The circle of heroes and villains

Batman and the Joker

Superman and Lex Luthor

Thor and Loki

Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty

The Hero

and the Villain

They are bound together by a strong bond. They belong together, close but so far away from each other.

Batman, a character that thrives in darkness and fear.. his enemy isn't someone with an even more dark and fearsome image, but someone dressed as a clown. Superman faces one powerful foe after another, but the most dangerous one is Lex Luthor.. just a human. However, when Superman is the paragon of humanity, Luther is the paragon of inhumanity.

It's not uncommon that the hero is the genesis of the villain, or the other way around. Batman was born as a result of a dark crime, and while fighting crime, Batman created the Joker. Spiderman was the genesis of Green Goblin for example. He also made J.Jameson hate him, which in turn drove Jameson to fund the creation of multiple villains.

Next time you make a character for a game, think about who his enemy is. What sides of him does he mirror, and what sides is he the opposite of?

And if you are the GM.. don't just come up with your own villain, base him of the player characters. Or even better, ask the players to create him for you.

After all, the hero and the villain, are one, but not the same

All I got is a red guitar, three chords and the truth

The Blues!

One of the simplest forms of music there is!

In its most simple form, it has five notes and three chords.

That's it! Five! And three..

But.. with those 5 notes you can make a guitar cry with emotion
With those 3 chords, you can build songs that touch heaven and moves the earth

That's why I love the blues.. it's so simple and elegant.. but with it you can express so much.

You can add more notes.. more chords, but it all comes back to the same, simple foundation.

It's not about fast guitar solos at all costs, or exotic harmonies. It's about making those steel strings sing and cry. Pull that string... bend it.. feel it!

Now.. apply that to roleplaying. The more I game, the more I fall back to making simpler characters, with a few basic themes. Nothing to complex, nothing fancy. Just a man, some basic words and sentences that capture the spirit of him

Then I make him cry.. I make him sing! I push him.. pull him.. That's what I want.. Emotion.. Passion.. rising from those simple foundations. Don't give me 3 pages of background and information, give me three chords of passion! Don't give me that one long story, give me one long, crying note of life.

THATS when roleplaying gets fun

In with the new

Some time ago I got a few remarks for my habit of looking at new games, often suggesting that we try out this-or-that system. Why do I do that? Why don't I stay with the mainstream games, where it's easy to find players, that I already know how to play?

Well, quite honestly, there is a simple reason:

The mainstream, regular games.. are starting to bore me. Most of the bigger, mainstream games today stick with principles that haven't evolved since the early 80's. Too often, a nights gaming can consist of a number of die rolls that may or may not affect what happens to your character.

More than once, I've tried to build an interesting character in games like DnD or Star Wars Saga, only to find out that interesting characters are sub-optimal. The way to go, if you want some time in the spotlight, are to maximise how you pick stuff from long lists.

I don't care about if my character wins all the battles, but I do care if my character makes a difference, get some time in the spotlight. Problem is, in most bigger games, time in the spotlight equals combat efficiency.

Sorry, but that's not my cup of tea. Especially when there are heaps of new games that at least try to be more exciting.

Admittedly, I also have a weak spot for trying out new things. But on the other hand, why shouldn't I? Why should I not want to try out things that seem to offer other and different things than the ones I've tried AND found lacking in many areas?

So, here's a virtual toast to all new and interesting games out there. May you live long and prosper!

"Lone Ranger"-gaming

Many comics and storys are about one main protagonist and a hostile world with enemies. Examples are Batman, the Phantom, Lone wolf and cub, Modesty Blaise, Flash Gordon and many more.

The common theme here is that the protagonist is alone. Sure, he has sometimes a sidekick (Robin, in the case of Batman, for instance), but there is a difference in power and importance. The sidekick is still the sidekick.

However, these stories don't work to well with roleplaying games, since those are (most of the time) group activities. While you of course could play a group of Batman-ish characters, that is a bit against the genre. One important aspect of the solo-hero is the focus on his persona. In a group-adventure this aspect tends to be downplayed.

So, inspired slightly by games like Annelise, Fate, Progenitor and similar, I want to set up the guidelines for a game, that may or may not be developed in the future.

• The game is played by a group where ONE player plays the protagonist, the rest of the players takes different parts of the world/story/enemies
• These roles shift every session, or at the most every 2-3 sessions
• The game should be low prep. Much content should be built around the table
• The first session should be the "origin"-session where the protagonist AND the major antagonist(s) are created.

I don't know if this is possible at all, but it's could be interesting at least from a theoretical point of view.

The case of the bar-owners son, or How to make things matter

Imagine the following. You are playing an adventure, where it is crucial that you enter a mansion to get hold of a document containing secrets about a spy from an enemy empire. Your first obstacle is entering the mansion in itself. There are some windows locked from inside, a big wooden door on the front (locked) and a smaller servants entrance in the back, also locked.

So, the thief of the party walks up, and tries to pick the lock on the servants entrance. Problem is.. he FAILS. Same thing happens when he tries the lock on the front door.

This is where the bard of the party tries to be clever, and heads to the nearest bar, uses his social skills to find out if one of the servants of the mansion sometimes hangs there. The GM thinks this is a clever idea, and says that one of the maids of the household dates the son of the bar-owner, and sometimes comes here. The son has an extra key to be able to sneak into her room at night. The bard persuades the son to help them, and he lets them in via the back door.

So, that's that, right? The party got into the mansion alright, through cleverness and good thinking. Also extra credit to the GM who was creative enough to let this happen.

There is, to me, however a small issue with all this (at least if not handled well). If the characters couldn't enter the mansion in the first place, the adventure would come to a grinding halt. So, any solution that would let the characters in would work after a while. If this is so, why don't just let the players in the mansion in the first place? Why not just say that "the thief picks the locks" and be done with it, let the adventure continue? I mean, now all that happened was that the adventure took a quick detour, and then ended up right back on track again.

Overall, I've seen that happen a bit to often. There is an obstacle in the way, and if that is not solved, the adventure can't continue. Or, if that is not solved, another way must be found, but the end result is still the same.

However, what if you make each roll make the story take a slightly different way, each solution branches of in a different direction. The bartendes son above could be captured.. or bribed... or maybe try to save his love from the house later on.

The important thing for me is to create something new with the rolls. Don't let a roll result in the stop of the adventure. In that case, just skip it. However, if the roll can add something interesting to the adventure, do it. Maybe a failed roll just means that nothing interesting happens, but a success makes the adventure more interesting. Perhaps the lock-picker not only picks the lock, but also realises that this particular lock isn't made localy, but imported from the faraway, hostile country. A fight is NOT just about defeating some enemy and then continuing down the path, but it's also about getting to know someone better, or pushing someone else to hate you. (Then again, all combats can't be pivotal encounters where the future is at stake.. some battles are just random battles).

So, to sum up: Make things matter! Don't just demand a skill check for the sake of it, put it there to make the adventure more interesting.