I was feeling pretty shitty about how little progress I was making on my larger games, so I decided it was time for something mid-sized again. I belted out this draft in a few hours today.
It's called PATROL and it's basically a spiritual successor to an RPG I played a lot in high school called RECON. Basically, the PCs are soldiers in the Vietnam War, dispatched on extended missions into the jungle where they slowly lose their minds from the stress and hardship. It's got brisk and very lethal combat, and it's designed to have you throw a lot of dice for few successes to make everything feel like an uphill battle.
Though obviously sourced from RECON, the game has a Torchbearer-inspired Status Effect system. Soldiers suffer from exhaustion, thirst, hunger, morale problems, etc, which not only have individual important effects, but also contribute to an overall Fatigue bar. As this increases, new avenues for Victory Points, which you need to balance out the Fatigue and gain XP, open up. However, these methods are increasingly morally dubious. The game has a simple Alignment system to show different sorts of breakdowns and provoke internal conflict inside the squad.
The first test went fantastically, I'm super happy with it so far.
Where do you find people to test so many new games?
On another forum I'm on I have a thread, from which a Skype group is derived where I have a dozen or so trusted folks. I've been running games on the forum for a few years now (it's where I ran CHERNO ALPHA VS THE WORLD, which was the most popular quest thread in the history of the forum for some time and had some ludicrous number of views) so I have a p good rep there and lots of people are eager to try my new stuff out.
The non-Shittalk of my day today is that I finished my air combat RPG system DANGER ZONE, rulewise at least. I still need to add all the example aircraft and the homoerotic volleyball subgame. It's basically something you use instead of your regular game's systems if your players need to get into fighter planes, because, understandably, no system on earth that does anything person-scale with any level of detail does aircraft combat well. This is a real bummer if you are playing Star Wars, or any kind of 1930s pulp.
Basically, it's a unique combat system for aircraft designed to be light, simple, exciting and cinematic, without ever having to use a fiddly map. Exact placement is abstracted; there's just a graph of who is above who and who is chasing who. It's also kind of deceptively accurate to some real-world air combat concepts. For example, if you need speed, you can dive from high altitude, which will give you a bonus that might last long enough to stick with a faster plane and shoot them down.
It uses different dice sizes for different eras, but fixed values for many adjustments and bonuses, so different eras have way different concerns. Biplane combat is all about altitude because the +2 is huge on d6 planes, whereas it's a minor point for d20 jet fighters that can go vertical. Inspired, obviously, by TOP GUN but also by Star Wars and my favourite WW1 movie, Flyboys.
Seriously though, this week was the week of non-shit-talking for me. I seriously feel like in the last 7 days PATROL went from "That RPG I'm working on" to "That RPG I'm finishing."
Day 1, for me, was a bit of a disappointment. I'd been waiting for the reviews, but had to settle for the introductory blog posts from Derek and Victor. I like that Derek is a fan, so much so that he's made role playing games about 80s action movies, and that Victor isn't so much a fan of the movie, but a fan of stupid projects. And this project certainly seems stupid!
And I like that Victor lives in LA himself. I'd like to see him do a tour of some of the locations near where he lives. Maybe watch the movie on location? That would be cool.
Anyway, for a movie about time travel, it seems that I'd need time travel to make this work how I expected. Derek and Victor are many time zones behind me! So I think I'm always going to be 12 to 24 hours behind them in their journey. I guess this might end up being 32 or 33 days of 31 days of Terminator.
31 days of 31 days of Terminator. Day 2.
So the first day's blog posts are up!
At first I was disappointed with Derek, as he'd just published notes. A list of notes. But then, as I read, I found I got a lot out of them. This is a first watch this month, but he obviously knows the movie well! He dives right in. I like the mentions of headlights standing in for future battle imagery. Good metaphor.
Also: machines are the enemy. even the answering machine.
Victor wrote exactly the kind of blog post I was hoping for. He hit the nail right on the head. Reese already loving Sarah Connor before he came back in time has always hit as weird. Creepy. It feels like a misstep in the movie. Maybe the creepiness is intentional, but then you'd think Sarah would comment on it a bit, rather than having the guy's baby.
But I like how Victor twists this round, and it makes his opening line, and one of the classic lines from the movie, "come with me if you want to live", have a different meaning. If he already knew his mission, and was in love with her, how could not have practiced half a dozen pickup/meet cute/opening lines?
So day 1 has been a success. A scattershot by Derek matched with a sniper shot by Victor. Very satisfying.
I'm probably going to be doing the note format mostly because I'm more into examining details than I am into longform lit crit. I have some things I want to talk about at length (I've been assembling notes for a post on colour palettes, and another on shot choice during the Club TechNoir scene) but right now I'm settling into the movie and joting down anything that jumps out at me.
Today was a bumper day! First up, I didn't realize there was going to be anything more than blog posts. Instead I discovered a podcast episode. Victor and Derek talked for 30 minutes about their first watch of the movie, covering a lot of points about general "making of" stuff.
Victor mentioned he knew one of the locations... but it's one of the most famous locations in LA, so I'm not surprised.
Also I very much liked the way that Victor steered the conversation away from sequels and other non-terminator movies right from the start!
The podcast was a video though, which is a pity. An audio file would have been easier to catch up with. I could just huffduff it and listen without stress, instead of having it on my iPad and then my laptop.
Next up I read the note of Derek's second viewing. This is a really great approach. Though the thoughts seem disconnected, another theme arises from the movie. Last time it was about lighting, flashlights, and headlights. This time it's about fire following the terminator. Is that an intentional theme by the director, or is it just the consequence of this being an 80's action movie? Also:
- The Terminator is notably and consistently a worse driver than Kyle Reese. The only time Kyle has the advantage is when he is in control of a machine
I like that thought.
Bringing it back to the lighting, Victor made an entire video about the color grading of street lamps. Hell yes, this is the kind of thing I wanted out of 31DoT. No other review format would be able to spend so much time on a single aspect of a movie. Derek is going to go broad on every viewing, I guess, but I really hope Victor stays hyper focused in each of his blog posts/videos/whatevers.
But my problem with videos and podcasts is that I'm going to be working at sea with very slow and very expensive Internet for all next week. Blog post reading shouldn't be a problem, but audio might be tricky to download, and videos are off the table completely. I'll catch up when I get home, but I'll miss the bonus content.
The podcast was a video though, which is a pity. An audio file would have been easier to catch up with. I could just huffduff it and listen without stress, instead of having it on my iPad and then my laptop.
Yeah, Tumblr did not appreciate how big of a file it was and I didn't wanna eat 30 minutes on my soundcloud account for it. Maybe I'll just host the audio files myself.
Bringing it back to the lighting, Victor made an entire video about the color grading of street lamps. Hell yes, this is the kind of thing I wanted out of 31DoT. No other review format would be able to spend so much time on a single aspect of a movie.
Back to the expected regular schedule of two blog posts. Derek once again shares all his notes from his third viewing, and it's starting to get more interesting. It seems like after three viewings one no longer just sees what is on screen, but sees what is in the movie. That might be a bit unclear, but I think it hold up. The movie is a whole work, so individual shots or scenes won't remain interesting in isolation after so many viewings. Instead, how the shots and scenes relate across the whole movie starts coming more into view.
For example:
- The Terminator operates at night, and lays low during the day at its hideout. This behavior is exactly what Reese says humans do in the future to evade the machines.
That said, I do enjoy reading how Derek has noticed new small details:
- Possible Responses include Yes/No, Or What?, Go Away, and Please Come Back Later. I like how the Terminator apparently contemplates these polite options before setting on Fuck You, Asshole.
Meanwhile, Victor goes hyper focused on another single aspect; dogs barking at Terminators. Spoilers: it's the most obvious answer. Didn't we all always think this about the dogs in the movie? Well, I did.
Yesterday I wrote “The movie is a whole work, so individual shots or scenes won't remain interesting in isolation after so many viewings. Instead, how the shots and scenes relate across the whole movie starts coming more into view.“
The same is true of Victor and Derek’s 31 days of Terminator reviews. In isolation, their reviews or specific insights won’t remain interesting with so many blog posts and videos. Instead, how they relate to each other across the long stretch starts coming into view.
Yesterday I quoted:
- Possible Responses include Yes/No, Or What?, Go Away, and Please Come Back Later. I like how the Terminator apparently contemplates these polite options before setting on Fuck You, Asshole.
And then on (my) day 5, Derek backs it up with this:
- The Terminator LEARNS “Fuck you, Asshole!” from the punks! I just got that.
Also, Derek pointed out days ago:
- …the song that plays when the Terminator walks into the club is called “Burning in the third Degree“ by Tahnee Cain and The Tryanglz. As best as I can tell, this song was made for the movie, so it absolutely isn’t coincidence. There’s a lot of symbolic angles that this could be going down.
And today he followed that up with:
I’m doing my 5th watch now, and I thought I heard something in the first club song so I went and looked up the song. its about being stalked. of course it is. subtle, james cameron. subtle.
I’m also enjoying the meta narrative of Derek’s and Victor’s lives as they try to fit the movie into their daily schedule. Victor mentioned in his video that he had to watch it early in the morning. Derek is complaining about having to try to stay awake to watch it at night, and is worried about getting sick.
Comments
It's called PATROL and it's basically a spiritual successor to an RPG I played a lot in high school called RECON. Basically, the PCs are soldiers in the Vietnam War, dispatched on extended missions into the jungle where they slowly lose their minds from the stress and hardship. It's got brisk and very lethal combat, and it's designed to have you throw a lot of dice for few successes to make everything feel like an uphill battle.
Though obviously sourced from RECON, the game has a Torchbearer-inspired Status Effect system. Soldiers suffer from exhaustion, thirst, hunger, morale problems, etc, which not only have individual important effects, but also contribute to an overall Fatigue bar. As this increases, new avenues for Victory Points, which you need to balance out the Fatigue and gain XP, open up. However, these methods are increasingly morally dubious. The game has a simple Alignment system to show different sorts of breakdowns and provoke internal conflict inside the squad.
The first test went fantastically, I'm super happy with it so far.
Basically, it's a unique combat system for aircraft designed to be light, simple, exciting and cinematic, without ever having to use a fiddly map. Exact placement is abstracted; there's just a graph of who is above who and who is chasing who. It's also kind of deceptively accurate to some real-world air combat concepts. For example, if you need speed, you can dive from high altitude, which will give you a bonus that might last long enough to stick with a faster plane and shoot them down.
It uses different dice sizes for different eras, but fixed values for many adjustments and bonuses, so different eras have way different concerns. Biplane combat is all about altitude because the +2 is huge on d6 planes, whereas it's a minor point for d20 jet fighters that can go vertical. Inspired, obviously, by TOP GUN but also by Star Wars and my favourite WW1 movie, Flyboys.
Seriously though, this week was the week of non-shit-talking for me. I seriously feel like in the last 7 days PATROL went from "That RPG I'm working on" to "That RPG I'm finishing."
Also designed patches for said kickstarter and are waiting for proofs.
And sent in book covers for the other book I'm prepping for print-on-demand.
Day 1, for me, was a bit of a disappointment. I'd been waiting for the reviews, but had to settle for the introductory blog posts from Derek and Victor. I like that Derek is a fan, so much so that he's made role playing games about 80s action movies, and that Victor isn't so much a fan of the movie, but a fan of stupid projects. And this project certainly seems stupid!
And I like that Victor lives in LA himself. I'd like to see him do a tour of some of the locations near where he lives. Maybe watch the movie on location? That would be cool.
Anyway, for a movie about time travel, it seems that I'd need time travel to make this work how I expected. Derek and Victor are many time zones behind me! So I think I'm always going to be 12 to 24 hours behind them in their journey. I guess this might end up being 32 or 33 days of 31 days of Terminator.
31 days of 31 days of Terminator. Day 2.
So the first day's blog posts are up!
At first I was disappointed with Derek, as he'd just published notes. A list of notes. But then, as I read, I found I got a lot out of them. This is a first watch this month, but he obviously knows the movie well! He dives right in. I like the mentions of headlights standing in for future battle imagery. Good metaphor.
Also: machines are the enemy. even the answering machine.
Victor wrote exactly the kind of blog post I was hoping for. He hit the nail right on the head. Reese already loving Sarah Connor before he came back in time has always hit as weird. Creepy. It feels like a misstep in the movie. Maybe the creepiness is intentional, but then you'd think Sarah would comment on it a bit, rather than having the guy's baby.
But I like how Victor twists this round, and it makes his opening line, and one of the classic lines from the movie, "come with me if you want to live", have a different meaning. If he already knew his mission, and was in love with her, how could not have practiced half a dozen pickup/meet cute/opening lines?
So day 1 has been a success. A scattershot by Derek matched with a sniper shot by Victor. Very satisfying.
Today was a bumper day! First up, I didn't realize there was going to be anything more than blog posts. Instead I discovered a podcast episode. Victor and Derek talked for 30 minutes about their first watch of the movie, covering a lot of points about general "making of" stuff.
Victor mentioned he knew one of the locations... but it's one of the most famous locations in LA, so I'm not surprised.
Also I very much liked the way that Victor steered the conversation away from sequels and other non-terminator movies right from the start!
The podcast was a video though, which is a pity. An audio file would have been easier to catch up with. I could just huffduff it and listen without stress, instead of having it on my iPad and then my laptop.
Next up I read the note of Derek's second viewing. This is a really great approach. Though the thoughts seem disconnected, another theme arises from the movie. Last time it was about lighting, flashlights, and headlights. This time it's about fire following the terminator. Is that an intentional theme by the director, or is it just the consequence of this being an 80's action movie? Also:
- The Terminator is notably and consistently a worse driver than Kyle Reese. The only time Kyle has the advantage is when he is in control of a machine
I like that thought.
Bringing it back to the lighting, Victor made an entire video about the color grading of street lamps. Hell yes, this is the kind of thing I wanted out of 31DoT. No other review format would be able to spend so much time on a single aspect of a movie. Derek is going to go broad on every viewing, I guess, but I really hope Victor stays hyper focused in each of his blog posts/videos/whatevers.
But my problem with videos and podcasts is that I'm going to be working at sea with very slow and very expensive Internet for all next week. Blog post reading shouldn't be a problem, but audio might be tricky to download, and videos are off the table completely. I'll catch up when I get home, but I'll miss the bonus content.
Back to the expected regular schedule of two blog posts. Derek once again shares all his notes from his third viewing, and it's starting to get more interesting. It seems like after three viewings one no longer just sees what is on screen, but sees what is in the movie. That might be a bit unclear, but I think it hold up. The movie is a whole work, so individual shots or scenes won't remain interesting in isolation after so many viewings. Instead, how the shots and scenes relate across the whole movie starts coming more into view.
For example:
- The Terminator operates at night, and lays low during the day at its hideout. This behavior is exactly what Reese says humans do in the future to evade the machines.
That said, I do enjoy reading how Derek has noticed new small details:
- Possible Responses include Yes/No, Or What?, Go Away, and Please Come Back Later. I like how the Terminator apparently contemplates these polite options before setting on Fuck You, Asshole.
Meanwhile, Victor goes hyper focused on another single aspect; dogs barking at Terminators. Spoilers: it's the most obvious answer. Didn't we all always think this about the dogs in the movie? Well, I did.
Roll on day 5!
31 days of 31 days of Terminator. Day 5.
Yesterday I wrote “The movie is a whole work, so individual shots or scenes won't remain interesting in isolation after so many viewings. Instead, how the shots and scenes relate across the whole movie starts coming more into view.“
The same is true of Victor and Derek’s 31 days of Terminator reviews. In isolation, their reviews or specific insights won’t remain interesting with so many blog posts and videos. Instead, how they relate to each other across the long stretch starts coming into view.
Yesterday I quoted:
- Possible Responses include Yes/No, Or What?, Go Away, and Please Come Back Later. I like how the Terminator apparently contemplates these polite options before setting on Fuck You, Asshole.
And then on (my) day 5, Derek backs it up with this:
- The Terminator LEARNS “Fuck you, Asshole!” from the punks! I just got that.
Also, Derek pointed out days ago:
- …the song that plays when the Terminator walks into the club is called “Burning in the third Degree“ by Tahnee Cain and The Tryanglz. As best as I can tell, this song was made for the movie, so it absolutely isn’t coincidence. There’s a lot of symbolic angles that this could be going down.
And today he followed that up with:
I’m doing my 5th watch now, and I thought I heard something in the first club song so I went and looked up the song.
its about being stalked.
of course it is.
subtle, james cameron. subtle.
I’m also enjoying the meta narrative of Derek’s and Victor’s lives as they try to fit the movie into their daily schedule. Victor mentioned in his video that he had to watch it early in the morning. Derek is complaining about having to try to stay awake to watch it at night, and is worried about getting sick.
I really do look forward to your reviews of our reviews.