You down with (Gamer) A.D.D?

Yeah, you know me...

Gamer A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder). It's become a running joke in gaming circles. It's funny, although I worry that it in some way trivializes REAL A.D.D. (which is certainly not my intent).

In any case, it's become a shorthand for being easily distracted from one's current RPG pursuit(s) by the "new shiny". The proverbial "grass is greener on the other side" syndrome.

While I'm still firmly committed to getting a Supers game off the ground, I'd be a liar if I said there aren't other games tempting me. As a Solo gamer now, I feel like I (we?) am/are even more vulnerable to the dreaded Gamer A.D.D, as with a group, once everyone is on board with a game, usually it takes on legs of its own and the train keeps rolling. I'd say there's not a lot of suddenly skipping from one game to another on the whim of one person in a group.

In any case here are a few of the other Games I'd Like To Play:

My sci-fi crush

 "White Star", oh how you tempt me. Ever since I picked this up just for the intent of adding material to the Star Trek thing I was tinkering with, it has pulled at me strongly to do as a stand-alone thing.

I love the "generic with the serial numbers filed off" vibe of it. I could totally see playing in a style of the cheesy post-Star Wars sci-fi movies of the 80's, like Battle Beyond the Stars, Starcrash, The Humanoid, The Ice Pirates, or Galaxina, which I love. (Just like in my mind, all of my D&D sessions look like the cheesy post-Conan fantasy flicks of the 80's like Hawk the Slayer...)

With the recent release of White Star supplement Five Year Mission the urge is as strong as ever. It even gives me thoughts of the Trek thing AGAIN...

tempts me to Trek on again

The recent trailers for the new Bond flick "Spectre" got me to thinking, I haven't played a modern action/adventure game in a LONG time, not since Hero Games "Espionage" back in the 80's. But I was a BIG action adventure guy back in the day, eating up flicks like "Die Hard', "Lethal Weapon", "Rambo: First Blood Part II", and a particular favorite "Commando".

Even my choice of reading material back then skewed to the Men's Adventure novels of the 80's like Mack Bolan (the Executioner), Able Team, Phoenix Force, and so on.

Meet the guy who inspired Marvel to create "The Punisher"

So I was curious to see what kind of Spy &/or Action/Adventure games were out there. Though the modern digital age has been a huge boon in the options of readily available, affordable, gaming material, it can also be a BANE too, in that it can be an enabler of one to give in to the urge to ACQUIRE and COLLECT, especially since they are, y'know, so readily available and affordable...

ANYWAY, after shopping around, two games caught my fancy for simple and rules light that look like they'd be a lot of fun that I gave in and picked up, "Covert Ops" and "Dogs of W*A*R", the former being aimed at a more espionage bent (though it looks like it would really cover the whole gamut), while the latter is firmly aimed at those Men's Adventure novels I mentioned earlier.

"Covert Ops"in particular has really got me enthralled. There is a lot of ideas and good game crammed into that rules light package. All of the Random Generators for Major NPC's, Enemy Organizations, Master Villains, Missions, and Security and Traps alone are worth the price. I can already REALLY see running it RIGHT NOW, as a very zero prep, pick up and play, stand-alone adventures type thing, not unlike the Mini Six powered "Monster of the Week" thing that I still want to get back to at some point.

Another genre that I love is the Western. It's a genre that I'm intimately familiar with, having grown up at the tail end of the the heyday of the T.V. Western, and having a Dad who's a fan of the genre instilled a love of Cowboys and Gunslingers in me that has endured, so as such I've had an idea for a "Boot Hill" sandbox for some time that I'd still love to explore at some point.

SO, back to the titular subject of Gamer A.D.D, I wonder if as a Solo gamer that this couldn't end up being a POSITIVE, as we're really free to jump around, experiment, and play whatever we want, WHENEVER we want.

The biggest challenge for me is just to get past that feeling that I'm "cheating" on one game with another, or that I'm "abandoning" one game for another.

I tend to be a absolutist in my thinking, AND in my hobbies and gaming. I'm a real "all or nothing, all in" kind of guy. That's something I'd really like to get over, as when I look at the images posted of so many great games, I really want to make room for them all in my gaming life.

Chill out, man! (games I'd like to play, Pt2.)

Meet the new boss...

...same as the old boss

"Chill" is an RPG I never had a chance to play back in the day, nor have I ever met anyone else who had. It's odd, considering I was in full bloom as a budding horror fan back then. If I had seen the awesome cover of the 1st edition (far right) I probably would have remedied that.

Instead, the first I became aware of "Chill" was the 2nd edition from Mayfair...

Horrible, but not in a good way...

...as seen above. Very uninspiring, to put it mildly. I picked it up a few times and leafed through it. The art and layout inside were of similar quality, and equally off putting to me.

It's a shame, as I probably would have had a lot of fun with it. "Chill" is a perfect, classic horror toolbox for emulating pretty much any pre-70's horror. Emphasis on the CLASSIC in classic horror. As far as I know, "Chill" was pretty much the ONLY option one had for NON-Lovecraftian horror.

But between cover, art, layout, and so on, it just didn't do a good job of communicating to me what it was all about.

Fast forward to the present. Goblinoid Games, the same company responsible for helping bring back the love for B/X D&D with their Moldvay/Cook retroclone Labyrinth Lord acquires the back catalog of Pacesetter Games titles, including "Chill", with one slight catch: the rights to the NAME "Chill" had been sold off long ago. Hence the title change. "Cryptworld" (above left) IS "Chill" with a new name and a slightly broadened set of sensibilities. 

The range of horror beasties has been widened out to encompass more contemporary horror sub-genres (such as the Slasher or Alien Body Snatchers) alongside all the old classics.

Still longing for a generic horror RPG I decided to pick up the PDF. It's a far cry from the impenetrable 2nd edition. Very cleanly laid out, almost spartan in its presentation, it is all lean meat and no filler, with simple, thematic art. Look at that cover above. "Cryptworld" gets what it's about and does a good job of conveying that to the player.

Now, history lesson aside, "Cryptworld"/"Chill"/The Pacesetter system is a decent, solid, old school system, EXCEPT for the Pacesetter Chart. It gives me fits every time. I sit down and look at it, read through, whatever, and understand it well, then walk away and ask myself "how does that work again?"

It's not really complicated, just hard (for me) to absorb. I couldn't explain to you how to play without referring to the book if I tried. So that is a bit of a problem. It could be my advancing age, deficits in attention span, etc, or it could just be that it's a system that I just don't grock as easily as others.

So great was my desire to get  SOMETHING off the ground in this genre that I ran a quick series of sessions over the course of a week or two using the D6 system instead, specifically one of the greatest "lite" versions of it.

the greatest universal RPG ever IMO...

...and the greatest "lite" version of the same

I had a blast with it, and am tempted to continue. But I'm also torn, in that I really like "Cryptworld"("Chill") too. Decisions, decisions, decisions...

CRYPTWORLD (PROS)

• Does what I want right out of the box
• Fantastic "beastiary"and lots of material available

CRYPTWORLD (CONS)

• System isn't as intuitive/familiar as I'd like

D6 SYSTEM (PROS)

• Lot's of FREE support material available, most of it of useful in this style of game
• Know the system well. Easy to improvise/make stuff up on the fly

D6 SYSTEM (CONS)

• Would need to convert over a number of CW monsters and such.

***

(PS, FWIW there IS a 3rd edition of "Chill" out, but it is NOT the same system as the classic version, and TBH I'm not sure I like the looks of it. In any case, old school cross compatibility with previously released materials WAS a consideration, so there is that...)

3rd Edition, not the same as old OR new boss...

NEXT TIME: To Boldly Go, Yadda Yadda...

This is how I do what I do, when I do what I do...

At the request of +John Fiore, author of the 9Qs Solo RPG Engine I'm going to talk a bit about my "process" or "system", which probably makes things sound more orga-na-zized than they really are.

When I first started w/ the B/X D&D Hexcrawl that was my first foray into Solo Gaming, I wanted a big ol' 3-ring GM binder full o' page protected STUFF. The whole impetus of the the Solo D&D game was a longing and nostalgia for "the old days". I wanted an experience that emulated that as closely as possible.

So I gathered all the necessary materials went print happy. The finished product is a hefty tome of awesome. Funny thing was, when I sat down to play, with my huge binder, rule books, dice, and spiral bound notebook to record notes as I played, I found myself referring to the open laptop instead. It was so much easier to manage and find what I was looking for.

(Though TBH I DO enjoy just HAVING that big ol' binder, I like just looking through it, and do still like to drag it out!)

For the next game I tackled (a MiniSix (d6) modern-investigative-horror "monster-of-the-week" style thing) while thinking over what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it, and so on, I decided, as a thought experiment, to see IF I could play AT WORK, in between calls, issues, tasks, etc. The intention was to just get started there and pick up when I got home and bounce back and forth. I ended up running the whole multi-session adventure at work.

I will probably talk more about that experience in a separate post all its own, but for the purposes of THIS one, I'll finish on this part of it by saying I downloaded a die roller & PDF's of all the required rules and tools onto three different machines at work, so that I could snatch a quick scene here and there.

Which leads me to where I am now. When I first started the crazy-solo-RPG-thing I was very resistant to PDF's (other than as a means to get what I wanted and print it out) and still scoffed at the idea of "e-books", as I had not picked up a tablet or a smart phone yet. (Grandpa was behind the times...).

I was in the camp of "I prefer a REAL book". I always thought that I wouldn't find e-docs as "readable" as a physical book. The idea of digital was still alien to me.

But when I got a tablet (so that my youngest daughter could have her own device when they come to visit), and a smart phone (so that DAD could have a device when they come to visit!) I discovered that not only were e-books VERY readable, but there is a huge convenience and portability involved.

Also, as I acquire more and more materials printing it all off becomes less feasible. Finding a place to PUT and KEEP it all would be out of the question. Finding and fetching what I need is a hassle. And there are places you can't take everything, you may not have that one thing with you, and so on.

Discovering Google Books and Google Drive has been a major breakthrough. I can now access my documents ANYWHERE on ANY DEVICE. So....the intent for the next round of Solo RPG'ing is to be able to play anywhere, at any time, at a moments notice (more or less).

I still like having a few physical documents, like character sheets and maps, but I could do them electronically as well if I really wanted to.

I've discovered (through the D&D campaign) that lugging out all those books, binders, and so on, draws a lot of attention, curiosity, side long glances, and observation. People in the household want to know "what're you DOING?!?". I found that my Solo gaming was something I wanted for ME. I didn't really want to SHARE it with anyone.

SO...there is a strong attraction now, for me, to be able to sit down with just an open laptop, with die roller installed and dozens of PDF's open where I can flick back and forth between them at will, and be able to play a game with no one the wiser. :)

To quickly (too late!) wrap up by answering a couple of the other questions posed, I generally leave all the rules and charts "as is" in their own documents and just skip back and forth as needed, BUT I DID find it handy (necessary really) to write out a "procedure" for my Wilderness Hexcrawl so that I did the same processes in the same order every "game day". It made the process of playing a very smooth and mechanical thing, which I enjoyed.

I think having a process written out for complex operations that can become confusing is a good idea, as it allows you to work through it one step at a time in an organized way, without being overwhelmed or losing track. I've been haphazardly jotting notes off and on with the intention of writing one for Starship Combat, and the actions available to each member of a crew, for example.

As for time to play? I think one can see from the above that I've done both all day sessions (D&D) and "play whenever you've got a second" (MiniSix "MotW"). The goal for me is, ultimately, is whenever, where ever, how ever, I WANNA PLAY!!! :)

What I'm getting ready to play

...getting ready to 'seek out new life and new civilizations'

Just to get anyone reading up to speed, my first foray into Solo RPG'ing was a B/X D&D hexcrawl that lasted quite a while. Lots of fun, and I plan on getting back to it, but was in the mood to branch out after a while.

I took the jones for a "Monster-of-the-Week" style game, and successfully ran a several session long adventure using the MiniSix version of the d6 system.

Also great fun, also want to continue, but gamer ADD got me to thinking about Star Trek.

I've shared my ideas on what I'd like to do on the G+ Lone Wolf Solo Roleplaying group before, but here is a quick (?) recap for context of my G+ posts of what I'm getting ready to play. Session recaps are to follow here, so I thought this would be useful.

So I'm still slowly putting together what I want to do regarding a "Star Trek" solo campaign. I would have been ok with the old FASA game (which I have), but character creation & starship combat for it is a little too slow, & no rules for RANK advancement (though I'm still REALLY tempted). 

I decided to give a look at "Starships & Spacemen", the D&D derived retroclone, if for nothing else all the random tables. 

This one has really grown on me, as I'm enjoying class/level based right now. Plus I LOVE its whole "space hexcrawl" approach, & Energy Unit resource management "mini-game" 

Still, it isn't "exactly" Star Trek, so I'd been looking over what will need tweaking to bring it more in line with the source material. And I REALLY need a different starship combat system than the one provided. Then it hit me:

www2.abillionmonkeys.com:3389/trek/ 

"Where No Man Has Gone Before" is based off of Microlite d20. Its starship combat system is close to perfect for what I need. Then I get to looking over all the cool Talents it has. I grok the d20 task resolution system (never really looked it over before). 

Now I'm planning on full on mash-up I think. ;) 

Oh, and "Starships & Spacemen" + its sister boardgame "Star Explorer", + "Where No Man Has Gone Before" + ITS sister game "Far Trek" = possibly all the Star Trek themed old school random tables that one could want. :D 

I am planning on putting together a list of what subsystems I'm using from each. Eyeballing the list I jotted down, it's about 50/50, & all of it character/task resolution etc related, with the starship combat from WNMHGB + the Energy Unit management & all the rules for hexcrawling in space from S&S. 

Another idea I had for what I think I want to use for supplemental material is : "Starships & Spacemen"/"Where No Man Has Gone Before" mash-up as the core + "Labyrinth Lord" (for monsters reskinned as alien flora & fauna) + "Mutant Future" (for PC's & NPC's reskinned as Alien Races) + "White Star" & "X-Plorers" & any/all material being released for them (especially stuff of a "Rockets & Rayguns" / retro sci-fi bent). 

Basically, the idea is "what if TOS was never cancelled?" (but with my own cast & crew). 

I'm looking at doing "my own" Star Trek, starting with the end of TOS (thus set in the midst of the "5 year mission", & disregarding all material that followed TOS, thus not feeling constrained to slavishly follow cannon of "what is to come". 

Set at the "southern" edge of Federation (between the Tholians & The Gorn) it will be mostly pure "seek out new life & new civilizations", with occasional guest shots by the Klingons, Romulans, Gorn, Tholains, & Orions. 

Been looking up tons of images of Aliens, Uniforms, Ships, Robots, Tech, etc. from old sci-fi shows & movies of the 60's - 80's to use as inspiration & to reskin right into Trek & preserve that "look" of TOS. So much cool looking "retro future"!

So, that's where all of this is going...more or less... :)