IMHO

Florian wrote in with a subject of: "d20 weekly - what is happening here?":

I learn with some surprise ( I admit I don't visit the discussion boards) the birth of d20 Weekly. Needless to say, I am very pleased with the creation of a new SJG magazine. But why ? Why put this new magazine under the banner of d20 ? What is your aim ? To help d20 develop ? To take advantage of the huge d20 crowd ? To make use of a great game system ?

*Our* aim?

Whatever your aim is, I deeply resent this. I don't really dislike the d20 system per se, but rather its mere existence as a "default". Roleplayer are not dumb, they know what d20 is about but still, it does create a different feel in the hobby, one of taming down.

And your telling us this because?

RPG by essence are made of creativity and imagination. There's nothing more to it than that, and that means we don't need anything else. However, it has developed into an industry, which though small-scale, has changed the rules. Once again, roleplayers do not stupidly fall prey to marketing tricks, but still it does change the way we envision rpgs.

I've moved to Canada and created a rpg club in my university. What I've seen is 90% D&D3-only; players. What I've seen is players who are shy of new experiences, who'd rather get back to the confort of the tried-and-true D&D; rather than try other games, like the Ars Magica campaign I managed to start, or -god forbid- play custom games that are not backed up by hardcover books. But I'm not criticizing them... they just don't see the point ! Why should they play another obscure game, when they can have good fun bashing dragons and gaining levels in a game system they master ? I mean I know several people who would admit having fun playing Diablo, so how could a D&D; game be less fun ?

The problem is, RPG can be much more than that, it can be not just good, but great. The pleasure of RPG is multiplied when one realize the freedom it gives, to create new settings, new ways of playing, unlimited possibilities for having fun, and moreover enjoying the act of creation. RPG is not only a hobby, it is an unique activity : a simple and straightforward way of

leveraging our imagination. By comparison, cinema, theatre and video games are atrociously limited and limiting. Roleplaying games are free. Everyone, repeat : everyone, has the ability and time to build a game, setting, rules and characters. No materials are needed, no personnel, no buildings, no money. Kraft Diner is good, but cooking your own macaroni-and-cheese is both more enjoyable, and easy, it just takes the conviction that Kraft Foods are no better cooks than you.

And that's were we finally come back to d20, because that is the real problem with roleplaying, as far as the industry is concerned. What the publisher does is present interesting gaming material to players. They are, hopefully, written by talented authors and provide great ideas. But they're just that. Sure enough, I own several volumes that plain impress me : settings or systems like Paranoia, StarWars or Ars Magica that are just great productions, and I'm grateful with their author for sharing them. But in the long run, it does erodes our creative edge as we delve into the confort of published material. We forget that we have no less potential that the writers of a given books, and that it should be treated as a proposal and judged on its "I-can't-do-better" value. We just don't -need- them to play. We need publishers to play HalfLife, because I cannot program HalfLife myself easily, nor can I shoot Star Wars epidose III, nor can I write a novel and enjoying reading it myself. But I can write D&D4;, everybody can. Mr. Costikyan, Rein-Hagen or Tweet sure are better at this than me, but we're playing in the same league.

The industry eases our work, but this lead to hoodwinking and some very odd reactions. I remember writing to the leading French game magazine (Casus Belli, its evolution is a very interesting case by itself) , in response to an editorial about the disappearing of several French rpg companies. The editor's point was : "stop complaining about the games and buy them, or the hobby will disappear altogether". And he was serious, but obviously he forgot the hobby is not the game companies. If the players dislike the published stuff, then they don't need it, and don't buy it, but keep on playing nonetheless.

More recently, there was the "power creep" controversy that I read about in criticalmiss.com (http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue7/scenarioinflation1.html) . The point is

: with the rulership of d20 the possibility that game companies produce gaming material with inflated powers and rewards, as a marketing trick to lure gamers, is increased because they can be directly compared to each other. Truly amazing. What on earth prevents the DM from changing the rewards and powers if that's what the players want ? Is there a Deity that enforces strict compliance with the module as it is written ? That game companies be actually aiming toward publishing more powerful prestige classes and items is a testimony to that dereliction. I remember an ad for an alternative d20 setting putting forward... the number of arrow THEIR 1st level warrior could fire in a round. Come on, I've stopped playing the Dungeon magazine autofire Archer or the Unearthed Arcana undomitable Cavalier when I was 14.

The real threat here, is the progressive diminution of our motivation to create by ourselves. This may sound vastly exagerated, but I'm not saying this is d20's fault or consequence, I just think the way the d20 system is developing is a major step backward. Probably some would object that the d20 frameworks in the contrary eases the players task of creating by providing common ground and ready rules. I would reply that it would be even easier to use fully developed material altogether. "Ready-bake" roleplaying is no contender for video or card games. I simply believe that the strength of roleplaying lies not in the pure enjoyement of the playing, which can be provided by many other types of games, as much as the fun of creating (which is part of a game session), which is denied by the basic premise of an endeavour such as the d20 system. We're forgetting that because we're provided with ready material, which actually leads to fine game sessions. This should not lead to a depreciation of roleplaying, however.

So please, by all means, please edit another game magazine, with the same quality content as Pyramid, coming from seasoned writers and creative amateurs. I will enjoy its content and it will help and inspire me. But don't follow the d20 banner. This movement is built on flawed principles that are accelerating the weakening of the roleplaying game hobby. Your time, and mine, would be better used outside of it.

Florian

Erm... who did you mean to sent this letter to? 'Cous it came to us.

I just trawled through all the e-mails sent to letters to find this and noticed that we are one of three addresses this was sent to. The other two being D20 Weekly and Pyramid. Now it all makes sense...

Oliver wrote in on the subject of "Wasn't The Future Supposed To Be Japanese? (Issue 7 Winter 2002)":

Just stumbled upon your site, and while I like a lot of stuff, the above-mentioned article struck me as odd. I know I am kinda late of this, but...

It concludes "So if the future ain't gunna be Japanese...

...it makes several leading cyberpunk games look just a tad stupid."

Now, throughout the article, actually only one Cyberpunk game is mentioned, namely Shadowrun.

More, the article opens: "When I was a kid, I grew up believing I was obsolete. Japan was the future, and Europe was the past. Whatever it was, they could make it better, quicker, cheaper. And if there was one genre of literature (and or roleplaying) that was heavily influenced by that belief, it was cyberpunk."

That strikes me as odd, because the one Cyberpunk game I am playing once in a while does not see Europe as the past at all. Quite the contrary, it sees the "Eurodollar", also called "Eurobucks" as THE world currency.

Given that the Euro just started to be legal tender in 12 european countries and, as I write this, practically reached parity with the US Dollar, it seems some Cyberpunk games didn't get it wrong, after all?

Yeah, good point. Guess one lot knew what they were talking about.

Oliver

P.S.:The game I am referring to is, of course, RTG's Cyberpunk

Yinnyari Asagiri wrote to us about Nice illustration, shame about the facts.:

http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue8/bitaboutd201.html

Am I the first to point out that the description of the Skill resolution for the GURPS game system is incorrect in your article (link above).

No, you're the second. :)

Apart from that the article nicely illustrated the difference between a single die and several dice. Now do the same for the d%.

I think I might steer clear of rules analysis, actually...

Mark wrote with the subject line of: "Making Towers":

I know I just mailed you about an entirely different matter but I must make this point.

Your dice tower example is terrible. I have never used the old d6 with cupped pips method before I concede, but balancing a standard 7 d set with no pips is easy, even with double vision.

Yeah, but were you balancing things on the pointy bits?

Cheers,

Mark

T.H. Lemur wrote in regarding My Live Action Misadventures:

Archimedes,

I would just like to point out, that because you had one bad experience with a room full of disturbed individuals, it does not mean, however ALL of us disturbed individuals have that kind of fun when LARPing. You're article seemed biased on ONE event. Maybe you should attend other LARPs in other areas to see that what you seem to sterotype in your article, is not always true everywhere or all of the time.

Well I don't think Archimedes was necessarily making a blanket condemnation of all LARPing.

For the record, I play both tabletop and LARP, and have even done PBEM as well. That being said, given the circumstances you presented, Bastard got off easy...not only would I have beat his ass, his next 'freak show' would have been attended by the local authorities, and maybe his mother, as well. But that is just me, a prick at heart. :)

Right...

T.H. Lemur

Selator wrote in with a subject of: "RPG e-books":

Hi guys:

I write from Argentina (as if you cared), and I have a question about

e-books. I don't know if it was asked before, but I'm lazy and I'm not into checking mode today. No, before you ask, I don't give a fuck about copyrights. As most of you should know, you can download almost any book you want using several programs we won't mention for legal asses (I mean issues). This, obviously includes RPG books. A friend of mine has 4 CDs full with .pdf books (and keeps DLing). Ok. Some of them are txt crap, and some are unreadable, but mean, if I don't have the money, I can't buy them. (damn trading rules!) So it's not like I'm saving money that could belong to them, because I don't save, because I don't have. And if I had it and wanted to get the Real Thing, and not this printed shit, I'd know exactly what to buy. For example, how the fuck do you know which GURPS book is good if you don't know shit about them? Well, that's it. Just wanted to know your POV about this. And if it's bad for you, I swear that I won't do it anymore, mommy.

Well you asked...

I don't agree with breaching copyrights. I *choose* to give Critical Miss away for free. But the important word there is *choose*. I believe that if I wanted to, I'd have the right to instead take my articles, put them in a paper book (or a PDF come to that) and sell them. If people didn't think my words were worth the cash I was asking, then they could just not read them.

Don't have cash: Well this is sometimes a tricky one, especially since I do have cash, but the points here are:

a) Not having cash doesn't make it okay to steal (at least non-essentials... I'm not talking about food when you're starving).

b) People often use the "I pirate software to run on my PC because I can't afford the software" argument when they have $3000 PCs. They could have chosen to buy a $1500 PC and spend $1500 on software. They didn't, because why pay for stuff you can steal for free when you could instead spend that money on the stuff you can't steal.

Whether it'd bad for companies: Yes. It's very difficult to make a living out of roleplaying. The vast majority of those GURPS books you have are written by people who write as second job which they fit around their non-writing day-jobs. They'd be able to write better, and more, stuff if they could do it full-time. But the money isn't there. We are *not* talking about a fat industry awash with rich capitalists.

How to know if something is good: I'd say check out on-line reviews, at places like RPGNet.

As to you being in Agentina, and not being able to get stuff, there's no easy answer to that one, so I'm not going to give one. But most of the people downloading stuff probably live in prosperous first world countries, and so could buy stuff.

Mail order maybe, I'm sure if your online you must be able to get snail mail

See you around (yeah right, when you come to Argentina to hunt indians)

Selator

Glen Murie wrote in on the subject of Johnny's Action Plan to Save Role Playing:

Good heavens! You don't have to create some elaborate ruse to create the impression that we're all Pagans. Tell the Fundamentalist whack nuts the truth. That most of us are Atheists, and that we'd learned our lack of belief through exposure to ideas of other gods and pantheons in role playing, and then learned to dismiss the whole lot because of Role Playing.

Good point.

I don't know about Baptists, Mormons, and other right wing head cases in the UK, but in the United States the only thing that the religious fundamentalists fear more than pagans or other religious types are athiests.

Wouldn't like me then.

With non-athiests there is at least that common fear of death and the unanswerable questions, but they can never quite grasp atheism. More often than not, what the sub-literate bible thumpers don't understand, they hate and fear. See that's why role-playing isn't a big deal to most of them (I STILL get devil worshipper comments once in a while, but I live in Wisconsin) because role-playing is understood as being a pastime of sad geeks who still live with their Moms.

What you should do instead is create a successful lobbying group (it has to get media attention for the results that you desire) called the Atheist Gaming Alliance.

I like what you're saying...

Then campaign on stuff that you know is going to get the religious types in a froth. Support for abortion would be a really good start, and sex education in schools. Also take the extreme of free speach. Try and make it OK for young children to be allowed to buy nudie books; most d20 system covers are that way already. Not much difference.

Hmm...

William I Walley wrote to us about RPG Bidding Wars.:

Dear Mr. Nexus

Once again you've put the bullet in the head of the target with the competition to outdo each other among the RPG open license gang. For those of us old enough to remember, which unfortunately includes me, a similar problem occurred in the misty dawn of RPG's with a company called Judges Guild, which produced some solid AD&D; products, but suffered from a similar, we have to give our players the big, shiny rewards, or they won't but our product. That's just the nature of the business, to catch the shark, you need the bloodiest meat on the hook.

The truly sad part is this sort of stuff with Third Edition was completely predictable given the nature of TSR's parent company, WOTC, and its boiled over into a more serious problem-out of control Prestige Classes and Feats. I've seen official Prestige Classes where the player is rewarded with almost godlike powers, and the restrictions are: must eat and breath air. Even more ominous is TSR/WOTC's lack of common sense when putting these items out, because they never seem to bother to think what you can do with them in combination.

Unfortunately, this behavior was also predicable given WOTC's track record with Magic: The Gathering. The train of events follows thus: Magic was a fun gun, good for spending an evening humiliating your friends. WOTC would painstakingly test each edition and pronounce it safe and balanced, but only by play-testing it in the edition that was being released. They never crossed checked it with previous editions for lack of time. Then, this finished product would end up in the hands of people like my friend Rob. He owned every Mage supplement ever, and would sit down with each set and go " if I use this card from Set X, with this card from Set W, and this Card from Set V, then I'll be unstoppable ! " He would sit down with us and a game would go like this : " I play this card, to tap this card, to sacrifice this card, to draw this card, to discard my entire hand, to draw a new hand, and you're all dead ! "

Yeah, I knew people like that.

We'd be pissed as hell, but take it in stride by ganging up on him. Regrettably, someone less apathetic would use this combo a tournaments and clean up, leaving the WOTC guys scratching their heads going " Damn ! I guess you can do that ! " A few weeks later the guilty cards would be restricted or banned. This occurred with each damn set, helping to kill my like of the game, when the fix was an ounce of common sense. I'm pessimistic enough after experiences with power gamers following a similar pattern with combos of feats and prestige classes that produced god slayers that I fully expect to see a TSR/WOTC restricted and banned list for feats and prestige classes. My solution has been to use the word " No ", usually followed by a " But Hell No ! ", but as sure as the sun rises, a player will always put together something that will snake you, and by then its too late and the campaign is ruined.

Mark had a monk with an armour class of something like 36. Naked.

And he did something like + 10 d6 damage on his first attack if he caught you flat footed, and he always went first because of his high modifier, and then he got Great Cleave...

The First round usually consisted of him tearing through The opposition killing anything in his way only stopping if the thing he had just killed happened to be standing more then 5 feet form the next thing to be killed.

My advice to any Game master out there is before you start you campaign, look over what you're going to allow and think how the feat and classes will interact. It's time consuming, but well worth it. As a starting point, do not let any player multi- class in two spell casting classes. Period. Just say Hell No ! It will save you a lot of grief in the long run. Oh, and don't rely on TSR/WOTC for a damn thing. We called their hot line on a Rokugan/Oriental Adventures rape that lets Samurai do incredible amounts of damage to undead and constructs with their first hit( I'm not telling the combo. You'll have to figure it out for yourselves). The official response " Damn, I guess you can do that legally. I'm going to use it for my next character. "

How cool a response is that? Means they have really gamer geeks on their help line. :)

By the way, has any other GM's had consistent problems with any political based game, specifically the Birthright setting ? All my games have gone straight to the bottom faster than the Titanic because of one simple flaw. Gamers are dysfunctional, paranoid, selfish bastards, and political games give them access to armies and economies. I've reached the conclusion that sooner or later, any type of political game will tank, no matter how good the plot may be, when one pissed off, antisocial player goes " I'm a King, I've got an army, I don't have to take your shit !" The bad guys will end up ruling the world, with you heroes arguing in Hell over whose fault it was. Keep up he good work.

To Quote Demonic "I'll be your King!"

Never really tried them.

William I Walley

Edward Kolis wrote with the subject line of: "Oh, what the heck...":

I'll tell you about those misadventures of our very small (1-2 players and 1 GM!) dysfunctional gaming group:

#1. Mock the Dead Dragon's Skull

One time my brother and I were exploring a dungeon when my friend Dan's mom (Dan was always the DM) said it was time for my brother and me to go home. We were (seemingly) trapped in this room with a dead dragon's skull, and we couldn't figure out how to get to the next room. In desperation to finish things up we tried to do lots of things to the skull, hoping we would trigger some secret door or something. We tried kicking the skull, picking it up, etc. (fortunately we were too young to think of screwing the skull!) and finally I (or maybe it was my brother) got the bright idea of Mocking the Dead Dragon's Skull! Well, guess what, Dan said, "YOU HAVE AWAKENED THE SPIRIT OF THE DEAD DRAGON AND IT IS VERY ANGRY AT BEING MOCKED!!! The dragon's spirit makes the ceiling collapse on you. You both die. See you later, guys."

Nice.

#2. The Chicken-in-the-box Incident

Another time we had a quest from a farmer to rescue his chickens from an evil sorcerer (!). So we went to the evil sorceror's castle and started searching for the chickens. We found a lot of basilisks which we slew. Then we came to this room with these tiny little boxes in the corner. We went over and picked up one of the boxes and opened it up and lo and behold there was a tiny little chicken inside! So we gathered up all the boxes and moved on to search for more. We found more basilisks and "chicken-in-the-boxes". Every so often Dan would describe how the NPC Paladin, "Valieuv", would take out one of the chicken-in-the-boxes and go "twerk twerk twerk" with the chicken's neck (which Dan illustrated by pretending to take something VERY SMALL in his hand and twisting it - despite the sound he was NOT screwing the chickens!!!) Anyway, we finally got all the chickens and slew all the basilisks, so we went back to the farmer and presented him his chickens. Well guess what, the farmer said, "THESE AREN'T MY CHICKENS!!!" so we said "what do your chickens look like?" and he said "They're all like green and lizardy." and we realized that his "chickens" were really the basilisks we'd been killing all along! Fortunately Valieuv offered to buy the chicken-in-the-boxes for 2 silver pieces each so he could play with their necks some more.

Right..?

#3. The Milky Way Bar

Maybe my brother wasn't there for this one. I was on a very surreal quest that I can't remember the details of, but eventually we got to this dragon, and he wouldn't let anyone pass unless they gave him a Milky Way bar! So we went back to the last town we passed, but none of the shops knew what a Milky Way bar was. So we went to the local chef and asked him to make one for us. We had to explain that it was made of a layer of caramel, and a layer of nougat, all covered with melted chocolate. So the chef went in the back and took the caramel and the nougat and the chocolate, and. KABOOM! (Dan illustrated with bombastic arm motions) So we had the chef try again. he took the caramel and the nougat and the chocolate, and KABOOM! (arm motions again) So we decided to try it ourselves, so we got the chef to let us go in back and I took the caramel and the nougat and the chocolate, and KABOOM! (arm motions) Finally we gave up and it was time to go home anyway.

Sorry, a dragon in a fantasy setting that wanted... a Milky Bar?

#4. The Malcontent

One time we were on another strange quest (I can't remember what, but I think it involved an evil sorceror and dimensional portals and a vacuum.) and we were in this long hallway, and one of Dan's NPC's (can't remember the name) kept saying, in this really whiny voice, "I'm tired! I'm hungry! I'm bleeeeeding!"

Huh?

Would probably have been good to actually link to that.

Riekhan wrote in with a subject of: "You guys are hilarious! (nt)":

Well, some text, but nothing important.

No problem. Brevity's good.

Lord Lard wrote in regarding Weather:

Just the other day, a thought occured to me. Has anyone ever played any roleplaying game in which it's been raining? I can't think of a single instance where the weather has come into a game. I've played loads of RPGs in which the characters spend a lot of time in the open, but what the weather's like has never been mentioned - the GM and the players alike never thought about it.

Yes, we once had to move our camp from the top of a hill because of an electrical storm. The conversation was short.

Lightning, Hill, Armour, who else thinks we should be Moving?

That's a bloody good point. I'm going to put rain in from now on.

Here's a typical situation - in some hack fantasy RPG (let's call it 'AB&C;' and leave it at that), a bunch of 'adventurers' (a gentle euphemism for murderous cutthroats if you ask me) is journeying through forest hills to get to an old abandonned castle, with the aim of looting it. On the way these 'adventurers' meet a pack of Orcs and have a big fight. Whenever I play a game like this, in my mind's eye I always picture the action as taking place on a nice dry sunny day. If it was raining buckets, I imagine the fighters on both sides would be a bit less eager to have a big barney.

Yeah. It's a much grittier atmosphere.

I don't really know what effect this should have on combat (or anything else really). I suppose it should make climbing rolls more difficult for one thing.

History tells us that weather can make a big difference. It's said that at Agincourt, the British won because the French got bogged down - they couldn't manoeuvre in the mud after heavy rains. If it hadn't rained so hard before the battle, the British might have been slaughtered.

Well that and the fact that we had shit-loads of shit-hot Welsh archers.

Whether you can put this into a game or not, just putting in little details like this can create the feeling that your characters are people in a real world, and not just game counters on a board.

Lord Lard

Lord Lard wrote in on the subject of Moaning and whingeing:

Recently I went to Convulsion 2002 (Chaosium's British con) and while there I played a couple of games of Cthulhu. It was OK, but there were a couple of things that pissed me off no end.

Go on.

Now when I play PRGs, it's about playing a character. I like to feel like my character is a person who's doing stuff - I like it to feel real. Anything that breaks this illuasion of a reality which I've built up spoils the game for me. And this illusionm of reality is fragile - often small jarring things can break it.

Here's what I mean. We were starting this Cthulhu game, and I asked the GM what year it was set in. He said someting like 'Oh - probably about 1922 or 1923 I expect'. I insisted on knowing a year, so he told me it was 1922 just to shut me up. He obviously didn't care. This made the whole illusion unstable for a start - I couldn't even define clearly when the game was supposed to be set.

I'm with you there. It should be a definite year. It's like I hate superhero games where, when you ask where it's set, they say: "Oh New York, or Los Angeles, or somewhere like that..."

There was another thing. This happened the same way in both the scenarios I played at this con. I both cases, there was an NPC who was in some way connected with the plot. One of the players asked this person's name, and the GM said, 'His name's Mr A N Other'. This was the GM's way of telling us that that NPC wasn't in the plot so we shouldn't go there. Again, it ruined for me the illusion that I was playing a character in a world.

Agreeing with you there.

Now this sort of thing fucks me off enormously. It's a sign that the GM just doesn't care. He can only be bothered to give his players what he thinks they need to complete the scenario - any other information is superfluous. But this means that he's not making a world for the PCs to operate in. And when that's gone, it's not an RPG any more. You might as well be playing an abstarct game like chess.

Lord Lard

Slanter22 wrote to us about our "Kick Ass Fanzine":

Hey

Sure yall get this alot in fact i no ya do but still just had ta say that yall write a hell a kick ass fuckin ezine, keep up tha good work

End

Thanks.

Glen wrote with the subject line of: "I don't get it":

Right, I initially mailed this to the good Mr Nexus a good while back and he mentioned sending it to this address. Weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks later I get my finger out and do it. Without further ado, my contribution to your fine letters page.

------------------

You're probably sick to death hearing about the whole "conceptions" thing but I can never resist throwing in my two cents because I'm sick of watching organisers of badly run conventions and events ripping into any poor git with the nerve to say "I hated it"

No, go ahead.

Organisers seem incredibly sensitive about their little pet projects and seem to confuse accusations of not being good at organising conventions or even being inexperienced with accusations of being hitler, or a baby eater or something. I can't organise worth squat, that's why I have a webpage and not a convention, it doesn't make me a bad person but I think it means I'm bright enough to realise that any contribution I make to the convention scene is going to be a pretty sad one.

The argument that frequently comes up is "what would you know? you've never run a convention" or some such. Well no, I don't. Neither have I ever driven a car or fired a gun, I can still recognise bad driving and a terrible aim, equally I can spot when a convention doesn't seem to know what it's doing. In ireland we have a system across the board like the one you suggested in the article wherby they keep track of the tickets sold and it works pretty well. To that end all we really have to worry about are organisers who delay a game by two and a half hours until their friends arrive, nonetheless, conventions are still screwed up. If you ever find yourself in ireland there's a convention every month or so, you'll never be short of an example. By and large they run smoothly and they're fun, but a critic would rarely be left without something to complain about, you can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs and so on - it happens to every convention, human error is a bitch but you have to suck it down. Also, just because the people THEY spoke to didn't have a problem, it doesn't invalidate your complaints, if their reaction to anyone who complains is going to be anything like their reply to you, not many people are going to endure the crapstorm that results from saying "it could have been done better"

My last point, somewhere along the lines people get the idea that a review is an utterly objective overview of an event or object, read the times any given day of the week, check that michael winner creature's resteraunt review, hell, check gamespy, IGN or any site you care to mention. That's not the case, they're all completly subjective because you can't presume to speak for others. Which seems a more accurate review? "I thought it was shit but you might like it" or "you will all hate it". You can only evaluate it on the basis of your experience, to do otherwise is doing yourself, your readers and the victim of the review a disservice. For what it's worth, I read and enjoyed the article several times.

I thought the reply from the organiser was very unfair on your complaints and IMO, dissected your valid complaints using the stuff like your reticence to talk to the ubergeeks in the bar, actually by the end he was an insulting little gimp who obviously isn't a big man and can't handle the criticism. I couldn't see a single valid point in his entire rambling (somewhat ironic given the length and content of this mail already). There seems to be a strange mentality around the whole review/article thing anyway, when someone or something is criticised in an open forum the "victim" or "victims" seem to think that the readers do not have the intelligence required to realise that it is only the opinion of one person and is not being presented as gospel truth. Somewhere between your fingers and their brain, "I thought it was crap" turns into "It was scientifically proven to be crap, by god and if you don't believe me, you are a tool"

Anyhoo, IMO, you were right, they were wrong, I cringed when I read about the organisation and the "witchcraft!!" people. Kudos.

Glen - http://www.schwoom.com

Thanks for those words. :)

Doozer wrote in with a subject of: "Yes, but can you make your dice DANCE?":

H'lo from the States!

Found your site while at work - couldn't email from there because my work email ends in .mil, and it just wouldn't be cool, y'dig? Incidentally, made it damn' difficult to read your stuff, too - laughing out loud ain't cool, either, and I REALLY wanted to laugh my ass off...

A lot of people say that. :)

Anyway, in re: your article "Fun with Dice" you missed an absolutely fascinating way to piss off your friends when your PC has eaten a dirt sandwich and they're happily wading through the Orc raiding horde currently occupying their attention - SPINNING!

You're right. I did miss that out.

I have a lot of dice (too effin' many, I've been told more than once), and I can say with unmitigated pride that I can spin any standard polygonal die except the 4-sided (an' I'm still working on that!). Nothing is more fun than playing Battling Tops with ten or fifteen 20-siders spinning in front of you - and the cries of "Hey, that hit me in the head!" (Ahh, the memories!)

That is actually something that I do. Not sure why I didn't put it in the article. I once started spinning my D20 as a roll, which used to piss everyone off because it took about 30 seconds. In the end, they just let everyone go ahead with their rolls while my roll was still spinning.

As for the site - it kicks ass, dudes, and I'm sure I speak for the other Yanks who've happened across it (and if I don't, then they can fuck off!)

Looking forward to Issue 9,

Doozer

George Ruban wrote in "About your NewHoo submission in Issue 1":

Hello, folks.

I found Critical Miss recently from a link somewhere, and was greatly enjoying reading it. You have a fun mag, well organized, a great writing style, and remind me of the better RPG sessions I've had. Thank you.

Thanks for saying it.

Given all that, I was especially amused when I got to your Issue 1 feedback page ( http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue1/feedback.html) about your NewHoo submission, where some snarky volunteer editor rejected your submission on the flimsy grounds that you had nothing up yet. It was a long time ago, but from perusing the letter you quoted ... I think that was me. :-)

Really?

I was the main NewHoo Games/Roleplaying editor for a good long while, and I admit, I did write the occasional letter like that. You see, back then I had the silly idea that just because it wasn't a directory of import then, if we volunteers actually had standards, and made an effort, eventually it would be. I think it worked. Since then, NewHoo was bought by Netscape (itself bought by AOL), has become the "Open Directory Project" ( http://dmoz.org), is still free, still built by volunteer editors, still "Open Content" (anyone who wants a copy can have it, for free), and is now quite popular and well known. For example, it is the directory behind Google ( http://www.google.com/dirhp), Lycos ( http://dir.lycos.com/), AOL ( http://search.aol.com) ... It now has more links, better categorized, than Yahoo. I'm not working with them any more, but I believe it's still pretty good; since, as I wrote then, some -- though not all -- of the editors there still have standards like mine. :-)

That said, you now have a great mag, and, were I still editor there, I wouldn't hesitate to list it, maybe even mark it "cool" if they still do that. But I laughed out loud when I got to that letter on your feedback page, and had to write you. Now I'll get back to reading your articles; you certainly have a lot of them. Well done.

I think my angle is that you were right to reject us, because at that point we had no content, but the way in which you rejected us seemed to imply that you didn't think we ever would have any content. Which seemed a little rude at the time. But it's good to hear that you've caught up with us.

George Ruban

Dave & Megan sent the following:

I just sent round your url to all my rp friends, your 'legal techniques' artical was hysterical.

Cool.

Andr� Vasconcelos wrote in with the subject "Hi!":

Hello, misters from the Critical Miss magazine.

I've stumbled upon your site an year or two ago, and I downloaded it to my computer (using Teleport Pro), so I could read it without wasting $$$ with phone bills. See how I thoroughtly love your site??? Unfortunately, I've only downloaded the site up to Issue 5, and I've been too lazy to check later issues. Ooops.

Well there's no hurry. It'd good to hear from someone who's solved the "reading on-line costs money" problem.

Well, I was just ranting about nothing.

I would ask, could you review those pearls of gaming as The World of Synnibar, deadEarth, or Senzar for us? PLEEEASSEE? Could you make an article with an archive of links to games that suck? I'm attracted by those games as a fly is attracted by... huh... feces.

Might be an idea, if I could get hold of them. Could be cool. We playtest games that we *know* suck.

Meanwhile, see this racist pearl of gaming. Here's the site of the RPG, and then here's the hilarious review.

Site: http://www.wcotc.com/revm/cards/rahowa.shtml

(The game is written by a White Reverend, named Molyneaux. Fucking Ignorant Moron. Just don't try to read his essays or you'll be driven mad. I wish I could shoot the man.)

Review: http://atrocities.primaryerror.net

Guess I ought to actually look at that...

Furthermore, I'd wish to proclaim I've embraced the cubic reality existent on our world, first discovered by the Wisest Man in the world (read www.timecube.com). I'm working towards a Pentagonic view of the world, but people make fun of me. I ignore them, because they educated stupid by evil professors using evil Word. Timecube dispels god. Timecube is reality.

(Man, I'm loony just from reading five minutes of the timecube "theory" (pff). Can you imagine this guy has some followers? He's a senile 74 year man, striving for some attention.)

Sounds nasty.

Bye bye.

Andr� Vasconcelos

(from Portugal, the country that managed to make twice horrible exhibitions of manners in multinacional soccer competitions.)

Dave & Megan wrote to us about Jonny's Action Plan To Save Roleplaying:

I'm a pagan rp'er, and if you ever decide to try out this article, give me a call, I'll lie for you :)

Stu Venable wrote with the subject line of: "Game Cons":

Dear Jonny,

Firstly, I recently discovered "Critical Miss," and I really enjoy it.

Cool.

Secondly, not that it'd be of any interest to you, I thought I'd describe one of my most memorable game-con experiences.

Go ahead.

I can't remember the exact year, but it was back in role-playing's hey-day of the 1980s. It took place at Orcon, which was held in a hotel near the Los Angeles International Airport.

We'd commuted back and forth in the evenings, and on the trip home on

Saturday evening, my friend, Bill and I were grousing about how f-ed up their organization was. As we drove, Bill came up with a strategy to handle the sort of pervasive problems one finds at game cons (your experiences at Conception, unfortunately, aren't that unique).

Thought not.

His strategy: We were going to be the loudest, most obnoxious ass holes we could be. We'd fly off the handle and start screaming at the smallest inconvenience.

:)

So on the drive up Sunday morning, we got ourselves nice and worked up about nothing in particular. When we hit the registration desk, I slammed my back pack on the table and said to the guy manning the table (who was talking to someone across the room at the time), "we're running GURPS Fantasy #3. We need three rooms, and they have to be adjacent." I then turned my back on the guy and continued a conversation I'd been having with Bill. The guy furiously shuffled through maps of rooms, schedules and such, and within a few minutes, he had thee adjoining rooms for us.

We went up to our rooms and discovered that someone took the table from one of them. I picked up the phone and called the registration desk, "Hello, this is Stu in room 423. We're running a GURPS game and someone stole the table. Can you bring one up please." "Well, I'll see if I can find one, but you might have to make due." "We're not 'making due,'" I said, "this room started life with a table in it, and it's gonna end it with one."

What I said didn't make much sense to me, and probably not to the guy on the other end of the line, but it's style over substance that matters. And the way I said it made the guy realize he wasn't going to blow me off. Ten minutes passed and no table. So Bill decided to take a stab at it. He and a few friends left me to set up in the other two rooms and returned a few minutes later with a table.

He never told me were he got it, but I've always pictured half-a-dozen scared, intimidate games sitting on the floor somewhere, trying to roll dice on carpet.

I can just imagine it.

The real moral of the story is not to be an ass hole; it's to always have the potential to be an ass hole. Ever since that con, I've received better service where ever I go. Somehow people can tell if you're going to be trouble or not. If they think you're safe, they'll dump all over you. If they think you might be trouble ... well, they may not treat you with respect, but they won't provoke you.

It's sort of like a zoo. You know it's safe to take a stick and poke the armadillo through the cage, but somehow, you know it's not a good idea to do that at the monkey cage, 'cause if you piss 'em off, they'll throw shit at you.

Yes.

Keep up the good work,

Stu Venable
La Mirada, California, USA

Luke wrote in regarding Gorillas Vs. Chimps:

I'd like to say I'm a long time fan, but I'm not. I've recently stumbled across your site, and now I'm an avid fan. Some of the articles had me laughing so hard, I was nearly hospitalized (Fun with dice comes to mind). However, it is because of a great, serious article that I write. The gorillas vs. chimps article.

Cool. That you like it, not that you were nearly hospitalised.

First off, dead on (sadly). I've actually had this thought before (not trying to stealing your thunder, or anything), but I thought I might suggest a better, catchier name. Because all good truisms rhyme (just name one that doesn't) I've affixed "Pricks get Chicks" as the basic theory. I've also noted how it works (firsthand). Here are a few more examples of it. In addition to your example, I've heard "but you are so sensative, I thought you were gay", and "Why can't I meet a guy like you".

That so totally sums it up. :)

I've had the "Why can't I meet a guy like you" line dropped on me, simple reply was "You just have." ;)

-Just a person to commiserate with

-Luke

Heather wrote in with a subject of: "Women":

Hey there ;)

Why am I writing? Well, it's in response to a common theme that seems to be quite a major issue for all male roleplayers, and that's this: You've slain the dragon, saved the townsfolk....but why can't you get the girl?

Yep.

Now I don't claim to be an expert on these kind of things, I leave that to Dr Bubba. However, I can offer some tips after my experience of roleplayers of both sexes coming on to me. Now these tips are aimed specifically at the men - sorry girls, you're cute, but not *that* cute. At least, not this side of a *lot* of alcohol.

Sorry, so are you saying you might turn into a lezzer if you drink enough?

Why can't you pull? Well, I may be wrong on this one, but if you spend all day at work computer programming (again, not reknowned for it's totty content) and all night roleplaying with your bloke mates, is it any wonder you never meet any girls?

Guess not.

Now I'm not suggesting that *all* roleplayers are social cripples, so get out and meet some women.

Perhaps one of the most irritating things about men is the fact that they set their sights so high, they show on radar. Presuming you play with a GM who allows inter gender roleplay, I bet your character is a willowy, big chested beauty.

You haven't read my article about roleplaying women, have you? :)

Now I hate to break it to you like this guys, but not all women are like that. At least not the type of women you are likely to meet without paying to meet them. Please get this into your head: thin does not automatically = beautiful. (And no, I'm not a huge, can-only-leave-the-house-by-crane types you see on Jerry).

I'm honestly not looking for a model. Actually, I don't like really thin women, and neither do most men.

I've just spent a year getting my GF to put on some weight Actually.

Imagine the scene. You've turned up to your regular gaming session to find out that there's a girl present. Roleplaying becomes a secondary distraction to (assuming she's not a heifer) alternatively trying not to stare, and concealing the enormous hard on you have.

Yep.

Thank god for all those rulebook supplements you bought, that should keep 'im out of sight. However, being the shy type, you don't say anything to her, just have your wizard moon around after her character.

And your point?

Now assuming that all your staring and book piling don't put her off, why won't she go out with you?

Because she doesn't fancy me?

Well, dumbass, it's because you haven't asked. You're just going to sit there wishing, until someone else gets there first.

Well she hasn't asked me? Since when did it become law that guys have to do the asking?

This is the most frustrating thing about men. You never bloody ask. I've had a few guys in my life since I left home, and I have had to ask each one of them out.

I think the problem is that I always feel that for a man to directly ask a woman out, is a bit like harassment. It's like it's only okay if she wanted you to do it, but if she didn't then you're way out of line. Whereas a woman can ask a man out without there being any suggestion that it's threatening.

Presumably, as I'm pretty good looking (and they said yes without any kind of coercion) they weren't desperate, so why do you lot never go up to a girl you know, and ask her out for a drink? Are we sposed to be psychic, as well as always right? And if she turns you down? So what? Try someone else. The worst thing you can do is let fear of rejection stop you from going for what you want from life.

And who says your always right?

So a quick recap:

1: Get out and meet some girls.

2: Dont expect us all to look like your fantasy woman.

3: You don't get if you don't ask.

You see I was always taught: "Those who ask don't get".

I hope this is helpful to you all ;) If you have any serious problems of a sexual nature, I would suggest referring your query to Dr Bubba. He's an expert...

Yeah. Right. :)

Heather

Brian wrote in on the subject of "Prostate?":

> Then, frustrated by giving away the 6 points, he commits a most
> despicable foul. Let's say he stamps on the head of an prostate
> opponent, leaving the victim unconscious with blood pouring
> from his wounds.

Hmm.. Quite sure you don't mean prostrate opponent? As written you're kicking him somewhere between his bumhole and his bollocks (i.e. his prostate), and while there may possibly be a head down there, that's probably only because a teammate took the whole "slapping each other on the ass" thing too far...

Okay, you win the prize for the funniest letter of the issue, because that had me doubled-up.

Yes. I did mean prostrate.

And where's 9?

Here.

-- Brian Leybourne

Graham Jackson wrote to us about Conventions:

Hi,

Well this is the first time I have seen your magazine and I was interested to read about the recent convention you attended. It sounds to me rather like the gencon conventions I attended in the 90's (God am I really that old) I have to say that I enjoyed them because they were not rigidly organised but I do recognise a lot of your comments. For first timers conventions are strange things and weirdly going to your first convention in a large group is possible a disadvantage, if you go alone you are forced to mix and soon get used to the idea of roleplaying with 2 dozen strangers watching on.

Also its hard to get a large group who all want to game together in to the same game so if you go to a convention you will probably find that you need to split up to get into games.

Yeah, for Gaelcon we tried to break up into groups of two.

All that said at gencon I found that none of the official games were really worth the hassle and that if you where there to have fun you just sat at a table in the middle off the room got your game out and started creating characters and asking every one who stop to look if they wanted in until you had all you wanted.

I must admit that Gen Con has just never struck me as a place to game. Couldn't say why. Too busy perhaps.

Also publishers who where running demonstrations games where a great source of free fun gaming my eternal thanks go out to Russ Babcock and Sam Lewis of FASA for some really great off the cuff games that really made my conventions come alive.

In short I am afraid to say that whilst I think that the organisers of Conception 2002 did little or nothing to help you and I am not really that impressed with his response to your comments conventions are what you make them.

That's probably a fair point.

Graham Jackson

Tom Zunder wrote with the subject line of: "bastards":

Have you noticed how evil most roleplayed PCs actually are? Most doomed games start with the problem that the game assumes PCs are good and then they fail to be honourable, heroic or good. I suggest we design a game called 'Bastards' where players can fully explore their mercenary immorality and just screw the world through a series of utterly loathsome scenarios. Of course for such a game the foe should be utterly good, self sacrificing, trusting and heroic. It would be interesting how long being the shits would be required for some players to develop a conscience.

I exlcude my current group who are sickeningly good. In fact I might run such a campaign as a reward for their nobility.

I think you'll find the results could be a bit...

icky.

Tom Zunder

Princess Victoria wrote in regarding:

INTRODUTION I am princess Victoria Okafor, daughter of King Peter Okafor, the king of Ogoni Kingdom. I am 28 Years old and a graduate of Mass Communication. My Father was the king of Ogoni Kingdom the highest oil Producing area in Nigeria.

He was in charge of Reviving royalties from the multi-national oil Companies and government on behalf of the oil Producing communities in Nigeria. After the hanging of The Ogoni Nine including Ken Saro Wiwa by the late Dictator General Sani Abacha, my father suffered Stroke and died November 15th last year. But before his death, he called me and told me he has twenty Three Million Five Hundred and Sixty Thousand Dollars $USD 23,560,000.00 cash in his Possession, Specially deposited in a Security company here.

Let me guess. You put the bank details into the memory of a small utility droid, but before you could get out of the country, you were captured by Federal Government forces and taken to their new battle station located somewhere in central Lagos.

You need me and Bubba to break in there and bust you out so that you can defeat the forces of the evil Federal Government and recover your birthright.

Help me Jonny Nexus, your our only hope...

He advised me not to tell anybody except my mother who is the last wife of the eight wives that he married. My mother did not bear any male child for him, Which implies that all my fathers' properties, companies' e.t.c., we have no share in them because my mother has No male child according to African Tradition.

Watch out. It will probably turn out that I'm your brother.

Does that make me Han Solo? Remember I've already got my Nigerian Princess. I don't need another.

My father there fore secretly gave me all the relevant Documents of the said money and told me that I should Use this money with my mother and my younger sisters Because he knows that traditionally, if he dies we Cannot get anything, as inheritance. He importantly Advised me that I should seek foreign assistance's and that I should not invest this money here in Nigeria Because of his other wives and male children who happen to be my elders.

I am soliciting for your immediate assistance to get a bungalow for us, wherein Will live with my mother and two younger sisters and Further advise me where and how I will invest the balance money overseas, possibly on products of your Company and other profitable ventures.

But Princess, what about your poor oppressed people?

Yea, My Girlfriend in currently somewhere in the Nigerian Bush in a village with no electricity, running water or phones. I'm sure that $23,560,000.00 could go a long way to change that...

I believe that by the special grace of God, you will help us move this money out of Nigeria to any country of your Choice where we can invest this money judiciously with you. You are entitled to a reasonable part of this Money based on our agreement, and God will bless you as you help us. Please reply through my e-mail Looking Forward to hear from you as soon as possible.

Do we get cool medals?

Grace of God? Us?

Yours truly,

Princess Victoria..

P.S. How do you style your hair? Just wondering, in case it turns out that it's Bubba who's your brother.

So now you want to be Han Solo, does that make Evil G Chewie?

Kid Sinister wrote in with a subject of: "dice bags...":

Heeeey Johnny!

I considered heading this one "How's it hanging? Bags, sacks, and bulging pouches" but then decided you'd assume you were being porn-spammed and delete my message without reading it.

Probably would have done. We get spammed horribly.

This would be a pity, as you'd've missed out on the following vital information that will no doubt forever change your life, and the lives of your readers :

In James Jarvis's Humble Opinion, he noted popular dice bags here in the United States often originate from liquor bottles, but neglected to note the brand. Permit me to opine that the all the finer players prefer "Seagram's Crown Royal."

Okidoke.

Naturally, there're a bit hard to come by if you're under drinking age, but youngsters do get the dual cachet of having a pimpin' dice bag and recapturing some semblance of that 80's danger that has, as you pointed out, been lost.

(lo! an image of the bag: http://www.thewhiskystore.de/cdn/gimli/gimli.htm keeeen...)

Cool.

Cordially yours,

Kid Sinister

bigtrendy.com

(with full legal disclaimer, in four part harmony : Neither the Kid, nor Sinister Enterprises, nor (we suspect) Critical Miss encourage or endorse underage drinking. And thus tender hue and resolution of gaming danger is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of litigious terror...)

Erm... yeah.

Flick wrote in on the subject of "Great Zine!":

Hi Guys

I just wanted to let you know that I love your zine. You have somehow managed to give advice and make it interesting and humorous at the same time without sounding like elitest blow hards. Keep up the good work.

Cool. Good to hear it.

Flick

Sergio wrote the following:

Where's the astrology section? Without an astrology section how can I know how my game is going to run tomorrow? Which players I'm compatible with? How too choose a GM?

Just make it up. I'm sure that's what most astrologers do.

Sergio

Emanuel wrote with the subject line of "Hey":

Love the mag. Thought I'd point out a web-page, which, in it's brilliance, captures a bit of your feel. :)

http://albruno3.tripod.com/

Go to Rants and Recommendations, then to the RGP.Net rants. Hilarious.

Guess I ought to have a look at that as well...

Emanuel

Martin just scraped into this issue with this mail:

Hi,

Not really "BADD" but still funny ... take a look at "http://www.mavav.org/"an {American obviously} site citing psychological damage from video games etc...

Martin

If you have something to say then send it to [email protected]

If you don't have anything to say then say it anyway. Go on. You can do it.

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