The first session of the game went fairly well. The players each made superhero-style characters, each coming up with an origin, an idea of what their powers would be, and then using the HERO rules system to model those powers so that the outcomes of their efforts could be determined. The HERO system does this by providing an array of generic abilities and the means to limit or expand them. I have four players, one playing an incorporeal alien from a black hole, one playing a wonder-woman inspired daughter of zeus with a sword and shield, one playing a government agent with the power to grow into a massive, super strong, flying hero, and one playing a Genie trapped in a child's form who transforms himself into the characters he likes from TV and comic books.
There's a lot of wrangling at this point over the exact makeup of these characters powers, to make sure every character is basically what they were envisioned as and has the ability to be a badass at least once or twice a session, with no one character outshining the rest, and without them having the ability to solve every problem with a simple application of those powers. Also, each character is given weaknesses for me to exploit, to keep the obstacles I throw at them from seeming trivial.
I explain to them the background of the setting, and ensure that their characters will fit the setting and atmosphere of the game. (generally this involves making sure they at least generally care about saving people's lives and aren't completely ruthless about it.)
With all this done, I introduce the characters to their first encounter: They're all at the mall, for one reason or anther, when a gang of criminals with guns holds the place up...
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Another new Segment: GM Diaries
I've recently begun Gamemastering a role playing game using the Hero system, which is designed to simulate role playing games based around superhero comics and similar inspirations. I asked the players to make original superhero characters for a near futuristic setting, while designing a series of opponents and challenges for them, as well as a consistent setting and at least a general way in which you want the story to go.
I know my players are far too independent to try to lead them by the nose, so I'm using a much more "sandbox" method of plot direction, where I write what's going on in the background universe, determine who knows about it and let the players stumble across sources of information, and then find out what they plan to do next before the night's session ends so I can have a head start in my thinking next week. I try to end each session with the heroes having accomplished something, and gauging a general direction for their next actions.
I know my players are far too independent to try to lead them by the nose, so I'm using a much more "sandbox" method of plot direction, where I write what's going on in the background universe, determine who knows about it and let the players stumble across sources of information, and then find out what they plan to do next before the night's session ends so I can have a head start in my thinking next week. I try to end each session with the heroes having accomplished something, and gauging a general direction for their next actions.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Species Showcase #2: Nevadra
Hidden away in an unassuming cluster of stars, the planet Veera rolls through another cycle of its orbit around an orange sun. This wet, warm world is home to a rather unique sentient species: the Nevadra. Unique not for their four arms, or their triple-segmented legs, features somewhat common in the universe at large, but for the system of webbed ridges that run in thin rows down each creature’s head. Rising only a few inches over their scalp, these rows of membrane form an organic radio communication device, linking each Nevadra with the rest of the species, forming a global network.
Through this network, a central, collective consciousness was born. This mind was distributed equally between all Nevadra, and directed their actions toward mutually beneficial goals. They never knew war, or politics. Suffering, want, and death were only discomforts to be eliminated with a new reorganization of efforts.
Nevadra cities were scattered across the planet like a handful of gemstones flung, new technologies making their lives comfortable and leisurely. At first, this state of affairs brought their linked mind to a new level of contentment, able finally to rest and contemplate the mysteries of the universe.
Once the contemplation began, the contentment did not last.
Very few sentient brains ever truly stop working while alive. The Nevadra brain is no exception. While they eat, while they sleep, while they daydream, the Nevadra’s minds remain active, processing the collective thoughts, ideas, and wonderings of the species as a whole. This proved an extraordinarily efficient way to process mathematics, science, and other answerable questions. It was philosophy, and the unanswerable questions it contained, that they were somewhat less adept at dealing with.
These questions, with no truly satisfactory answers, were left in the collective mind of the Nevadra, reverberating through the network of linked brains, becoming more urgent, more frantic, and more crippling with each new consideration. Before long, the mind found it difficult to focus on anything else.
Metaphysics brought the scientific minds in the Nevadra’s network to their knees, certain that it must solve the problem of how the universe really works, beyond all observable evidence, before it could put it’s minds to anything else. Each new model, each new concept, only raised more questions, and each was based on such flimsy evidence as to collapse entirely under the scrutiny that could not help but be leveled against it.
The question of morality was worse. Before they had developed painkillers and sedatives, they had adopted the practice of killing badly injured or sick Nevadra to spare themselves from their pain. Its defense against this guilt, that the mind as it existed now was not the same mind as then, only further complicated the issue. None of the Nevadra who had played host to the mind of the past sill lived, leaving the collective mind to wonder if it really was the same at all from one moment to the next.
But all these problems were manageable compared to those caused by the biggest question of all: whether it’s existence had a purpose.
Every purpose the shared mind tried to attribute to itself seemed wholly inadequate, either ancillary to some further purpose, or boiling down to a seemingly pointless concept, like survival or experience. As it began to wonder if it’s existence had any meaning at all, it had lapses of malaise and self destruction, segments of the population falling into a depression, barely meeting their own needs, while others participated in violent outbursts, as if the Nevadra hoped to learn the meaning of life by studying pain and death.
The collective consciousness slowly came to realize that this painful and doubting existence was intolerable. It had become aware, in the early days of it’s technological revolution, of the effects of radio waves on a Nevadra’s connection to the collective consciousness. The right radio frequencies would cause interference, and in one experiment, even complete isolation for a short time, with apparently no significant lingering affects once the Nevadra in question rejoined the group mind. It was clear that more research was necessary; to both distract the mind from its unanswerable questions, and to finally put an end to them.
In a year’s time, the inhibitor was designed and built. A device capable of generating the complex signal necessary to blot out each Nevadra’s connection with the rest of the species, using the planet’s native magnetic field to carry that signal to every point on the globe. When the inhibitor was activated, the collective consciousness would end, replaced by meaningless static. After that, only individual minds would remain, too small, to self absorbed, to be trapped by the unanswerable questions.
Was this suicide? Did the group mind exist apart from those creatures that served as its hosts and component parts? Was this the right thing to do?
With the pull of a lever and the press of a button, those terrible questions vanished.
Through this network, a central, collective consciousness was born. This mind was distributed equally between all Nevadra, and directed their actions toward mutually beneficial goals. They never knew war, or politics. Suffering, want, and death were only discomforts to be eliminated with a new reorganization of efforts.
Nevadra cities were scattered across the planet like a handful of gemstones flung, new technologies making their lives comfortable and leisurely. At first, this state of affairs brought their linked mind to a new level of contentment, able finally to rest and contemplate the mysteries of the universe.
Once the contemplation began, the contentment did not last.
Very few sentient brains ever truly stop working while alive. The Nevadra brain is no exception. While they eat, while they sleep, while they daydream, the Nevadra’s minds remain active, processing the collective thoughts, ideas, and wonderings of the species as a whole. This proved an extraordinarily efficient way to process mathematics, science, and other answerable questions. It was philosophy, and the unanswerable questions it contained, that they were somewhat less adept at dealing with.
These questions, with no truly satisfactory answers, were left in the collective mind of the Nevadra, reverberating through the network of linked brains, becoming more urgent, more frantic, and more crippling with each new consideration. Before long, the mind found it difficult to focus on anything else.
Metaphysics brought the scientific minds in the Nevadra’s network to their knees, certain that it must solve the problem of how the universe really works, beyond all observable evidence, before it could put it’s minds to anything else. Each new model, each new concept, only raised more questions, and each was based on such flimsy evidence as to collapse entirely under the scrutiny that could not help but be leveled against it.
The question of morality was worse. Before they had developed painkillers and sedatives, they had adopted the practice of killing badly injured or sick Nevadra to spare themselves from their pain. Its defense against this guilt, that the mind as it existed now was not the same mind as then, only further complicated the issue. None of the Nevadra who had played host to the mind of the past sill lived, leaving the collective mind to wonder if it really was the same at all from one moment to the next.
But all these problems were manageable compared to those caused by the biggest question of all: whether it’s existence had a purpose.
Every purpose the shared mind tried to attribute to itself seemed wholly inadequate, either ancillary to some further purpose, or boiling down to a seemingly pointless concept, like survival or experience. As it began to wonder if it’s existence had any meaning at all, it had lapses of malaise and self destruction, segments of the population falling into a depression, barely meeting their own needs, while others participated in violent outbursts, as if the Nevadra hoped to learn the meaning of life by studying pain and death.
The collective consciousness slowly came to realize that this painful and doubting existence was intolerable. It had become aware, in the early days of it’s technological revolution, of the effects of radio waves on a Nevadra’s connection to the collective consciousness. The right radio frequencies would cause interference, and in one experiment, even complete isolation for a short time, with apparently no significant lingering affects once the Nevadra in question rejoined the group mind. It was clear that more research was necessary; to both distract the mind from its unanswerable questions, and to finally put an end to them.
In a year’s time, the inhibitor was designed and built. A device capable of generating the complex signal necessary to blot out each Nevadra’s connection with the rest of the species, using the planet’s native magnetic field to carry that signal to every point on the globe. When the inhibitor was activated, the collective consciousness would end, replaced by meaningless static. After that, only individual minds would remain, too small, to self absorbed, to be trapped by the unanswerable questions.
Was this suicide? Did the group mind exist apart from those creatures that served as its hosts and component parts? Was this the right thing to do?
With the pull of a lever and the press of a button, those terrible questions vanished.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Sci-Fi Concepts continued: Technology
Technology:
Newly imagined technologies have been an important aspect of science fiction more or less since it's beginnings. When Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein, she conceived of a device capable of reanimating dead flesh, and imagined the aftermath of it's use. When writing 1984, George Orwell imagined a television screen with a camera built into it, as a part of a society without privacy. In Star Trek, Captain Kirk beamed down to planets using a teleporter, a device able to turn a person into an energy pattern, transmit them at the speed of light to a location, and then re-solidify them, because the show did not include the budget to film a shuttle ride to the surface of a planet.
When writing new technologies into a setting, it is important to maintain a sense of consistently, and to keep track of the scientific laws which you have allowed your characters to break. Here's a primer on a few technological concepts that you might think to include.
Gravity Control: sometimes called inertics, a technology that allows the control of gravity has many implications. The use of artificial gravity on starships and space stations is one common aspect of gravity control. Inertial compensators, which allow pilots to survive incredibly high speed turns, are important for light starships and "space fighters", which require a great deal of maneuverability to have a chance to survive. Gravity could also be used as a form of propulsion, making an object "fall" in the direction you pilot it. Gravity control technology can also be weaponized, allowing it to be used to immobilize or crush people, or to tear structures apart.
Newly imagined technologies have been an important aspect of science fiction more or less since it's beginnings. When Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein, she conceived of a device capable of reanimating dead flesh, and imagined the aftermath of it's use. When writing 1984, George Orwell imagined a television screen with a camera built into it, as a part of a society without privacy. In Star Trek, Captain Kirk beamed down to planets using a teleporter, a device able to turn a person into an energy pattern, transmit them at the speed of light to a location, and then re-solidify them, because the show did not include the budget to film a shuttle ride to the surface of a planet.
When writing new technologies into a setting, it is important to maintain a sense of consistently, and to keep track of the scientific laws which you have allowed your characters to break. Here's a primer on a few technological concepts that you might think to include.
Gravity Control: sometimes called inertics, a technology that allows the control of gravity has many implications. The use of artificial gravity on starships and space stations is one common aspect of gravity control. Inertial compensators, which allow pilots to survive incredibly high speed turns, are important for light starships and "space fighters", which require a great deal of maneuverability to have a chance to survive. Gravity could also be used as a form of propulsion, making an object "fall" in the direction you pilot it. Gravity control technology can also be weaponized, allowing it to be used to immobilize or crush people, or to tear structures apart.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Scifi Concepts continued: Hardness
Hardness:
"Hard" science fiction is science fiction that assumes few, or even no, significant paradigm shifts in technology. A setting becomes softer with the existence of Faster than Light (FTL) travel or communication, teleportation, energy weapons, and other dramatic advances in technological capability that cannot be explained with current science.
"Hardness" and "softness" are measured on a sliding scale, with a setting becoming "softer" as it includes more extreme technologies. To assume that we will be able to build an engine that is capable of significantly higher speeds than is currently possible does not significantly soften a setting, but to assume we will be able to break the light barrier, or manipulate gravity, is. The presence of extraterrestrial life, fairly common anomalies which bend the laws of physics, and other setting detains for which there is currently no evidence, also make a setting softer.
A setting with no artificial gravity, where the earth has colonies on the moon and Mars, and engages in endeavors to mine the asteroid belt, would be a relatively hard science fiction setting. Comparatively, a setting focused on the movements of a spaceship across the galaxy as it solves moral and political dilemmas arising from interactions with alien societies would be a soft science fiction setting.
It is important to remember that these terms are not pejorative. Hard science fiction is not better than soft science fiction, only different. A reader who believes that the setting he is reading about is "hard" will likely be dismayed if "soft" elements make an appearance without significant explanation and purpose.
"Hard" science fiction is science fiction that assumes few, or even no, significant paradigm shifts in technology. A setting becomes softer with the existence of Faster than Light (FTL) travel or communication, teleportation, energy weapons, and other dramatic advances in technological capability that cannot be explained with current science.
"Hardness" and "softness" are measured on a sliding scale, with a setting becoming "softer" as it includes more extreme technologies. To assume that we will be able to build an engine that is capable of significantly higher speeds than is currently possible does not significantly soften a setting, but to assume we will be able to break the light barrier, or manipulate gravity, is. The presence of extraterrestrial life, fairly common anomalies which bend the laws of physics, and other setting detains for which there is currently no evidence, also make a setting softer.
A setting with no artificial gravity, where the earth has colonies on the moon and Mars, and engages in endeavors to mine the asteroid belt, would be a relatively hard science fiction setting. Comparatively, a setting focused on the movements of a spaceship across the galaxy as it solves moral and political dilemmas arising from interactions with alien societies would be a soft science fiction setting.
It is important to remember that these terms are not pejorative. Hard science fiction is not better than soft science fiction, only different. A reader who believes that the setting he is reading about is "hard" will likely be dismayed if "soft" elements make an appearance without significant explanation and purpose.
A few science fiction concepts
Science fiction is a complex beast, at least among those who take it seriously. There are a number of concepts that are taken for granted by most science fiction readers, and mystifying to anyone not a part of that culture. An understanding of these basic concepts is vital for anyone who might desire to write for a science fiction audience.
When writing science fiction, you are effectively conceiving a new world. Much like in fantasy, it is important that the rules of this world are consistent with themselves, even if they have little relation to the world we live in. Even a setting as seemingly obtuse as the one presented in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (by Douglas Adams) comes to an understanding with the reader about what sorts of things they can expect. To significantly shift paradigms after establishing a consistent setting is a risky maneuver, and may leave readers feeling betrayed. Most of these concepts involve the categories that a reader will place your setting into in order to determine what they can expect.
Scope:
How big is your effective setting? one country, one planet, one solar system, a cluster of stars, an arm of a galaxy, a whole galaxy, or even several galaxies are all possibilities. The scope of your setting will be tied significantly to the maximum distances and speeds that people can expect to be able to travel. If no faster than light method of travel is possible, then your setting will likely be relegated to just a few colonies, or even just a single solar system.
The scope of a setting tells readers what reasonably is at stake, and how complex and diverse your world is. If the furthest anyone is able to go is out to the asteroid belt, they will have a different set of options than if they were in a setting in which they could reach the next galaxy. If there are thousands of inhabited worlds, with billions of people on each of them, then the crush of it's vastness should seem overwhelming, especially if they all are in communication and travel range of each other.
When writing science fiction, you are effectively conceiving a new world. Much like in fantasy, it is important that the rules of this world are consistent with themselves, even if they have little relation to the world we live in. Even a setting as seemingly obtuse as the one presented in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (by Douglas Adams) comes to an understanding with the reader about what sorts of things they can expect. To significantly shift paradigms after establishing a consistent setting is a risky maneuver, and may leave readers feeling betrayed. Most of these concepts involve the categories that a reader will place your setting into in order to determine what they can expect.
Scope:
How big is your effective setting? one country, one planet, one solar system, a cluster of stars, an arm of a galaxy, a whole galaxy, or even several galaxies are all possibilities. The scope of your setting will be tied significantly to the maximum distances and speeds that people can expect to be able to travel. If no faster than light method of travel is possible, then your setting will likely be relegated to just a few colonies, or even just a single solar system.
The scope of a setting tells readers what reasonably is at stake, and how complex and diverse your world is. If the furthest anyone is able to go is out to the asteroid belt, they will have a different set of options than if they were in a setting in which they could reach the next galaxy. If there are thousands of inhabited worlds, with billions of people on each of them, then the crush of it's vastness should seem overwhelming, especially if they all are in communication and travel range of each other.
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