Heartbreakers, heartbreakers everywhere!

No, I'm not talking about a new heartbreaker. At least not one that's actually out. My involvement with a semi-sekrit intentional heartbreaker project has gotten me thinking about what my heartbreaker would look like.

For sure, it would be some form of Silhouette with elements of Interlock, Synergy and possibly even CORPS mixed in. With a smattering of Fate on top. It would still be reasonably identifiable as Silhouette- dice pool, take the highest, zero-average attributes, wound system. It wouldn't use d6...most likely d10, and the ranges would be a lot different as a result. It likely would use a Friday Night Firefight style ranged combat system without active defense rolls. It might get a little crunchier in terms of turn order. It would definitely ditch the SilCore notions of complexity, as well as the social conflict rules. Not that I don't think social conflict rules are good to have...it's just implementing it like combat with the bloody parts filed off and replaced with social bits that doesn't work.

None of that includes the vehicle design system, which likewise would be a Silhouette and Mekton love child, maybe with some Maximum Metal mixed in for good measure.

So, that's my heartbreaker. I'm sure at some point I'll get around to actually getting it out of my head.

Necessary Selling Points For A Heartbreaker

So, this happened. A game company putting out a game called Mazith posted a Reddit, and it went about as well as can be expected. When people ask questions about a game that has been developed for 30 years in relative isolation, there's going to be difficult questions. Like "What resolution mechanic do you use?" Those answers are never easy, particularly when you're not sure what a resolution mechanic actually is.

I'm not going to pillory them too much, because other than surliness and a slip by their artist in using one of +Dyson Logos' maps as the background for an advertisement, they seem to be sincere. Plus, I can't snark it any better than the Kicksnarker community on G+ already has.

Instead I'm going to compile the absolutely necessary selling points for anyone wanting to market a heartbreaker. Please refer to this list as you prepare to publish your game.

• Make a point of saying your game has been in development for (choose one):
• 10 years 
• 20 years
• Some period of time that would make you a teenager at the time
• Before you were born 

My rpg is at stake!

• Specify exactly how many classes, races, skills, spells, items of equipment, monsters or plants that are in your game and how it's more than every other game ever published. Mention this, a lot, especially when answering questions about the system.
• Universal systems are cool. What's even better is playing two or more games together. Smash everything you can into your game without regard for how it fits together. Who needs focus anyway?
• Highlight the things you've just swapped out with something that is really the same. Like the d20, classes, hit points, armor class or experience points. No need to be creative, just use a thesaurus when renaming them.

• Use some variation of the phrase, "For gamers, by gamers". This indicates that the game was not made by beekeepers for airline pilots.
• Say your game is a "ROLE playing, not ROLL playing" game. And thereafter use the word "roll" incorrectly. 
• Include the words "most realistic" or is "meticulously historically researched". Especially if the game deals with fantasy elements.

I may have just swiped this image from GnomeStew, too hard to tell!

• Make sure you have at least a half-dozen different resolution mechanics, all inspired by games with completely different design goals. Even better, each subsystem should be written by a different person, at a different time.
• Call out a single other game that you are "fixing". Be enthusiastically insistent about how your game is better than the other game.
• Concentrate on something that your game does or has that no other game has. Like being able to "do anything", or "imagination being the limit", or having Morning Elves or Trash Dragons.

Bonus Points:

• Primary sources are for chumps. A lot of people have already done a lot of creative hard work for you. Use only television shows, movies, Wikipedia and other games as sources for your own.
• Include references to "real majick" and criticize other games for their magic implementations.

My lack of Satanic orgies in my youth was because D&D's magic doesn't have a "k" at the end

• If you're going to be a boss, act like one. "Internet on a website", set up an 800 number, and call yourself a CEO. More people will take you seriously. Issue press releases and make it seem like you have an office full of developers, editors and artists.
• Create as many different social profiles as possible, and sporadically update different ones with information. You need to keep your competition on its toes!
• Speaking of competition, the roleplaying industry is notoriously cutthroat and full of thieves. Bigger companies than yours are always looking to steal your ideas. They know yours are better than anything they have, otherwise you wouldn't need to create your game in the first place. If you see one of your ideas in their product the only conclusion is that they stole it. 
• But remember that if you find something on the Internet, it's totally okay to use it. When you do that, it's not stealing. It's a cost-cutting measure. When someone points out your sources, frantically remove all traces and act like it didn't happen., or insist that it was a coincidence. Make sure to point out every instance of something being similar that has ever happened.
• Threatening to sue when someone says something mean about you is the best way to get them to be quiet, and is great PR.
• Play up your personal accomplishments that have nothing to do with game design. Like how you played guitar for the Ramones and were a Navy SEAL. At the same time. Or you're a master of some unheard of martial art. Or you were a wandering homeless person bum guru.

• Tie your game company to another existing enterprise like a thrift store, shoe importer or medical marijuana dispensary.
• Arrange for a small army of friends and family (or just register a few extra accounts) to swoop into any discussions when things go south.
• If someone asks a hard question (like "How is this game different from any number of games that are exactly the same?") call them a troll or unprofessional.

Please reference this article, as well as the above-mentioned Reddit, to see elements of this phenomenal marketing technique in action. Also, Dark Phoenix Publishing has employed many of these techniques very successfully. Just don't Google Byron Hall no matter what you do. That's a random table you don't want to roll on blindly.

The Penny Arcade Heartbreaker Report

So, the Penny Arcade Report might have outed itself as not necessarily the best place to go for tabletop gaming news.

Yesterday an article by "Infinity", the author of The Future Belongs to Us, somewhat randomly appeared. Doing so on a larger site like PA implies the game is something people should watch out for, something they should know about. If one were to look at the press release on Tabletop Gaming News and interview at Initiative Tabletop, that impression would be reinforced. The reality is more of a marketing tactic. I don't know if it's the result of some marketing class, the publisher thinks it's a good idea, or something else but I do know it feels like they are puffing up and trying to look bigger than they are. We had it with Mykal Lakim's royal "we" and his posts about meetings and hiring people and planning a full game line before even having the first book out, and having a full staff of writers and editors. But why PAR wouldn't vet their guest columnists better kind of escapes me.

It comes off something like this. TFBTU isn't $19.95, is it?

Now I have nothing against Infinity personally. Anything he can do to try to get his name out there probably helps. But I think it's odd that PAR would tap him instead of Fred Hicks or someone similar for a column on keeping tabletop games "fluid". Instead, we get a cross between marketing and "Intro To Heartbreaker Logic 101". It makes it appear that the editor or content manager might not really know who is a big name in gaming, and figures anybody that can shove a POD book with a glossy cover in their face must be. We should probably count our blessings that it was Infinity and not Mykal Lakim that was offered the column.

Overall, the article doesn't tell its readers anything they don't already know. It tilts at windmills defeated 20 or more years ago and makes the author sound like someone who's never played anything other than d20 or Storyteller. Statements like this don't help either:

More powerful characters may be able to overcome this, but they are rolling 10, 15, 20 dice all the time which can get pretty ridiculous. You shouldn’t have to roll more and more dice as you become more powerful.

<Pedantic nit-picking hat>Exalted is one of the few games I can think of where this is the case and there are certainly many more dice pool systems where it isn't (Silhouette and Synergy spring to mind because I'm most familiar with them).</Pedantic nit-picking hat> What makes the statement even more out of place is that even if Exalted is the target, it's a completely different genre than TFBTU. The systems have very different goals, and in Exalted rolling buckets of dice is one of them. Either he doesn't have a good grasp on what forms dice pool systems can possibly take, he doesn't grasp how systems don't all have the same design goals, or it's hyperbole. Regardless any gamer with reasonably broad experience can identify the statement as being baloney.

The end result is the author comes off as either inexperienced or amateur and raises the question of why he would get the slot for the column instead of someone else. It damages PAR's credibility as an outlet for tabletop gaming news and makes me wonder if they're running paid-for articles.

Hey look, Penny Arcade might actually have something to say on this!

What goes over best for me (and doesn't immediately bring on the snark reflex) is when game designers are honest and forthright without any pretentiousness. I would liked to have seen an article about how an indie, small publisher brought TFBTU to market. What decisions were made during the process. Their own reservations, things they wish they could have done better. Instead of defensiveness and "Everyone who's played it says it's great! My mom even said 'That's nice, honey'!", open discussion of negative criticism. Most importantly an answer to why the cover art is pretty good quality (if questionable subject matter for anyone trying to sell to anyone other than teenage boys) but the interior art is really poor, and what decisions led to depicting an ostrich with bedroom eyes, Lando Calrissian fighting ninjas over a treasure chest and a Power Ranger riding a lion-themed golf cart (among many other things).

I never thought an ostrich could look so coy

The Future Belongs To Us

Updated: clarified a few things, some new info and another press release. This little gem was pointed out to me by +Chris Knowles. A hitherto unknown game company called Atraxy Publishing has announced a cyberpunkish, transhumanistish rpg called The Future Belongs to Us. Here's the announcement:

An all new, all original tabletop RPG has been announced by Ataraxy Publishing called “The Future Belongs To Us”. The game is going to make its major debut at Origins, and will also appear at dozens of conventions nationwide this year. They are taking preorders for both the limited edition and standard edition of the Player’s Guide due out in April.

It kind of looks like a cyberpunk heartbreaker but it's hard to tell. There's very little information out there about this game other than the scant details on their website: it's played by people from 11 to 50, with lots of different nationalities, and there's been a bunch of playtesters (sound familiar?). We find out that the system uses a d20 and is called DiceLight, and the "Player driven game mechanics free up the Game Master to focus on the narrative. There's a Leaderboard that tracks a "Culture" rating, which you get more of by buying things. It should also be noted that they are taking pre-orders for the Player's Guide, either a $30 edition or a $50 deluxe edition, for a product that nobody has seen or has any details about. I know there are people who like to gamble out there, but I usually like to know what I'm getting into. From the comments on Tabletop Gaming News, we get this description of the game's background from  beta tester VonRyan:

Freedom was stripped away from every person on earth during the first half of the 21st century. With every new law that was passed by the world governments, individuals lost more control over their lives; and crime was escalating A new atmosphere of fear and hopelessness had fallen on the world culture, with only a few intransigent rebels able to overcome the backdrop of despair to benefit people to any large extent These rebels have come to be known as the Freedom Underground, individuals working towards similar goals in that they want to end the oppression caused by the expanding police state and the growing influence of organized crime gangs. Whether the Freedom Underground will have success remains to be seen… 

The Future Belongs To Us is standardly based in 2048. The one world government that rules over the earth is the UNE or United Nations of Earth. Every branch of armed forces have been formed into one force, the UNPF or United Nations Peace Force.

The main factions inherent in the Base System are the UNE, the Freedom Underground, the Hardbodies, the Brotherhood, and the Mystics. The Freedom Underground is somewhat ambiguous, they are all fighting for freedom but their hierarchy is amorphous. They are basically formed into cells of teams that sometimes work for members of higher renown.

The Hardbodies are the gang that really runs the crime world. They’re the largest, the meanest, and the most powerful gang out there, and they don’t like competition. The UNE hasn’t been able to or has wanted to put a stop to them so they expand unchecked.

The Brotherhood is a shadowy organization more myth and conjecture than actual fact. It supposedly running things and pulling the strings of the world from behind the scenes. If that is true then the situation of the world falls squarely on their shoulders.

Finally, The Mystics. Pseudo-Prophets some weak-minded individuals have turned to for guidance. Eyewitness accounts of miracles being performed are becoming harder to ignore. Reports by some investigators report it as myth, others say it is fact and swear by it.

The Future Belongs To Us is a point-based system in which a starting character is based upon 4000 or so points. Every ability costs a certain number of points, which accounts for the “make your own way” approach that has been mentioned. Instead of XP every session awards you points to spend or save is you see fit. The character sheet is divided into Attributes, Skills, and Proficiencies.

Attributes are the foundations of all characters and add on to Skills and Proficiencies. They are thus more expensive. Examples would be Agility, Strength, and perception. Skills are more personal than fundamental and include things like demolitions, science, weaponry, and Dual Weapons, for example. The Proficiencies include Ranged Weapons, Stealth, acrobatics, Melee Weapons, and Surface Vehicles.

I’ve been running as a beta-test game master for the system and find it fun, engaging, and a great game for telling an exciting story.

So we have a bunch of rebels fighting against a world government. A gang called the Hardbodies that has somehow supplanted every organized crime syndicate in the world. Some religious sect that may or may not be able to perform miracles, followed by weak-minded people. And 4000 points? How fine-grained of a cost system does a game need?

The company putting the game out, Ataraxy Publishing, has no presence at all. I've contacted them to get a little more information. So far the only posts I've seen casting it in a positive light or providing any additional details, on TTGN orThe RPGSite, are people touting how fun it is and how they've been beta-testing for years. A couple of those responses are of the very short "I loves this game!" cheerleader variety and smell kind of sock-like.

Update: I did get a response from the publisher, who composed a professional but vague response to my questions:

Hello Wil,

Thank you for contacting us with your questions. More information on the game will be posted on the website soon, and we will also be running at dozens of conventions this year so that people new to the game can experience it firsthand.

Gaming news site Initiative: Tabletop will be running news stories about our game, starting today. We will have review copies of the Player's Guide available next month for select gaming news sources.

I appreciate you taking the time to learn more about our game, and if there is anything else we can help you with, please let us know.

Sincerely,
Kathy

That lead me to Initiative: Tabletop's story which doesn't give a lot more detail but does have the kind of phrasing that's always troubling to see in an article about a game system:

One amazing element of this system is it gives each playe [sic] the ability to choose how they want to defend against attacks. When attacked players can choose dodging, blocking, evasion, countermoves, and evrn [sic] preemption to deal with attacks.

The troubling part about it is most combat systems offer those kinds of choices. Unless there's some new and innovative way of doing it, like maybe a spinner or one of those dice bubble things like in Sorry, then being able to choose defense is not so much "amazing" as "kind of expected".