunder, and kill off major characters with no warning. I soon realized it was because I'd gotten my iPod stuck on "repeat" on the Game of Thrones soundtrack by Ramin Djawadi.

 

If you've seen the show, the main theme triggers an almost visceral reaction...a bone-deep feeling of 'shit's about to happen'. Maybe it has something to do with the phenomenal title montage, maybe just because I like the show almost as much as the books. Regardless, the music is what we call 'strong shit' back in Texas. Even if you've never read the books or seen the HBO series, the music is literally soul-stirring. If you don't feel a shiver from the main theme, you have no soul. Negative soul. You are a soul vacuum. And you suck.

Like Ned Stark, I'm one brooding bastard.

I can thank Ramin Djawadi for yet another notch on my soundtrack-loving belt: he did the soundtrack for both Medal of Honor reboots, and, like Game of Thrones, it is solid work. He has a great feel for mood, and he slips an accent of eastern melody into his arrangements that sneaks up like a Rufie in your Zima. Being the obsessive product of 21st century fandom, I Wiki'd him and found that he's a protege of the ubiquitous Hans Zimmer. No big shock there.

So, you ask: Why are you, the gaming Stick in the Mud, bitcher and moaner and theorist of games both video and tabletop, writing about music? And not even Lady Gaga or whatever refuse is currently spewing out the Top-40 sphincter...nope. This is weird music. What many would consider classical music. No words. No AutoTune(tm). No twerking, for Chrissakes. What is this shit?

It's game stuff, that's what it is. Video games. Tabletop games. Movie soundtracks, or, better yet, trailer themes. It's something most people take for granted, but they're seeing the sewer and missing the gold mine. Theme music, fools.

I got started in 'theme' or 'positional' music when I bought Midnight Syndicate's Dungeons & Dragons on CD. Of course I bought it: it had D&D in the title. Ostensibly 'mood' music to be used at the gaming table, it's also 'strong shit'. You can cue it up and let it roll, and the music takes you places. Paradoxically, you can cue it up and do other things (like make a Savage Worlds character) and the music doesn't intrude. It's there if you actively listen, but it fades into subliminal mood-setting when you don't. From that perspective, I guess it's the perfect accessory to the gaming table: it sets the mood without getting in the way. Yes, I've used it at the table. Yes, I got some funny looks. No, I didn't cue it up for special encounters. I just let it run on repeat, like elevator music. I think it worked. We had good game, and that's endorsement enough.

I've preached enough. All of you video gamers and tabletop grognards, give this shit a shot (say that three times fast). It's easily overlooked stuff, especially with the daily deluge of garbage constantly assaulting our eardrums. I'll leave you with a recommended listening list, and hopefully it will get you started with washing the contagion of Miley Cyrus out of your ears.

• Halo 3 Official Soundtrack   Marty O'Donnell absolutely laying it down. One Final Effort still makes me sniffle.
• Gaming Fantasy   Taylor Davis is just this violin-playing kid who does her own arrangments of video game soundtracks. The kid puts a whole new twist on Legend of Zelda and Skyrim.
• Any Battlefield Soundtrack   Okay, Battlefield 2142 is my favorite instrumental them of all time, but the soundtrack isn't available on CD or legit download. I got a copy of from a somewhat shady site I found from a Google search. Epic. That's the only word for this music. I know it's an overused word, but screw it. It really is epic.
• Two Steps From Hell  Two guys who make tons of movie trailer themes. They have one hell of a catalog, and Thomas Bergerson does solo work as well.
• The Greatest Video Game Music   The London Philharmonic (no shit), covering video game themes. Sure, some of it is cheesy (did you really need a symphonic version of Angry Birds?), but it hits some sublime peaks, including Battlefield 2 and Halo 3: One Final Effort.

Just because I feel charitable, I'll leave with Catelyn Stark sitting on the Iron Throne. When you're my age, Cat is the hottie of Game of Thrones.

Don't Mess With the Goose

Anyone who knows me on a geek level knows that I'm more than a little infatuated with the Savage Worlds rules for RPG's. I've been playing/collecting/digging RPG's since the original box set that my brother picked up in 1980, and I even remember my first character: Pindar the Halfling, one of the pre-gens from the back of the book (cut me some slack, I was eleven years old). Anyhow, after...damned near 22 years of D&D 1, 2, 3, 3.5 and 4, Pathfinder, Tunnels & Trolls, Traveler, GURPS and all the rest, I finally found what felt like home when I impulse-bought the Savage Worlds Deluxe book on Amazon.


I really like you, Pathfinder. But I just don't feel fulfilled anymore.

What do I like about Savage Worlds? To stretch a scientific term, it's elegant. I don't mean it looks like my beloved Princess, Kate Middleton (sigh). I mean elegant as in neatly and simply fitting my needs without a lot of fuss and twisting required. The basic framework of the rules is so flexible, so much a guide-without-being-a-restriction, that it just feels great to make up a campaign, a world, a story within the SW rules. And they do it all in 160 pages (Deluxe hardcover edition).
Yeah, the setting-books are nice. I'm a huge fan of Weird War II. But, strictly speaking, it's nothing I couldn't have made myself, using the SWD book, if only I were smarter, more creative and less lazy. The setting books don't fundamentally change the base mechanics or feel of the game, and that's awesome.
So why am I taking the time to write this on a cold Saturday morning when I should be drinking coffee and working on aforementioned campaign? Well, just a word of warning:

Savage Worlds is awesome, and I love it, but I have unintentionally been working really hard to break it into tiny, useless bits.


I'm only trying to dismember you because I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!

You see, with all the freedom that comes with writing for Savage Worlds, it's easy to get a little crazy. Like the Glenn Close crazy above. You get the urge to tweak things. To add skills and Edges and Hindrances. To write special rules for using a crossbow to differentiate it from a long bow. To throw in special damage types for edged weapons versus blunt impact weapons, and to tweak those based on armor types. Hell, why not? This is Savage Worlds, and they made it really easy to tweak and poke and prod! Let's go batshit! Let's make hermaphrodite spirit monster elves with wings, and write special rules for 'em! Woohooooo!
So I wrote the above setting-tweaks. Then I proceeded to write some more. And, before I really knew it, I had this =>
 =========================================>
An utterly unwieldy beast of rules and canards and tables and dice rolling trivia.
I had the beginnings of an OCD houserule version of early-80's AD&D. Not fast. Not furious. Not fun. Full of suck.


The moral of this embarassing personal revelation is simple: the beauty of Savage Worlds as a rule-set is that it gives you the utter freedom to totally screw it up. You have the reins, and you can ride that horse straight off a cliff if you want. Despite Shane Hensley's MULTIPLE warnings on page 128 (now permanently bookmarked in my copy) that most of what you want in your game is already there if you're willing to use a little interpretation, there's a certain siren song to jamming your own ideas on top of a perfectly good system.

So don't be a moron like me. Heed the Hensley. Get support from the awesome bro's and sis's at Savage Worlds on Google+ to keep sane. But whatever you do, don't be a dick like I almost was and break what you love just because you can.

Why Any DM Not Using Google+ Groups is a Moron

No snark, no transvestite gamer-guy pictures. Not this time. Why? I know everybody loves that stuff. But not tonight. (Nope. No transvestites tonight. Except yours truly, but that's another story, and it was for a good cause.)

I just want to put out a quick bunch of links for all you die-hard geeks, the ones so indelibly marked with the geek-bug that you not only play tabletop RPG's, you make tabletop RPG's: you draw the maps and stat-out the NPC's. Yeah...you, the Dungeon Master, the Game Master, the Storyteller, whatever monicker you pick, you're that guy. Or, rather, this poor bastard:


"You Cheeto-fingered morons, that princess won't save herself."

So you're working on your story, laying out intricate plots and story hooks and detailed NPC's, knowing all the time that your players will only remember "that one time when we killed all those dudes and I got that badass sword from the old guy". It's a thankless job, hours and hours of prep work that ends in a feeling of coitus interruptus when your players totally ignore your OBVIOUS hooks and decide to go left instead of right.

Don't worry, brothers and sisters. I feel your pain. The cavalry is here:

• Maps: Did you ever waste an afternoon with a sheet of graph paper, a sharp #2 pencil, and the old 1st edition Monster Manual? Yeah, me too. I love maps. I love drawing maps. I want to draw badass maps. So I asked the wise gurus on Google+ to help. Map-Making in Games is a Google+ group full of people whose talent is only matched by their willingess to help stupid people like me. I posted a desperate plea for help, and had a page full of links within minutes. Literally minutes. If these folks can't help you, they'll quickly point you toward those who can.

• Worlds: Okay, you have your map, thanks to the badasses linked above. But what's a map if you can't provide any details. Your players want to know things like:

What's the climate like? History? Who's the king? What kind of money do they use? How much does a good hooker cost? How much does a bad hooker cost? Can I trade my +9 Holy Avenger sword for a good hooker?

 These are important questions that your players will probably want to have answered. Well, again, Google+ is the place to be:  World Building Group  This is a crowd who knows how to make shit up. Be it fiction, gaming, or just mental aerobics, damned near every post and link on this group is chock-full of hooks to get your creative gears turning.

Tordek, our quest is to find a hooker willing to service your ugly ass.
(please don't sue me, WotC)

• Last, a shameless plug for my favorite game system and favorite Google Group. I said in a recent post that Savage Worlds has ruined me on gaming, period. Lucky for me, there is a group on Google+ who feels the same way: Savage Worlds on Google Groups.

• Did I say last? No such luck, foolios. The only real way to end this list is with the group that keeps their priorities straight. If you don't spend all your money on gaming crap, that leaves more money for liquor and dwarven hookers. So, for all you drunken Dwarfophiles out there, this group is here to help:  Gaming on the Cheap. This is where you go to get the heads-up on free PDF's, good old rulesets that have gone the OGL route, tips and tricks for terrain...you name it. Be a cheap bastard and still run a kick-ass game.

Okay, dinner's ready and a cold Shiner Bock is sweating a nice condensation ring on my lame hand-drawn map, so I guess it's time to roll. Check out the links, make up cool shit, and try to not hate your players...unless your players are the Honey Boo-Boo family. Then hate 'em all you want.

Can't We All Get Along in 2013? (Don't taze me, bro...I'm just the messenger.)

I like RPG's. I like both CRUNCH and fluff and I like graph paper and pencils. I like goblins, and I like Wayne Reynolds. I won't go so far as to say that RPG's are my only diversion (there's always Xbox, and...did I mention Xbox?), but it's what I enjoy doing most.  There's only one small hangup with this otherwise blissful situation: I don't always like RPG people. And...it pains me to admit, I don't always like Xbox people, either. Or cosplayers.
Okay, I'll admit it: I'm a geek who often doesn't like other geeks. I get hives thinking about interacting with them, with people I should adore as my own chosen ones, people who are definitely US rather than THEM.
I'm not talking about the stereotype of Gamer Guy:


Credit: G4TV (for giving me oddly arousing nightmares)

Yeah, his type is present in both video gaming and tabletop gaming. Yes, we do have our share of obnoxious people in gaming: but take your ass out to a sports bar on Monday night to watch a ball game...the NFL fanbase has waaaaay more obnoxious, socially inept people than the RPG community could ever be blamed for. No, I'm not talking about just obnoxiosity quotient...I'm talking about what it means to be a geek.
To me, when you are a geek, you are totally into something; thus the verb geekin'. It's a state where you want to know details. Everybody knows Imperial Stormtroopers wear white armor; but the true geek knows why they don't wear standard Republic Commando armor, and why they aren't all clones of Jango Fett. The true geek can name you every Doctor Who, and when they played the iconic Doctor. The true geek not only likes Half Life 2, but she can rattle off Gabe Newell's curricula vitae. To me, being a geek is about a willingness to immerse yourself.
That's what I love about being a geek. That's what marks me as a proud member of the clan. But that's also what annoys me about my brethren and sistren:

Geek Rule #1

No detail is so small, nor any point so trivial, that we're not willing to form a seemingly random opinion about it...and argue that position for-fucking-ever.

 

I get it. I swear, I get it, I understand passion, and loving what you love so much that you're willing to defend it. Being a geek, by my above definition, puts you outside the mainstream: you are willing to delve into some subject way beyond the 'norm'. I get the defensiveness that comes with putting yourself out there on the lunatic fringe. But for Chrissakes, let's quit arguing about stupid stuff:

• D&D is stupid, and anyone who plays it sucks.
• 4th edition D&D is stupid (and evil), and anyone who plays it sucks (and is evil).
• Xbox rules, PS3 sucks, and Wii is retarded.
• PS3 rules, Xbox is full of rabid douchebags.
• Star Wars is awesome, but Star Trek is a bunch of idiots.
• Fantasy RPG's are all a bunch of LARPers, running around in the woods.
 

Please, for the sweet baby Jesus' sake: we're all in this together. Star Wars, Star Trek, Xbox, PS3, D&D and Savage Worlds and Doctor Who and BSG and Pathfinder.

 

We all share some mania for things that most of the world considers trivial.

 

While most of the people I know are out in the woods, hunting deer (and duck, and turkey, and anything else that moves), I'm upstairs playing Halo until 3AM. Hey, guess what? That PS3 guy is playing The Last of Us while his friends are out at Buffalo Wild Wings watching the Cowboys get pummeled (again). And that makes us brothers and sisters. That means we're kin. He's not some enemy.

D&D vs. Pathfinder people...people are still arguing this on message boards across the interwebs. Guess what, kids? To most of the world, both sides of this argument are stupid. Both groups are wasting their time playing trivial imaginary games, while they could be sitting on the couch watching Here Comes Honey Booboo like the rest of America. So quit arguing. The girl who really likes D&D 4th edition? Yeah, I hope one day she'll see the light and move on to Savage Worlds. But, until then? Welcome to the family, sister.

 

We're making progress, people. I promise. I'm 43 years old...I remember when science fiction, video games and Dungeons & Dragons got you beat up on a regular basis, when the opposite sex treated a d20 like it was an open, oozing leprosy sore. Thank you, Bill Gates, Wil Wheaton and The Big Bang Theory for making our passions at least a little more palatable to the rest of the world. And one day, I just know it, one day...we will overcome. The day will come when everyone in the world will know the name Malcom Reynolds, and nobody will remember what a Honey BooBoo even is.

But until then, quit arguing about stupid shit, and make 2013 a banner year for all of us.