How social media ruins rpg games ....

A lot of novels are no longer set in the present. This tends to be true of games as well, and for the same reason: social media. The internet. Facebook. Twitter. All games have problems in that that need solving, all quests have some mystery/discovery lurking in them waiting to be solved. Or you can just google it. Need help? The police are just one cell phone cal away. So are family, friends, co-workers. And why bother meeting in person if you can use google+, set a limited group as 'other pcs' and use that?

Granted, a GM can obfuscate things: the internet is an awesome source of flat-out lies and mistruths. For example, have a pc use wikipedia as gospel and just smile at them in the certain knowledge that the Big Bad had been editing certain pages for years under various sock puppets because it's the best way for a vampire to get prey these days. And cell phone coverage can be spotty, to a degree, but the chief problem is that such plot  devices make PCs lazy.

(This is much the same issue as skills in D&D: why look for anything when you can just roll Detect Traps and so forth. Laziness is roll-playing, role-playing is less so. (But using lots of dice is fun, and fun isn't lazy - Sparkie))

There are ways to use this and make it fun, no doubt, but the overall issue is that a lot of tropes uses in games and novels came into existence long before the internet, which tends to hinder and limit them. Sort of making PCs all Amish [which would rock....] or just not having FB and such come up as options I'm not sure what can be done with this problem, insofar as it is one. It can be useful: I would quite like to see a game where the players make social media avatars for their PCs and do in-game stuff with that between sessions but a lot of genres don't work as well when PCs have access to too much information or can exploit the ruthless common sense that comes with it.

At which point the GM pay well drop an EMP on the world :)

CSI: Trail

CSI: TRAIL

(aka: alcar is actually giving this some thought. Be scared.)

System: BESM3, 250 points, minimum 50 in skills. (Vanilla humans cannot get Dynamic Powers, no one can get Resurrection.)

The PCs are people living in the land of the Lords of Life and Death. Vampires and werewolves roam the world, terrible in their power, while magicians slink about the edges of the world practising their forbidden magics and the remains of the once-mighty fae hide in shadows and dream of better days.

You are all a forensics team sent to Trail to investigate the death of the last dragon. Because even in a world where myths and monsters walk they still manage to die and someone has to file paperwork, figure out what happened and survive the attempt to arrest the perpetrators. Most humans are scared of the monsters, thanks in part to the vampire publicity machine cranking things up to 11 but you've dissected enough corpses to know that anything that was born can die, no matter what it might become, and that can be dangerous knowledge in such a place and at such a time. Trail, as always, is a powder keg and the PCs have all the potential in the world to be matches just by asking the right questions and turning over stones to find out what lies beneath.

Note: Vampires and werewolves are the top dogs of the setting. While this may not be true in terms of actual power they are the humans of the supernatural world: they win with numbers compared to other critters out there and, like humans, have a wider variety of abilities and powers than the other kinds of monsters who infest the world.

GM Note: Vampire and were PCs are not allowed. You have Law on your side, a lot of skill, access to magic and technology. Some of the PCs may know magic, others not be entirely human at all or some other variety of monster in the employ of a Crime Scene Unit. Players are encouraged to make characters who'd fit into such a setting and provide useful skills for the group as a whole.

Other PC Concepts: if a player doesn't want to make a CSI-affiliated PC, there's always making a local guide to the weird for the government agents and the like if need be. New PCs can be agents sent into the game, or even from other government departments.

Genre: LOLAD was first and foremost about fun and adventure, and monsters being able to alter the world and become powers in it, upstarts who shook the balance of the old and established powers. They have done this, quite well in fact, and now it it time for humanity to try and reclaim some lost power and prestige of its own ...

While the game will begin with a mystery (Who Killed Cecil?) this can be seen as akin to the Amanda Palmer killing in Twin Peaks: it's an initial plot-thread but not the impetus of the game and will likely slip into the background of plots as PCs become involved in various going-ons in Trail and the attempts by humanity to take back the night, or at least find a new status quo for the world.

SETTING:

A century ago the world only knew of monsters from stories, thanks to the stringent efforts of the vampires. When you can live centuries and enjoy compound interest and blackmail you can accomplish many things, and among those was hiding the truth of the world from humanity. Some thing the vampires did that because humans would destroy them, others that it was an amusing game. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle of that.

A decade ago things began to fall apart: the internet, camera-phones and twitter came into existence and the vampires were old, and terrible, and not able to see the shape the future was taking in time to truly stop it. Oh, they tried – the RIAA is theirs, and SOPA and all things of that ilk – but the truth about the world is now an open secret in many places, the first among those was the small town of Trail in BC, Canada, where an exceptionally strong group of were outed themselves to the media in defiance of local vampires. How much of this was an accident is, also, open to debate, but the town is one of the few places now where the existence of monsters out of myth is not so much 'open secret' as much as 'accepted fact' and the town deals with this as best they can.

Property values have plummeted and yet people move to the town, some hoping to become monsters, or slay them, or attracted by high pay or danger, or simply being too damn stubborn to leave. There are now enough monsters in the town to fit into a major city and the clashes of new powers vs. old and the New World vs the Old World happen often enough that the detritus left behind must be cleaned up, catalogued and explained.

It's a plum job, if you make it out alive: having Trail on the resume looks good almost anywhere, after all ... if you can survive it here, you can make it anywhere.

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT

Weres and vampires have no desire to be catalogued and understood – who does? – but some general facts are relatively well known among those who know about them. (As with the moon landing, there are a lot of humans who still refuse to believe weres or vampires exist at all.)

Weres: In general, were are stronger when they're younger and their powers fade with age; as such, were Packs often have competent leaders being beaten by younger were and don't become anywhere near as powerful or competent as they could. All were heal phenomenally quickly and many can be harmed by silver in one form or another. Most tend to be physical and dangerous beings, not the least because they have senses humans don't and tend to be driven by a sense of morality that often isn't human a all.

Vampires: Vampires do lack the raw power of were and sunlight (and fire) are seldom their friends. While a vampire can be active in sunlight their actual powers – which are many and varied – tend to be much reduced. However, vampires can live for decades and even centuries and only grow in skill and cunning over time. It is said of the old master vampires that, while they may not win, they never, ever lose. The downside of such a mindset is that vampires tend to plan for the future and not the short term, finding the acquisition of wealth and mutual funds – to say nothing of influence – far more important than actual vampiric powers.

Magicians: Magicians exist, human and otherwise, individuals capable of making their desires real, of manipulating energy and changing the shape of the world. While magic is power it also takes a lot of energy, often time, and is frustratingly limited against vampires and weres, though not other kinds of monsters. Most magicians keep to themselves and try to make their magics as mysterious and unknown as they can.

Humans: The problem of living centuries lies in falling behind; the problem of having the raw power of a were is forgetting other forms of power. Or, put another way, gun beats spear. And magic. And often monsters. Human monster hunters do exist and are generally terrifyingly good at what they do, at least up until they get eaten – or worse.

TRAIL:

The lords of life and death are the true powers of the town but divided into several factions which can, in theory, be played off against each other. Certainly the mayor tries his damndest to do so.

Cameron: an old-school vampire who owns/runs a mansion just outside the town, he's been known to take in any strays and has a wide range of alliances and allies throughout the town and beyond. He prefers to consider a sheathed sword more dangerous to one waved about and counts Frankensteinian monsters and fae-damaged humans among his stranger allies.

Sophie: The leader of the Vampire Nest in the city of Trail. Sophie and Cameron had a falling out years ago and Sophie decided to become a Power in the city, whereas Cameron preferred to work from behind the scenes. Sophie is young, as vampires reckon things, but makes up for power with sheer brutality and a willingness to do terrible and awful things at the drop of a hat.

Simon: The leader of the foremost Pack of were in Trail, he reputedly tries to avoid open war with Sophie and is a friend to Cameron. It's said he was in Trail since the beginning of things and knew Faline before they were even were but there's a lot of stories about him and most of them are riddled with lies.

Old Rabbit: A native american were who still has some power over the weres in the local Tribe. His 'pack' is rather small but fiercely loyal to the old man. He once ruled all of Trail and the well of bitterness runs deep within him that so much has been lost and will never come again.

Out Lady of the Claws: Faline is said to be a goddess , something perhaps far more or less than human. Most believe she was a were, though some think she was a fae in disguise. Sightings of her are as rare as those of a bigfoot and whether she is really any kind of god or not is a subject of much debate. That she was real is accepted – though, as with Jesus, there are doubters – but whether she is dead or something else entirely is a matter of some debate.

Lyn: the local magician-in-charge of the coven of magicians who operate in the town. (Well, she would be in charge if they bothered to vote and since they haven't she is.) Little is known about her save that she tries to keep her people out of harm's way from the mightier forces abroad in the city and, like everyone else, is said to have known Faline.

Edward D'Eath: A special police constable who often deals with monsters and weirdness in the town. He isn't liked by any faction and collects secrets like other men collect STDs.

Thoughts on D&D

So, the next edition is coming out in ~2 years (2013 at some point). I was not a fan of 4e -- admittedly, I didn't play it often and only read through the rules twice but it pretty much struck me as D&D trying to be an MMO and failing, to say nothing of being more complicated than it needed to be. I find as I get older I get tired of games involving flipping through acres of pages and legacy systems that make little sense. So .... some thoughts toward 5e of D&D.

1) The stats will remain as they always were. This is, pretty much, a given. Ditto for HP and AC, however unwieldy they've perhaps become. A thought: give fewer options. So, random dice roll, stat at a time, and you're stuck with them. This will prevent a lot of the min/maxing that begins right at the gate. I would allow for an optional rerolling of all if more than 2 stats are 9 or lower, but that would be it.

2) Scrap the obsession with balance. Classes are not balanced: you play X because it is the best at X, and won't be as good at Y and unable to do Z. Trying to make every class even seems to do a disservice to all of them.

3) If every race can be a PC, then have them all as options from the get-go. People aren't spending money on RPGs like they did back in the day: said model isn't working, so don't piss people off by trying to force it on them.

4) Reduce the amount of books.
PHB (The basic classes, with instructions for how to make everything else into a PC class. Ta-da. Combat stuff. Magic. Also psionics. They'll show up, put them in as part of the main thing from the start.)  
DM/M&M: One book. Cull stuff, streamline and focus things.
Optional book:  The M&M species done up as PHB ones. The rules should allow the GM to do that on his/her own but this could be handy and include the 'full' M&M list of monsters to make certain people happy.

Also, if one will be making Settings -- which one will -- have some idea as to what and the relevant feats in the main book rather than setting-specific ones. Just a thought.

5) Character generation can be complicated (See: spells, keeping track of). Make an online PC creator, make it free, give .html and .rtf formats for finished PCs.

6) Toss skills out the window, as they're just excuses/reasons not to role-place. Assume everyone can do X at a certain level, add in feats if they want to be better. So anyone can Climb, if you have a feat you can climb really well (and without the equipment). D&D is focused on dungeon crawls and killing monsters -- this has never changed, from a system POV. If skills vanish, it requires actual player skills to work things out, not just 'I check for traps.' *roll dice*. Rolling dice should be for social and physical combat, not broken things like diplomacy checks devoid of role-playing.

7) Cull things. If need be, add all those in as pdf/pod things later on for those who insist on having weapon X and Y and armour Z.

8) Recognize that the Epic 20+ level D&D stuff has never worked; don't bother trying to get it to.

Esper.net issues

Esper.net seems to having issues (perhaps owing to just five active servers at the moment). As it would be nice to avoid the dal.net meltdown of yesteryear, this is a general announcement:

If you can't get on esper, or it dies entirely, the dal.net #game1 IS still active (and Sparkie is generally in it). Sessions can be run in it, or game1 move back to it if need be.

Coupe De Foudre Game

Season One: The Clock Strikes Ones (2011 - 2012)

This is the first season of Coup De Foudre (a thunderbolt/love at first sight). The episodes are directed by Alcar, produced by Sparkie and feature the prominent voice talents of Chaos`^ . The episodes are based on a maga series created by Game1 Studios and the first seasion covers the protagonist, Quinn, becoming aware of other Elemententalists and acting in the wider world. 

The episodes use the same opening theme, "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper 

The ending theme of the first season is "Clocks" by Coldplay

(It is widely believed that the show's entire budget was spent acquiring these songs.)

Episode 1 - A Life Gone Widdershins (Sessions 1-4)

Quinn teams up with a complete stranger to beat up a kid and destroy a library, followed by learning the secret dimensions of the world via throwing the street at someone and prepares to break her GF out of a government prison.

(This is pretty much the first sessions done up as the infamous Wizard of Oz tv listing:

'Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets and then teams up with three complete stangers to kill again.']

Episode 2 - Time is on my siiii -- shit! (Session 5)

And then she died. Only not.