I’m planning on attending MEPACon Fall 2011, and while I’ll be doing demos of both Maschine Zeit and Amaranthine, I’ve been interested in starting a new ongoing campaign. In light of Honor and Blood’s potential return during the convention and my interest in a long-running Legend of the Five Rings game that will also be there, I thought there might be some interest in adding a grimdark sci-fi horror-adventure to the mix.
Rather than simply saying “here are your characters, let’s go” or “okay, here’s how you build characters, we can start playing in two hours,” I’m going to opt for a mix. Players interested in joining the campaign will have a choice of nine different Dossiers, each describing a character on a different career path. Instead of just laying down stats, the Dossiers will instead give a vague notion of a character’s background and set up a few baseline numbers, from which players can build their avatars in various ways.
I think this approach will save time, add intrigue and facilitate storytelling. Getting some of the basic stuff out of the way and focusing mostly on what players want to do to make characters their own, rather than starting from scratch, will help the group get right to the action, especially if someone doesn’t get to the table until others are settled in. But not all of the interesting stuff is limited to that gaming table.
You see, after the initial events that bring everybody together, the events of the adventure as well as aspects from the Dossiers will be brought up to players via email. Players will be encouraged to keep in touch with the Judge and each other. When players gather again in person, the idea will be that much has gone on behind the scenes between meetings, giving them stories to tell each other that will build and enhance their characters even further.
Everyone will have secrets, ties to their pasts and people they’ve influenced, be they enemies or allies. Views on the Imperium, the Inquisition, the Calixis Sector and one’s fellow Acolytes are bound to change. And all of this information, these events and the choices players take, will be added to their Dossiers by the dutiful servants of the Inquisition.
Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting the initial Dossiers here. I’m looking forward to MEPACon, and I’m hoping this notion will have others looking forward to it as well.
Are we more than what we seem? We all walk around in similar skins, physical forms that are at once miracles of evolution and unremarkable slabs of gradually decaying meat. For ages man has posited that their existences reach beyond the ticking clock under which we all live. Man has sought gods, crafted timeless works, birthed and fathered the sciences, all in the name of creating something that lasts. Every individual knows on a basic level that our time in the world is fleeting, and at one point or another we wonder if there’s more than what we have before us.
Imagine, for a moment, that the answer is “yes”.
Amaranthine is an exploration of this answer.
The Game
Amaranthine is a tabletop role-playing game to be played with friends in a comfortable, conversational setting. It boasts no overt gimmickry, no miniatures or fancy dice. You just need a handful of six-siders. It’s the premise, mood and execution of Amaranthine that set it apart.
The premise is that the Amaranthine of the title are, in essence, immortal. Each is reincarnated over and over again throughout the ages, dying only to be born again with their knowledge intact, if tucked away in a mental steamer trunk for a few years. Contact with familiar places, lessons of the past and other Amaranthine draw out their true natures. By the time they reach young adulthood, an Amaranthine can already be operating with hundreds if not thousands of years of experience upon which to draw, yet they look no different from you or me.
Amaranthine’s mood is one of limitless potential, of destiny and the shadows. It’s an atmosphere any afficionado of the World of Darkness (old or new) will find quite familiar. Yet the Amaranthine are not monsters, and the point of the game is not to rail against one’s nature, but to embrace it. Being one of the Amaranthine means being excellent, living a life of epic proportions that mere mortals can only dream of.
The true crux of the game comes in its execution as a group-based experience. The lives of the Amaranthine, present and past, are mercurial and somewhat unpredictible. Those you consider friends now may have been rivals in a previous life, and those now your enemies may have been allies or even lovers in years gone by. These relationships and the decisions players make regarding them build a sense of scale into the game as well as helping it feel deeply personal.
The Book
A word on the quality of the printed version of Amaranthine before I get into the meat of the text. This book is, without question, gorgeous. It ranks with the best offerings of White Wolf or Wizards of the Coast. It boasts bold colors, fascinating choices in type and a comprehensive indexing system that makes information easy to find. But all that is sound and fury; the significance of the book is in what the text says, not how it looks.
The tales within the Amaranthine rulebook underscore the concepts and themes listed above. The early chapters draw players into this appealing world and give them the tools necessary to become a part of it. It concerns itself more with questions than with statistics, however: Who were you before? Who do you want to be now? Who mattered to you, and who still does? The stats systems, using the four humors as essential resources for the character, are at once familiar and unique.
Deeper in the book those brave enough to become Directors find the depiction of our world through the immortal eyes of the Amaranthine. From the ways they organize themselves to the threats they face, the book ensures a Director is well-equipped to tell a tale as sprawling or intimate as they wish. Threats to the Amarthine are describedin detail, and are not limited to creatures such as vampires, dragons and the fair folk. The Void is an ever-present aspect of the Amaranthine, to which they all must return and from which all draw strength… for a price.
The Company
I knew when I first heard David of Machine Age pitch Amaranthine that he was on to something. He and his wife Filamena have never been ones to sit idle working on gaming materials for others. They’re unafraid of the risks inherent in pursuing their own ideas and have the intestinal fortitude to see their dreams through in the face of adversity, mediocrity and doubt. They’re a couple of those troublemakers I go on about sometimes.
Their first game, Maschine Zeit, perfectly captured the dread and mystery of a quiet and horrible apocalypse of our own making. Guestbook makes playing a quick game with friends at a convention, train station or meeting so easy it seems almost shameful. Amaranthine encourages excellence, exalts in an epic scale and allows players to explore and answer questions about their own natures just as much as it pits them against creatures of the night and wonders from childhood myth.
Amaranthine is a high-quality, deep-concept gaming experience that I Would recommend to anybody even remotely interested in a modern setting for a tabletop role-playing group, and if it doesn’t put Machine Age firmly and permanently on the map of leading pen-and-paper game producers, it bloody well should.
I’m afraid today’s Free Fiction is getting postponed.
The shuffling of matters at the dayjob have thrown certain things for a loop and I’m struggling to catch up. I’m also still getting settled into the new OS install at home, and contemplating a scrub of the laptop (it’s a long story). I do have some ideas for upcoming Free Fiction entry, which may eventually yeild an anthology, since I’m going to be sticking with the re-telling of myths.
This next one’s turning out pretty well and I want to take my time with it. So, right around Valentine’s Day, you’ll be getting a double helping of Free Fiction with a longer-than-usual tale, tentatively entitled “Miss Weaver’s Lo Mein.”
It’ll make sense in context.
I also want to get some work for Amaranthine done, hopefully before the Machine Age crew head out to California. This new project of theirs has all of the originality and edginess of Maschine Zeit with some really interesting backstory thrown in, and I’m eager to be a part of it.
Queries are rolling around in peoples Inboxes and some should be rolling back to me soon. Probably in the form of a rejection. But that’s the way of things. More queries will be going out as soon as I can compile a fresh list of agent names.
And the outline for a new novel is taking shape. Slowly. A braindump will be coming soon.
Still not sure what sort of video editing software I’ll be able to use, but folks seem to continue enjoying IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! in its current form for now, so I’m not exactly in a rush to put that on my plate.
On top of all of this is the impending trip to Canada in a few weeks. By the way, I’m still interested in guest posters chiming in during that week. If you have something you want to talk about/discuss/rant on related to writing or gaming, and want a different outlet for it, hit me up.
Finally, with the wintery mix coming down on our heads, tonight’s D&D was postponed, so no Into the Nentir Vale this week. Luckily I set up the final confrontation of the Battle of Albridge before we parted ways last week, so we can start rolling the moment we get settled and I have my beer.
Today marks the 500th post on Blue Ink Alchemy. I thought it might be fun to take a peek at the last few round-number milestones, just to see how far we’ve come. Oddly, two of the four hundred-level posts have to do with Maschine Zeit. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.
Say what you like about Stephanie Meyer, the character of Bella Swan remains co-dependent and nearly obsessed with Edward throughout her books, so at least she got the consistency right.
As far as I’m concerned, the stations are, have been and always will be so many tons of next-generation bullshit at the end of really, really long tethers. It’s the only reason they haven’t stinking up the planet.
Not everything will go as planned, of course, but when thing are at their darkest and most terrifying, there’s a chance, built into the game’s narrative structure itself, that a player in that situation will seize control of it by saving a fellow player or destroying the monster-thing with an ingenious trap or uncovering some forbidden truth or getting that bit of magical metal to do exactly what they need it to do. Arriving at those moments, taking the reigns of the narrative and watching the dice fall into place as fate agrees to allow that moment happen, is the very essence of Maschine Zeit.
Epilogues are interesting creatures. On the one hand, they allow a “where are they now” recap of the stories of your characters, the opportunity to tie up loose ends. On the other, they take place after the principle action of the narrative, perhaps in an arbitrary or artificial fashion.
As always, thank you for reading. Your interest and eyeballs make this possible.
In Pennsylvania’s northern reaches, amongst mountains wreathed in fog and criss-crossing freeways, the Ramada at Clark’s Summit feels like a secluded retreat from big-city civilization. It’s a nice hotel in an interesting position, and twice a year it plays host to the Mid-Eastern Pennsylvania gaming convention, a.k.a. MEPAcon. This was my first experience at this event, and it definitely will not be the last.
I arrived to run a demo of Maschine Zeit, a session of the StarCraft board game and to break in the diplomatically-oriented rules of Conquest of the Empire. None of those things happened. Going through the experience of sitting at empty tables inspired me to remember proper ways to survive a convention. In spite of this disappointment, however, a great time was had.
The raffle, auction and other goings-on Saturday night informed me very much of the sort of people who attend the convention. It’s hard not to feel at home amongst other gamers who hiss at new editions of Dungeons & Dragons, laugh at jokes about random number generation and cheer for plush Cthulhu dolls. I took a trip into the forgotten mists of the very early 1990s with a session of the video-driven board game Nightmare and tried out a trick-based card game called Spooks. I found myself wishing two things: that I had arrived sooner, and that I had brought my wife.
Sunday brought the aforementioned empty board game tables but also a rousing game of the co-operative struggle against the Great Old Ones, Arkham Horror. I also took a break to try a new card game The Werewolves of Millers Hollow, a.k.a. “Are You A Werewolf?” The expansion New Moon was included and I did not have the wherewithal to call it the “Team Jacob” game, an opportunity my bride would have capitalized upon.
Finally on Sunday I had a fantastic encounter with beloved spec fiction author C.J. Henderson. The experienced pen behind occult detectives and the adorable “Baby’s First Mythos” gave this struggling author some much-needed advice on bridging the gap between unpublished and published. Many of his words bubble in my brain, and I’d like to stir the internal pot and relate his words in some fashion soon. I highly recommend checking out his work. He’s also inspired me to spruce up this webspace a bit.
With an overall drive time of just under two hours, even using a non-turnpike route, and very reasonable registration fees, I plan on making time to properly enjoy the next MEPAcon in April of 2011. I plan on bringing Maschine Zeit and StarCraft once again, along with Ninja Burger as a scheduled event and pick-up games of Chrononauts, Spammers (my prize from almost winning Nightmare), Three Dragon Ante (if I can get my hands on a deck) and possibly Magic: the Gathering.
More than anything else, I’ve been inspired to write more fiction and columns related to these genres and hobbies, continue running and playing old-school tabletop games and find ways to include the missus as much and as often as possible. Big thanks to MEPAcon’s excellent staff, the fine gents at The Portal Comics & Gaming and the folks good enough to put up with me. I look forward to seeing, speaking with and playing at the tables of the great people I met in the days, weeks and months ahead.
