I is for Icons

When it comes to super hero role playing games, none are dearer to my heart than the classic Mayfair DC Heroes role playing game. The game's mechanics, designed by Greg Gorden and Ray Winninger, are elegant. They are easy to learn, quick to play, and versatile enough to handle a world where both Batman and Superman fight villains side by side.

Sadly, this game is out of print and many gamers refuse to play the games we "old fogeys" love so dearly. So what are those of use who love quick and easy super hero action, that also rewards narrative subplots, to do? We could play the excellent Mutants & Masterminds role playing game by Green Ronin written by Steve Kenson. The game took the mechanics of 3rd edition D&D, put them through a laser filter, and refined them into a fine super hero game. But that game -- prior to its recent 3rd edition release -- had fallen under the spell of the mechanical rather than the narrative as its audience grew to include former Champions players in addition to former DC Heroes players. It's still a great game, as is Champions, but it is more mechanical and "wargamy" than the old DC Heroes game was (this is less true of the new 3rd edition).

Those of us who want a more purely narrative game can be thankful that last year Steve Kenson -- there is that name again -- designed exactly such a game for Adamant Entertainment. The game is called Icons and it is a small piece of heaven.

The game's graphic design is inspired by the Bruce Timm cartoons of the 90s. The game takes the easy to play FATE system and makes it even easier. Since it is based on the FATE system, the game is heavily narrative and Kenson has manage to combine some of what is best from both the old DC Heroes and the old Marvel Super Heroes role playing games to make this gem. The system is good for the one shot, or for campaign play. The system is versatile enough to handle both Batman and Superman style characters...without having to create different "power levels" that have different "game balance" math. It's just pure fun in book form. In the grand tradition of super hero role playing games, it is filled with concise -- but useful -- information on how to run games in an entertaining fashion.

There are quite a few super hero systems out there, and most of them are quite good, but few of them can be picked up and played as quickly as Icons.

Adamant has released some excellent adventures in support of the game, and their big villain book comes out next week. Give it a shot.

Gaming Paper -- Do You Need It?

In the Summer of 2002, I attended GenCon in Milwaukee, WI. It was the final GenCon to be held in that wonderful city. The con had outgrown Milwaukee's accommodations. I had an amazing time at the convention, which made for wonderful tonic given that my wife's and my dog Oreo had died the week before the convention. In fact, Oreo died on the day I left town for work. She woke us up, as we anthropomorphize to this day, just to say good bye. She was a small dog, and an old one -- she was over 20 when she died. As one might expect, I was distraught and attending GenCon at the back end of a business trip was a wonderful anti-depressant.

At the convention there were myriad products for all kinds of games. The OGL boom was in full swing and the convention hall was abuzz with excitement regarding numerous new products. One of those products was the Savage Worlds roleplaying game by Pinnacle Entertainment Group another was a highly useful product manufactured by Skeleton Key Games. Skeleton Key Games, who are now a leader in PDF based game tile sales, had printed up sets of what can only be called "Cave Paper." The sheets of paper were brown and featured a textured print and a one-inch grid for use in playing D&D. DMs could cut the paper into any cave shape, a relatively easy process, and have a nice looking set of tiles which could be placed next to one another to form a cave complex. I bought a couple of packs and used them up rapidly as the textured image looked better than the vinyl surface of my battlemat as a cave complex. My gaming group enjoyed the verisimilitude the tiles offered as they ventured into the caves surrounding the Temple of Elemental Evil.

Skeleton Key Games quickly expanded their offerings to include a wide variety of city, dungeon, cave, boat, and water tiles available in pdf format. You are no longer limited to buying their pre-printed packs, you buy the file and print what you need. It's useful, but can be expensive once you start adding up all those toner costs and the various stacks of cut outs can take up quite a bit of storage space if you let it. Needless to say, the "Cave Tiles" were a needed innovation that spawned a product line.

This year Gaming Paper, Inc. is offering a product they hope will be as innovative and useful as the battlemat or those pdf dungeon tiles. Their offering is called, simply enough, Gaming Paper. To help sell the product, Gaming Paper, Inc. has used YouTube viral commercials featuring Gaming Paper founder Erik Bauer demonstrating the uses of Gaming Paper. We've enjoyed the commercials and have written about them before (be sure to check out their YouTube channel).
In the commercials, Erik demonstrates many of Gaming Paper's "uses" and ways it can be abused, but we are concerned here with Gaming Paper's use as a gaming product.

To begin, Gaming Paper is exactly what it says it is. It is a lightweight, but durable, paper product with a one inch grid printed on a tan wax-coated paper stock. The basic roll supplies a good amount of Gaming Paper for a reasonable cost at $4.00 a roll.

Given the widespread use of battlemats, one my wonder if their is a market for Gaming Paper or whether it is useful to someone who already owns a battlemat. I believe there is a market and can assure you that it is useful to those who -- like me -- own battlemats. This is because Gaming Paper has three traits where it has an advantage over a standard battlemat and only one trait where it is at a disadvantage.

The first advantage is how light a roll of Gaming Paper is to carry around. The fact that Gaming Paper is lightweight makes it the perfect surface for use on the Convention circuit. Let's say you are an RPGA judge who will be running 3 different Living Forgotten Realms modules at your local con. You can pre-draw all the maps onto Gaming Paper sheets -- cut to the size you need -- roll them up, and carry them to the Con all more lightweight than the battlemat.

This brings us to our second advantage -- which also happens to be the products chief disadvantage as well. Once you draw something on Gaming Paper, it stays on Gaming Paper. You cannot draw and erase, like a battlemat, but when combined with its light weight this means that you can bring multiple sheets each with a different dungeon level on them for multiple uses during repeated con events. If you were using a battlemat, you'd have to redraw each level as you came to them -- taking time away from the session -- and redraw them again for the next session. Either that or carry multiple battlemats, which might need to be retouched if the ink smeared, which becomes more cumbersome than Gaming Paper.

The third advantage that Gaming Paper is that it can be cut to create variable sized mats. Each roll is 30 inches wide and 12 feet long. You can cut out quite a few playing surfaces at that length.

I also like that Gaming Paper has a low cost. A roll of gaming paper can go quite a long way, is reusable (make sure you keep the cardboard tube), especially if you are just using it for the grid and have physical terrain you can place on it, and is only $4.00.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Gaming Paper has a similar texture and size to Gift Wrapping paper. Erik will probably blow a gasket for me writing this, but I think that Gaming Paper also makes ideal gaming wrapping paper. Draw a map of a dungeon on the gaming paper, wrap up a copy of the new edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay inside, and it's perfect. Just make sure that your friend or loved one is careful when unwrapping and isn't one of those ravenous tearing freaks.

My one complaint about gaming paper is that it is currently only offered in a tan color. I think it would be invaluable to my gaming group to have a variety of colors, especially "grassy" and "cobblestone" for use in creating various non-dungeon maps. If I could by a $4.00 roll of cobblestone for use in my Eberron game to lay as a foundation for all my city based adventures, I'd be a happy gamer. If they wanted to go crazy, they could pre-print some medieval city cartography as well.

Gaming Paper reminds me of the Skeleton Key "Cave Tiles." It is a needed product coming out at the right time, but I'd like to see the product line expand.

One more thing...apparently Gaming Paper makes a good parachute too.

Gaming Paper: Selling Game Products with Online Infomercials

Erik Bauer, the inventor and chief salesman of Gaming Paper, has a difficult road ahead of him. Erik is trying to sell what might be viewed by many as an "old" product as a new innovation. Erik is trying to get the modern roleplaying gamer to buy his specially designed paper to replace the gaming tiles and expensive gaming mats on which gamers are currently spending lots of money. He wants us to buy...paper, and to make his case he is becoming that most wonderful of things and internet Pitchman.

It's hard to be a Pitchman, a carnival barker, a huckster if you will. Most people think you're kind of shady and untrustworthy, but I've always admired these dicey individuals. I love a good huckster. It doesn't matter whether the huckster is running a game of three card monte, working at a carnival, promoting a movie, or selling me stuff on television. There's just something entertaining about the patter and technique that entertains me, not that I'm going to buy from them mind you. This is one of the reasons I am going to deeply miss Billy Mays, and lament the fact that I never got to see William Castle in action.

At the carnival, the job of the barker might be to convince the rube that the $2.00 stuffed animal is worth 10 attempts at a carnival game...each game costing $3.00. The job of the carnival barker is to create a higher demand for an item than the item might otherwise command. After all, if the $2.00 stuffed animal isn't a $2.00 stuffed animal but a "test of one's manliness" then it is certainly worth $30.00. Right?

On television, you watch masters of the art (like the aforementioned Billy Mays) gleefully attempt to convince viewers that they absolutely must buy OxiClean for their cleaning needs or Green Now to fix up their lawn.

The internet is the perfect environment for these ne'er do wells. In fact, the internet is home to one of the best hucksters of all time, Tom Dickson, with his stream of "Will it Blend?" internet ads. I absolutely love the "diamonds" ad that Blend-Tec did a while ago.

So how does Erik measure up to the great Pitchmen like Billy Mays and Tom Dickson? By the video below, you can see that he gets the concept of pitching and seems to be trying to fuse the Dickson and Mays models. It does come off as a little clumsy and low, but it's still entertaining. I particularly admire the comment about ink bleed, "it doesn't go through...unless you went really thick." I actually recommend watching all 5 videos they have up, there are some pretty silly moments that are pretty entertaining. In fact, in support of Erik I'll probably buy a few rolls of his "high quality paper." $4.00 a roll doesn't seem like too much to ask.