Season 07 Episode 08

[fray]

This weekend I went to the Lego store and bought some things for my nephew's birthday and a small random bucket from the Wall-of-AWESOMENESS!
The next morning my daughter and I made some cool things.

This is what we made.
- 2 'brothers' (That's what she calls them and that's what they are...)
- a small house for Borrowers
- small, medium, and large sword laser plants. they are for the Borrowers to use against bad guys.
- originally the white flats were beds for the 'brothers' but then they turned into sword laser plant holders

It's great being a daddy. :]

[fray]

A "mullet-hawk"?

BWAHAHAHA!

I dare someone to google that...

[HyveMynd]

Mar 5, 2012 15:36:16 GMT -8 fray said:

It's great being a daddy. :]

So, what you're telling me is that I need to have kids so I can disguise all my LEGO purchases as presents for them? Thanks for the tip, fray. I've been looking for an excuse to start buying LEGO sets again. The toy stores here are full of ones that I want to get. Love me some LEGO Knights & Castles!

Thanks for the shout out on the episode, Stork. When I came over to Japan in 2006 I didn't bother bringing any game-related stuff at all because I figured I wouldn't use it (and also because books are damn heavy and airlines have a weight limit on luggage). Like the author of the e-mail said, I assumed that I wouldn't be able to play games in my native English while living in a foreign, non-English speaking country. Now six years later, my game library is frigging massive (I'm scared to know how much it'll cost to ship back to the States) and I've found more than 20 people close by that speak English and play games. Sadly, it's mostly board games, but I'm trying to convert some to RPGs.

My situation may be a little bit different than other people's, though. I came to Japan with an English teaching job and worked for a big English language teaching company in a major city. Back in 2006 the company employed about 3000+ foreigners, most of them from English speaking countries. So I spent all of my working hours with and lived in the same apartment building as a large number of English speakers (which is why my Japanese is still complete shit after 6 years living here). All I did was put up a few flyers in office common areas asking if people played games and that was it. I have no idea about Poland, but Japan attracts a large number of geeks anyway, so the number of gamers in the English speaking population here is probably higher than average.

The other weird thing here is that English is cool. Like it's kind of a mark of pride for Japanese gamers to have English language stuff. I went to weekly Friday Night Magic tournaments for almost a year (and got my ass handed to me) and was stunned at the number of English language cards I saw. It was like the card was more valuable if it was in English. Which was fine for me.

I imagine that there are web communities for ex-pats in practically every country. So my advice is to just post on those boards and see if people are interested in games. You'll probably be surprised.

[kaitoujuliet]

1. Nice Legos!!

2. The accent in Barcelona would be Catalan, not Castilian.

3. Man, you know you've crossed a line when Tappy is apologizing.

4. Thank goodness for Happy Jack's when busy season hits at work.

That is all I have to say at this time.

[hoseirrob]

Listening to the crunch part of the episode. Tappy's definition of crunch was pretty broad. With that in mind, is there a game that he would not define as "crunchy?"

[willh]

I thought the number of special case rules suggestion was a good yard stick to measure crunchiness.

[joegun]

I've always weighed crunchiness by how many tables the book "needed" and how complex the rules seemed to be. If a system has 1 mechanic that works in all situations, I wouldn't consider that a crunch system unless:
1)That 1 mechanic required numerous tables
2)The core rule book can break your foot if you drop it

[jazzisblues]

I think we make an assumption that crunch = bad or that rules = bad. I'm not really comfortable with either assumption. When rules or crunch or however we want to term it become bad is when they interfere with play or with the creativity of the players. That said, it could be argued that more rules intensive games intrinsically interfere with the creativity of the players, but in my mind (which is a dangerous and scary place) it seems more important how the rules are implemented rather than that they exist.

In essence if we use the rules to say, "No you can't do that because the rules don't say you can," then we're going to have interference, but if we use the rules to say, "You want to (_________) and here's how we're going to use the rules to figure out how that worked out," then (pretty much) regardless of how intensive the rules are they're not going to interfere with the creativity of the players.

Now, that said, if the process of adjudicating a rule becomes lengthy (wildly subjective term) or complicated that's going to make it harder to use the rules to say, "yes and," rather than, "no but."

So, all of that really to come down to, how many rules or how detailed the rules are is less concerning to me than how interruptive the rules are in terms of player creativity.

Just my 2 krupplenicks on the subject, your mileage may of course vary.

JiB

[Deleted]

As the person who managed to kick off this whole crunch debate I want to first say that I may have been a couple of whiskeys into that email which explains the many typos the gang made fun of me for. Also I seem to have come across as more of an asshole then I remembered. I'm especially glad that Tappy read the email.

For me crunch has always meant math, and tables, and rules for everything. This doesn't make a system bad, I enjoy D&D 4e for instance and by my definition it is a crunchy system. I just never thought of FATE as being crunchy by my definition of it. Now that I understand Tappy's definition of the term better I think I can agree with him.

Glad I could kick off an interesting conversation on what crunch means to different people.

[rickno7]

I just always assumed "crunch" was the calculating of what was at the table. When I told people about stuff, I would describe the amount of rules and then the amount of crunch.

For example: I would tell people that Savage Worlds is not rules "light" but is "crunch light". The system has plenty of rules and a nice sized rule book, but it plays so quickly at the table that there is not a lot of "crunch" going on. The use of tokens, wounds, and such keeps the need for scratch paper low, and calculations are mostly simple math.

I can not think of a real world example, but a game with very little rules, but somehow takes several different rolls, consulting of a few graphs or lists, and then some quick addition would be "crunchy" no matter if all these graphs, charts, and rules fit into a rules light 10 page booklet.

So to sum it up again, I personally consider crunch to be the calculations needed at the table to play the game in real time. Where as rules light/heavy is based on how much is covered in the book, though not necessarily what is needed at the table.

[HyveMynd]

Is it bad that I laughed at Stork's "Because he's yellow." joke and the reaction that followed? I thought it was especially funny as I happened to be elbowing my way through a veritable sea of Japanese people while navigating through a packed department store just as he said it. I got some strange looks from the people around me that time. ;D

I listened to the crunch discussion about four times, and I think I finally get what Tappy's saying. Basically, the more situations that a system attempts to cover through non-subjective mechanical means, the crunchier it becomes. Even if you're using the same mechanic for every situations. So in that case I can see why FATE is crunchy. It knocked my brain for a total loop the first time my group tried it, and several of us (myself included) felt like we were cheating simply because you can (and are encouraged to) apply mechanical effects when doing things that would be considered "fluff" in other systems.

Mar 6, 2012 8:12:43 GMT -8 hoseirrob said:

With that in mind, is there a game that he would not define as "crunchy?"

I was thinking about that too while I listened, and I think Cosmic Patrol fits the definition of being "non-crunchy". Just like FATE, it uses a single mechanic to resolve every possible action that the characters attempt (except when dealing damage). But unlike FATE, the effect and application of that mechanic is completely subjective. There's no ladder or shifts in Cosmic Patrol to inform the fiction; beating/missing your target number is simply a success/failure and it's entirely up to the players (including the Lead Narrator) to determine exactly what that means for the story. The high amount of subjectiveness in the game means it's non-crunchy and smooth as butter with half the calories.

[Deleted]

Just started listening to the podcast this past weekend and had to come to the message board to say how much I'm loving it!

The section on crunch and railroading was fantastic. I'm about to start GM'ing my first Pathfinder homebrewed campaign next week and this episode helped to change a few things I'd been planning on doing!

[jazzisblues]

Mar 7, 2012 11:10:08 GMT -8 @mjinthepitt said:

Just started listening to the podcast this past weekend and had to come to the message board to say how much I'm loving it!

The section on crunch and railroading was fantastic. I'm about to start GM'ing my first Pathfinder homebrewed campaign next week and this episode helped to change a few things I'd been planning on doing!

Kewl, welcome to the community and congrats on your first campaign I hope it goes well. Looking forward to hearing all about it.

JiB

[Creative Cowboy]

Mar 5, 2012 17:04:15 GMT -8 HyveMynd said:

The other weird thing here is that English is cool. Like it's kind of a mark of pride for Japanese gamers to have English language stuff. I went to weekly Friday Night Magic tournaments for almost a year (and got my ass handed to me) and was stunned at the number of English language cards I saw. It was like the card was more valuable if it was in English. Which was fine for me.

I imagine that there are web communities for ex-pats in practically every country. So my advice is to just post on those boards and see if people are interested in games. You'll probably be surprised.

English is a symbol of status in Poland too. Imagine it like owning a personal slave or knowing the Word of Making. The Poles own D&D books in English and complain about the translation. I know one of the translators and he admits conceptualizing ideas across culture is a challenge. There is definitely a market to sell English RPGs in Poland (and Italy I am told) without the need for translation since the mechanics use the English names with some local text for definition. Also, from dealing with Poles since 2001, the Polish language being broken into 4 sub-dialects in a country smaller than the province of Quebec with the population of Canada (40 Million) is not the greatest for linguistic communications for a start.

In short: mechanics is spoken in English, flavour is given in Polish and crunch replaces story.

The market for English books is enlarged even more because the local publisher is unable to co-operate with Hasbro Europe (I worked the account with Aneta Bereda in mid-2000’s) and is actively disliked at the grassroots level. Huzzah Amazon. The industry front runner here is Warhammer – just as a point of reference to North Americans and they’re liked and supported.

Smuggled AD&D books in the 1980’s was a way many people got the bug to learn English here so I am told by the genius behind the largest D&D website in Poland.

Now… playing in English with Poles is an exercise in min-maxing and non-existent storytelling. The game is compared by local players to Monopoly. 4e did not remedy this. If you call dealing with the banker and trading properties role-playing – or role playing you are a big time Vegas gambler when playing Yahtzee – then maybe you would consider what locals play passing for story telling. Battle mats and miniatures are what role-playing consists of here.

How is the hobby perceived in Japan, relative to North America?

The group of expatriate English-speaking role-players in Poland is a mixed bag and an interesting culture potpourri (along with gamer funk). We have a group hovering around 20 and two games played within the group – forming two sub-groups. We can play every week just about. Players hail from America, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Holland, Italy, South America, Venezuela and I am sure I am missing a couple off hand. (Funny how expat becomes a shared country.)

I approached schools seeking employment with the unique selling point being RPGs to practice general conversation and English for Specific Purposes (legal, medicine, business, etc). The most memorable “no” I received, and they all said no, was the no that included a prayer for my eternal soul given to me by a PhD in linguistics if his business card is to be taken as serious as his concern. When I say Poland is très Chic, I am not referring to fashion.

How is hobby received in Japan? I suspect the devil worshipping connection is only causal in Christian countries but do you have any stories? What’s the Ti Chi chi square? Are RPGs used in language practice in Japan?

So there is the reasoning why we are an expatriate group of role-players in Poland. In the years I have been playing in Warsaw, returning to the hobby after 20 years away from it, I observe the English-speaking locals are timid about speaking the language and do not make any connection between language use and RPGs. Do you play with Japanese English-speakers?

Recruiting is a constant activity for our group because of the player churn. Players range the gamut of happy-go-lucky English conversationalists passing through to CEOs of international companies headhunted into 3-year contracts. Play is scheduled based on quorum. And quorum can be difficult even with large numbers. And then there are country departures that cause group attrition. So I am always recruiting.

Recruiting non-players is another challenge because they are responding to something they know only as much as an Internet blurb can convey. To a non-player, the clips of RPG play on YouTube demonstrate an archetype of only one group’s style (which may not correspond to the taste of the viewer) and they are either too long to watch or not representative of anything in a single 9-minute segment. Recruiting really is most effective when approached in the manner Gary Alan Fine describes in his study of Shared Fantasy.

But as an expat I have left my social circle behind and so recruiting friends, or the players recruiting people they know, is almost entirely out of the question. We meet as strangers in a social circle built around an activity unknown to most, which is an added wrinkle when searching for new tabletop RPG players. Typically they are not reading this post.

Recruitment has been difficult up until the weBlog experiment created recently by the Venezuelan player. Hopefully his initiative of a Blog that tells the players’ character’s stories will attract some interest from people who have never heard of RPGs but find themselves, expats like us, interested enough in the hobby and the people who play it to reach out to us. www.vecol.net/RPGPL

Heck, it would be great if anyone read the blog at this point and left an encouraging message for Nestor. He is the poster boy for the future of the RPG hobby: new to it, excited by it and recruiting for it. Send him some sunshine please?

We want to encourage anyone coming to Poland to seek us out as a way to establish friendships with some very real, dynamic and friendly people surrounded in a fun, magical atmosphere.

So pretty please spread the good word. Maybe your friends will tell two friends and then they will tell two friends and so on and so on and so on…. Chances are someone will soon find they have an acquainance either going to Warsaw or already in Warsaw and without a social circle we can provide.

Noobs VERY welcome.

[SirGuido]

Hey Stu, there is a new PftD cast up as of March 3rd if you hadn't noticed.