RPGers

Every RTS game should have a baseline of functionality, like so:

copyright 2003-2011 abiessu

Mouse and Keyboard

• Full set of hotkey/hotclick configuration, with modifier keys (shift/alt/ctrl/etc.)
• Full range of motion/operation with either keyboard or mouse
• Full range of zoom options for scrollwheels and other zoom mechanisms, with modifier keys: direct zoom, zoom with angle change, zoom with recenter, etc.
• (other possibilities...)

In representing the systems of the world, there are physics, magics, and other varying mechanics...

Elements

Element*Element	Heat	Water	Electricity	Gravity	Light
Heat	Neutral	Strong	Orthogonal	Weak	Strong
Water	Strong	Neutral	Weak	Weak	Orthogonal
Electricity	Orthogonal	Weak	Neutral	Weak	Strong
Gravity	Weak	Weak	Weak	Neutral	Weak
Light	Strong	Orthogonal	Strong	Weak	Neutral

Here, "neutral" does not mean "no additional effect" but rather "no bonus or negative effect." Orthogonal generally means the same thing as neutral except that now both elements are in play at the same time, neither helping or hurting the effectiveness of the other.

Further, while it is common to represent "cold" and "dark" and other "elements" individually, they cannot truly be separated from "heat" and "light," etc. So in this table, "heat" represents the entire temperature spectrum, "water" represents the entire humidity spectrum, and so on. Clearly, the goal of mastering an element in a combat sense is to be able to change a target's composition in a damaging way, so the polar opposites of each element are the most interesting. But clearly, when considering, say, a master of the heat element, neither complete cold nor complete heat should have much affect on it, but instead another element or attack would be effective.

Orkworld is a role-playing game based on Orks, written by John Wick. But, rather than just accept the old cliche of immoral and dirty subhumans, John Wick makes them into a tragic people trying to survive in a hostile world.

He does this by giving them their own mythology, their own culture, and even their own psychology. He describes a people who are, in many ways, more human than most humans.

The "game" itself is interesting. I don't think I would ever run a game of Orkworld. It has interesting mechanics, but, I don't think I could use it for anything other than a game of dice. The real value of the book is to make you rethink how you use "cannon fodder" monsters in your role-playing games. (And not just orks, either. In fact, Orkworld makes you rethink the standard dwarf, elf, halfling, and even human.)

Orkworld is best described by the website www.orkworld.com ... It's one thing to be told about the story, it's another thing to view it from the author's own words.

On March 1, 1990 the United States Secret Service raided the Austin, Texas offices of Steve Jackson Games citing a suspected hacker ring. The following chronology takes you through this landmark case: Steve Jackson Games v The United States Secret Service.

March 1st 1990
Armed United States Secret Service agents, local police, and a civilian phone company expert forcefully infiltrated the offices of Steve Jackson Games as well as the home of Loyd Blakenship. Their lock cutting, picking, and breaking tactics seized assets including four computers, two laser printers, hard disks, and random hardware (and, sadly, destroying two office letter openers in the process). The computers taken contained manuscripts for the GURPS Cyberpunk book as well as the Illuminati BBS.

March 2nd, 1990
Steve Jackson, accompanied by attorney, entered the Austin office of the United States Secret Service under the understanding he could copy his files. He was, however, only allowed to copy a handful of files none of which included parts of the manuscript or the Illuminati BBS. This visit also conveyed the Secret Services belief that the GURPS Cyberpunk book was in fact "a handbook for computer crime". Regardless of the fact that the fictional book was about futuristic credit card fraud using nonexistent equipment, the Secret Service repeatedly commented, "This is real".

March 3rd - March 25th, 1990
The attorney for Steve Jackson Games was assured copies of the files would be turned over on the proverbial, but never realized, tomorrow. These empty promises left Steve Jackson Games to recreate the book from backups, notes, and memories.

March 26th, 1990
A small collection of the files were returned.

June 21st, 1990
The majority of the seized Steve Jackson Games equipment was returned. Not returned assets included a hard disk, printouts of GURPS Cyberpunk, all of Mr. Blakenship's materials, and other hardware.

October 21st, 1990
Steve Jackson Games received a copy of the previously sealed warrant affidavit (sealed by the Secret Service). The contents of said affidavit boiled down to, according to SJG, "guilt by remote association" (summary stated by Steve Jackson Games and not the final opinion of this author). It seems the work done by Mr. Loyd Blakenship while writing GURPS Cyberpunk threw up red flags and simply caused SJG to be sucked into the suspicion.

Early 1993
The case Steve Jackson Games v The United States Secret Service came to trial funded by three years of electronic civil rights groups costing over $200,000. George, Donaldson, & Ford represented SJG led by Pete Kennedy. SJG won the case and was awarded damages in excess of $50,000 plus over a quarter million dollars in attorney fees.

Trial Day 1
As quoted by Jim George of George, Donaldson, & Ford, the goal of "This lawsuit is just to stand up and say, at the end of the 20th Century, that publishing occurs as much on computers as on the printed page." Holes were immediately punched in the Secret Service's training and handling of this case. Plaintiff attorney George proved that the Secret Service lacks in training for such a raid as stated in testimony by Special Agent Tim Foley. "No, sir. The United States Secret Service does not teach its agents about special rules regarding search and seizure at publishing companies." Furthermore the testimony revealed that the affidavit should not have extended to the properties searched and seized. No charges were ever brought against Steve Jackson Games nor Steve Jackson himself.

Trial Day 2
The majority of day 2 was concerned with the seizure of private e-mail correspondence. The breach cited stemmed from the Electronic Communications Privacy Act which, the plaintiff argued, protects e-mails.

Trial Day 3
District Judge Sam Sparks closes with a statement claiming the investigation was improper and crossed legal lines in the seizure of equipment. More holes in the Secret Service investigation were revealed in the damages weighing phase including no investigation of Steve Jackson Games as well as lack of training in the Privacy Protection Act. The following fantastic transcript between the Judge and Agent Foley, as posted on Revolution, accents the Judge's outrage at the entire incident:

"How long would it have taken you, Mr. Foley, to find out what Steve Jackson Games did, what it was?" asked Sparks. "An hour? Was there any reason why, on March 2, you could not return to Steve Jackson Games a copy, in floppy disk form, of everything taken? Did you read the article in Business Week magazine where it had a picture of Steve Jackson -- a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen -- saying he was a computer crime suspect? Did it ever occur to you, Mr. Foley, that seizing this material could harm Steve Jackson economically?"

Foley replied, "No, sir," but the judge offered his own answer.

"You actually did, you just had no idea anybody would actually go out and hire a lawyer and sue you."

October 1994
Steve Jackson Games continued to appeal a continued claim of interception by Secret Service Agents but was denied. The Fifth Circuit claims that walking out with a computer containing e-mail is not the same as intercepting it (just not in those words of course) citing United States v. Turk.

Furthermore, SJG made it clear in that same month there are ten facts of the entire incident and case that need to be clarified. As per their list I have condensed each fact as follows:

1. Steve Jackson Games is not a computer game company. They use the computers to write the games.
2. GURPS Cyberpunk is not a computer game. It is a role-playing game.
3. Steve Jackson Games is not out of business. They came close, but they survived… quite well to this date I may add.
4. Steve Jackson Games was not raided by the FBI but by the United States Secret Service
5. No staff members were arrested, indicted, charged, or even questioned.
6. The raid was not part of Operation Sun Devil.
7. The raid was not after GURPS Cyberpunk. It was simply "suspicious material" found by the U.S. Secret Service.
8. There was no hacker threat to sabotage the 911 system.
9. Loyd spells his name with one L.
10. Steve Jackson Games is not the second largest game company in the United States.

Sources include: Steve Jackson Games, Revolution online information database, and many public domain documents cited on the Steve Jackson Games website

Go read this and ignore everything said therein. That'll get you started on turning a fun social activity into a torturous nightmare for all involved.

How to ruin a roleplaying game as the GM

Don't do any work for your adventures. Show up with nothing but a vague idea of what you'd like to happen, or don't even bother with that. Randomly improvise stupid situations, inventing scene description and characterization off the top of your head. Don't bother with consistency or continuity in any of it. Keep track of everything in your head.

Don't give a shit about what happens in the session; you're doing those ungrateful players a favor just by being there, so they should be happy with whatever you give them. And they can shut up about how your NPCs all have the same mannerisms and speech patterns as you. You're a writer, not an actor.

Plot hammer relentlessly. If they don't like the direction the adventure takes, tough nuts. You're the GM and it's YOUR world, gawdammit! The adventure goes the way you say it goes, and if they don't like it, they can leave. Your word is law.

Don't bother fleshing out the environment or character backgrounds at all. Sets are only a location for killing NPCs, and those NPCs are only there to be killed. Character interaction is for boring wimp-ass roleplayers who don't know how to hack properly.

Hand out the treasure in great heaping gobs. Everybody knows that collecting goodies is the only point of RPGs, so go wild. Give that third-level fighter a keen vorpal scimitar +4, and the new mage looks like he could use a staff of the archmagi. If you're running a science fiction RPG, substitute incredibly powerful pieces of alien technology for the magical items. Don't forget the gold/dollars/credits; every character should have enough money to buy anything they need. What's the fun in solving problems without using all the latest technology, and why should they go into a dungeon without a small army to back them up?

Don't give out enough treasure. Players should be forced to battle for every scrap of bread their characters get, and hacking is much more fun and challenging when your only weapon is a rusty hoe.

Your NPCs know everything you know and should act accordingly. Every one of them can cast contact other plane and speak to the almighty creator of the universe at any time. No weapons are hidden, no conspiracies masked, no trickeries and double-crosses unspotted. They will always zig when the player zig and zag when he zags.

Reward legitimate criticisms with grudge monsters. No, use grudge monsters whenever a player steps one nanometer out of line. Hell, use them randomly! It's your universe and you can do as you please. Massive XP and level penalties are also a good way to keep things running the way you want.

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How to ruin a roleplaying game as a player

Never miss an opportunity to critique the GM's style. Every GM loves to have his adventures nitpicked in meticulous detail. If he's going to write lame-ass crap like this, he really needs your help on the next one. Bitch and moan constantly about how unfair his decisions are whenever they don't go your way.

Read the GM-only material. Don't restrict yourself to stuff like the Monstrous Manual and the Game Master Guide, read his notes too! Go through his computer while he's out of the room and read the notes for his other adventures. While you're at it, you might as well read all the background material on the world. Gotta keep up to date on those player tacticals or you might lose the next session.

Everyone knows that the point of playing games is to WIN! More treasure, XP, and levels = More fun. If you can humiliate the GM and your fellow players in the process, so much the better. Minmax relentlessly and pick the race that gives you the biggest combat bonuses.

On the same note, everyone also knows that RPGs are all about how many kills you can rack up in a night. NPCs are only meant to be a source of XP. Be creative! The peasant farmers and the shopkeepers are worth a few XP, and every little bit counts in the relentless quest for levels.

Henchmen and hirelings are actually robots meant to carry your stuff and absorb damage. They don't need backgrounds or characterization, nor do they need to interact with anybody else. If you actually bother giving them a share of the loot, feel free to spend it all on your character.

Intelligence is only good for disbelieving illusions, Wisdom counts for resistance to charm spells and priestly spell bonuses, and Charisma is there to determine reaction adjustments and the number of henchmen. Your character is just as smart and charismatic as you are and thinks just like you do.

PCs, as pure engines of hack, don't need backstory or character development. Just be yourself. "Role playing" is a real misnomer; these are supposed to be combat strategy games.

Rules lawyer at every opportunity. It doesn't matter what the GM says, Appendix III.A.17 CLEARLY states that your paladin was right to slaughter those innocent villagers in cold blood. See, these righteous warriors of goodness are allowed, nay, required to put a godly smack on anyone who poses a challenge to the faith, and that one fellow in the striped suit with bells on was mocking you, so you had every right to seal the doors to the town hall and burn it down.

It doesn't matter how well you did if another player did better than you. Always be on the lookout for an opportunity to screw your fellow PCs over for your own benefit.

Your character knows everything you do and will act accordingly. This is especially handy if you've read the GM material as suggested above.

Addendum: Be a munchkin. You can make up for your genital deficiencies by creating the biggest baddest meanest ass-kickingest character possible. Give him a cool name like "The Amazing Bone-Crunching Engine of Death, Destruction, and Despair" to top it all off.

Always remember the most important point, which I'll restate: Winning is Everything!

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Advice for both players and GMs

The Game and Real Life are inseparable! You are your character! Hold grudges over things that happen in the game world, and your group will go down the tubes faster than... something going down a tube very fast indeed.

Another addendum (thanks ^Davion^): Players: Try to beat the GM. Do your best to outwit him and foil his plans at every turn, as he is your worst opponent. GM: The players are A: stupid and B: the Enemy. Do everything you can to take the bastards down. Everybody in the group should hate everybody else.

Thanks to the nodeshell creator for the necessary inspiration. All the advice above comes from years of personal experience as both a player and GM. I have witnessed everything on this list at one point or another and done a fair bit of it myself.

Eh... this is rather D&D-centric, but that's what I know best.

Playing D&D will really teach you the basics of life.

The Party

When playing D&D a single player without a party to back him up is quickly eaten alive by the Goblins, Dragons, and Tax Collectors of the world. Only a full adventuring party is equipped to take on any foe.

In the real world a person without any friends or support. Someone who is truly alone in the world, is quickly eaten alive by depression, girls, and tax collectors. (Tax collectors are dangerous in every world).

The importance of NPCs

In D&D NPCs are the people who do all the mundane things of the world. From washing your horse, to planting corn, to being your lover. Most people in the D&D world are NPCs and will never go on a great adventure. If you treat an NPC badly they may steal your horse, poison your mead, or even GASP, stop being your lover. No one can get far without the support of the NPCs

Most people in the real world are NPCs also. Mundane people who lead mundane lives. But if you treat them wrong they might, key your car, spit in your beer, or GASP, stop being your lover. (Once again some things are truly universal).

The Importance of Equipment

In D&D even the most powerful wizard was helpless if someone stole his spellbook, (he could no longer memorize his spells without it). The most mighty warrior was a pitiful sight without a sword or armor. Even the pious Cleric needed a Holy Symbol to do her magic. Without equipment your character was nothing. With quality equipment you could do anything.

In the real world the most elite kernel hacker is helpless without at least a terminal. The most fearless cop on the beat has no authority without his badge, gun, and police car. Even the most mighty waitress cannot take orders without a pen. With no possessions you quickly find yourself out on the street. Which is a hard place for even the most mighty waitress to be.

Knowing Your Enemy

In D&D you had to know your enemies weakness if you ever hoped to defeat them. Otherwise you would quickly die attempting to kill a skeleton with arrows, (they go right through the empty spots between the bones).

In the real world you must also know your enemy. Even if your enemy is only an annoying drunk, or perhaps just a telemarketer. If you know your enemy's weakness, they will quickly fall before you. Otherwise they will quickly defeat you, (or sell you new siding that you don't want).

Knowing when to run

In D&D you would sometimes encounter an opponent that you had no hopes of defeating at your skill level. If you were not smart enough to run, you would be quickly overtaken by the Vampire, Dragon, or Werewolf. Players who didn't know when to run would rarely survive long enough to become powerful enough to defeat these foes.

People in the real world have the hardest time with this. They will attempt to defeat a myriad of girls, bosses, slot machines, lottery tickets, and police officers. Very often they know that they cannot win. But you can retreat, and live to fight another day.

Training

In D&D the average adventurer would spend much of his spare time learning new skills and honing his existing ones, (in order to become more powerfull). The adventurer who never trained would quickly fall behind his peers

In the real world those who spend their spare time training will quickly become more powerfull. In time they will be able to defeat even hardened girls, telemarketers, and pointy haired bosses.