The Importance of House Rules to Ensure "Fun"

As often happens, is spent a part of last weekend playing games with my twin daughters History and Mystery.  We played a wide variety of games ranging from Candyland to Fantasy Flight Games' Rattlesnake with a little role playing as horses in between.  All of these activities were done not merely for the sake of occupying time, but also to create a sense of enjoyment among the participants.  In short, we were playing these games to have fun.

But how does one go about designing a "fun" game?  One of the reasons there are so many kinds of games (wargames, conflict games, area control games, cooperative games, track games) is because the goals of gamers with regard to what is fun aren't always the same.  Not only are they different among different people, but they are different for the same individual at different times.  For example, there are times when I want to play a little Battletech just to get out some aggression through robot vs robot conflict, but there are other times when I want to journey through Mirkwood with the help of my friend Jason in a cooperative fashion while playing Fantasy Flight's Lord of the Rings Living Card Game.  And those are just two of my moods.

I've also learned from playing with History and Mystery that sometimes the game's rules aren't the most fun way to use the game's components.  Let me just say that History and Mystery never cease to amaze me with regard to how they look at the world.  The other day, I had BURN NOTICE on in the background while they were coloring.  History looked up and saw the skyscraper condos overlooking the water and we had the following conversation:

HISTORY: That's pretty.  Where is that daddy?

ME: That, oh, that's Miami.

 HISTORY: Why is it YOUR ami?

ME: (Laughing) No...it's not My ami, it's not Your ami, it's Miami.

MYSTERY: It's not Your ami, or History's ami, but is it My ami?

I laughed for hours at the way their minds worked on that one.  It still makes me laugh.  I understood what they were getting at, and why they would mistake "Miami" for "My ami," but the way they are processing the information is hilarious.  I do think I was finally able to convey that it was just the name of the city...

At least I think so.

The point is that History and Mystery sometimes look at things differently than I do, and when this is combined with what they constitute as fun it leads to some enjoyable house rules.

Let's take our game of Rattlesnake as an example.  It's a simple game that comes with 12 very strong magnets that the players are trying to get rid of, and the first to do so wins the game.  The players roll a die and it tells them what color snake they have to set their egg upon.  If that egg disturbs another egg and they collide, then you have to pick up all the eggs that collided and have failed to get rid of any.  The magnets are very strong and the board is small, so this game can get pretty zany.

As written, I like the game and History and Mystery hate it.  You see "losing all your magnets" isn't fun for them.  What IS fun is making the magnets collide and picking them up.  For them, the loser is the first one to "lose" all of their eggs.  They find it fun to acquire the eggs.  What is interesting about this is that the trigger of the fun is the colliding of the magnets, which is one of the things I would argue is fun in the rules as written as well.  It is the fun that is inherent in the components.  The eggs have strong magnets that attract them to one another and they collide with a loud "clack!"  That's great fun.  That's great component fun, and it has nothing to do with the rules.  With regard to what my daughters find fun, the rules as written have an objective diametrically opposed to their fun goal. 

And this is where one sees the real importance of House Rules.  When I was younger, I made house rules to fix "what was wrong" with a game or to do a particular thing "better."  This led to the creation of a number of spell point systems, and no fewer than 5 versions of Superspeed for the DC Heroes role playing game.  At the time, I thought I was fixing the game objectively.  What I didn't understand, was that I was tweaking the rules to fit my fun-jective.  Having feeble Wizards -- regardless of how they matched up with other characters at high levels -- was annoying to me as a fun objective.  I wanted to play Gandalf or Merlin, I didn't want to be the apprentice in DRAGONSLAYER.  That just didn't seem fun to me, and the rules disagreed with that fun.  I liked the components of D&D -- the odd dice, the miniatures, and the rolling of 5 or 6 dice when casting fireball -- those were all fun activities.  Heck, one of the reasons I love Champions is the opportunity to roll handfuls of dice.  That's just a good time.  My fun goal and the fun goal of the game weren't lined up, even though the fun inherent in using the components was the same. 

Eventually, I learned to have a flexible definition of fun and to allow individual games to set the "magic circle" of what fun is being attempted.  In doing so, I've come to appreciate design efforts I might otherwise have overlooked.  Setting aside my personal fun-jectives from time to time leads to enjoyable experiences.  Heck, my journey as a game master in roleplaying games has gone from grudging acceptance to joy as I came to view the GM "fun" rule to be "Losing the game in a dramatic way is the job of the Game Master."  If you are losing properly, then the players are having fun.  The key here is "in a dramatic way."  There needs to be risk for the players, and character death must be an option.  But it's like a TV show, in that you know the protagonists will usually win out...not always, but usually... and they'll rarely die.  It depends on the game and the expectations, but players rarely enjoy investing time in creating a persona only to have it die as the GM laughs at how pathetic they are.  Though that can be fun from time to time too.

History and Mystery have reminded me of how important it is sometimes to forget what the fun being attempted by a game is, and to see what kind of fun the components of the game are advocating.  It was a nice refresher course for me, and it reminded me why I have all those Heroscape boxes lying around the house.

[Gaming History] Gigi D'arn -- Who is/was she?

Way back in the days of role playing yore -- 1979 to be specific -- the gaming hobby was introduced to its first official gossip columnist.  That columnist was Gigi D'Arn, and she wrote her first gossip column "A Letter from Gigi" in the second issue of The Chaosium's Different Worlds gaming magazine.  Though her first article was published in 1979, her real identity has never been revealed.  I find this bit of gaming history to be one of the most interesting mysteries in the hobby.

Just who is/was Gigi D'arn?

From my initial searching of the internet, it appears that the consensus seems to fall in line with the description at RPG Geek.  That being that Gigi was a fabrication of Different Worlds editor Tadashi Ehara and was probably a compilation of comments by Chaosium staff.  Even Allen Varney -- a long time gamer and pretty informed participant in the "Western" gaming community of the 70s and 80s -- seems to agree with this hypothesis.  After taking some time to research the question, I don't agree with the consensus opinion.  I would like to offer the hypothesis that Gigi was a real gamer who was introduced to the gaming hobby in Southern California and who was a part of the "Alarums & Excursions" crowd.

Before I begin to present the little evidence I have in favor of my hypothesis, let me say that the Gigi D'arn articles -- along with the Larry DiTillio "Sword of Hollywood" articles -- are some of my favorite reading and are part of what made Different Worlds such a good gaming magazine.  Regardless of who Gigi was or wasn't, she was a very entertaining writer.  I would venture to say that she was the Shelly Mazzanoble of her day.  Shelly, with her "Confessions of" columns on the Wizards website are the closest thing I have found to Gigi's writing.  The column's not for everyone, it is a gossip column after all, but I enjoy it in a "Real Housewives meets D&D" kind of way.  I've also been a fan of the pseudonym itself.  Using a pseudonym that was a combination of both Gary Gygax and David Arneson's names seems to me the perfect identity for a gossip columnist.

Now for the evidence that Gigi was a real person -- though I do agree that some of the rumors might have been compiled from Chaosium staffers.

1) In the first column in Issue #2, Gigi mentioned that she lives in the Los Angeles area.  -- Chaosium is a Bay Area company, and while this bit of information might seem a bit of "misdirection" later statements and supporting evidence will highlight how this is more likely true than misdirection.

2) This information is repeated in issue #5 as "Another local news is that LEE GOLD is working on a feudal Japan supplement to C&S."  It should be noted that this piece of information follows discussion of Ken St. Andre and Flying Buffalo.  Given that the Arizona and SoCal gaming communities were fairly tied together back then, this isn't surprising. 

3) In issue 16, Tadashi addresses the issue face on.  In issue 14, Tadashi included a survey that contained the question "Who do you think is Gigi?"  They received several responses which were published in issue 16, including.  "A committee composed of the DW staff" and "Gary Gygax in drag."  Tadashi wrote the following in the editorial:

These are the ones Gigi laughed at when I showed them to her.  You see, she is a real person.  She lives in southern California and writes occasional feature articles (Rose Bowl Parade, Miss Culver City Contest, "Save the Fruit Fly Movement!", Rhubarb Festival, etc.) for a local newspaper/advertiser.  She is an ardent fan of the entire gaming hobby, not just role playing. And she jealously guards her real identity.

Seems to me that this hints pretty strongly that it's a real person.  Though I have to admit that Lexis/Nexis searches for "Save the Fruit Fly Movement!" yielded no information, nor did following up a Rose Chung/Greg Stafford/Scott Bizar reference in issue #2.

4) Issue #31 contains an interview with Gigi.  This interview is one of three "My Life and Role-Playing" interviews featured in the issue.  The others are Dave Hargrave and Gerald D. Seypura, both of whom are real people.  The "My Life" interviews were a semi-regular feature of DW, especially in the early issues.  In the interview, Gigi provides some very interesting information.  First, she claims to have attended CSLA, UCLA, and Michigan.  She mentions that her first husband was a member of the SCA and that she was introduced to D&D by SCA members Barry Detweiler and Connie James (she admits that these are pseudonyms).  My next point will return to Barry and Connie.  She also writs extensively about her work history, her marriage, and how she met Tadashi.  This interview in no way seems fictional.  It lacks all of the flair of an authors "exaggerated" biography.  It is quite mundane, but does include the statement "At cons you can recognize me by my glasses."  Which I found interesting as that issue included this picture:

Image from Different Worlds 31 copyright Tadashi Ehara 1983

Given Gigi's intimate knowledge of the workings of Flying Buffalo, implying friendship/familiarity with the staff, and the "Glasses" reference in the letter, I couldn't help but wonder if the woman on the right is the mysterious Gigi.  I still do wonder that very question.

5) Remember Barry and Connie above?  In his interview with Lee Gold, a southern California gaming community giant, James Maliszewski asked Lee how she became involved in the role playing game hobby.  Her answer?

Our friends, Owen & Hilda Hannifen, came down from San Francisco to visit us, with a copy of the Original D&D rules. My husband and I were fascinated, and they lent us a photocopy of the rules, on seeing us write a check to TSR to order our own copy, so we wouldn't have to wait till the rules arrived (in a brown box) from TSR.

There is no mention that Owen and Hilda were members of the SCA, but given how central Lee Gold was to the Southern California gaming community, and given that Lee and Barry Gold were members of the SCA, it doesn't take much of a leap to speculate that Barry and Connie are either Owen and Hilda, Lee and Barry, or a combination thereof.

6) In 2004, Gigi wrote a letter to Tadashi for his Different Worlds publications website. In that letter, she mentions moving to Colorado, she mentions her "latest beau," and she mentions that Mike Stackpole looks more fit than the last time she and Tadashi saw him.  Remember that photo above?
   
None of this proves that Gigi is/was a real person, or that Gigi is still around for that matter.  What it does do though, is make it reasonable to hypothesize that Gigi was in fact an actual individual who was friends with Tadashi and who wrote the column.  Finding out if Gigi is a real person is a bit like being a blind man examining an elephant.  The evidence is scarce and inconclusive, but it is the evidence we have.

I believe that we should create theories from the evidence we have, and so I believe that Gigi is a real person who now lives in Colorado.

Ben Thompson Reminds Us How Badass History and Mythology Are

I love to read about history and mythology.  Heck, I love to read just about anything.  This is true despite the efforts of several teachers who assigned meaningless "coming of age" stories like A Separate Peace and history texts that were as dull as spoons.  To be fair, the history texts were likely the fault of administrators but I also had teachers who did little to make the words in those dull history texts come alive.

There were wonderful exceptions to be sure.  I had a Nevada History teacher who would lavishly illustrate the chalkboard with a glimpse into the past -- in colored chalk no less.  I can only imagine the hours of effort it took for her to create images that were overlooked by most of the students in the class.  She was a hard grader, but an engaging teacher.  She made John Fremont and the Donner Party vividly real for me.

Excepting this teacher -- and a couple of others -- I was lucky to come out of my early education with a love of reading.  Seriously...have you read A Separate Peace?


Lucky...except for one thing.  Role playing games existed and they fueled my reading passion.  Thanks to the many creators of the role playing games of my youth, my interest in the exciting playground that is world history was kindled.  I can thank people like Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, Graeme Morris, and Greg Stafford for reminding me that the stories are what make history so exciting.

Today's young readers don't have something I didn't have.  They have the internet and Ben Thompson's excellent Badass of the Week website.

At the site -- and in his two books -- Thompson does the world a huge favor.  He makes history more than fun.  He makes it hard core.  His books and website are the DragonForce of history/mythology books.  They are "metal."  In short, he rocks.

Over the past few years Thompson has become my favorite historian.  Will his work be lauded ages from now as the quintessential history texts?  Will they become the text books of University Core Curriculum programs?  No.

They will inspire readers -- at that most cynical and needed age...the teen years -- to become interested in history.

Thompson recently gave a Google Talk where he did a reading from each of his two books.  He's unnecessarily nervous and self-deprecating.

Do yourself a couple of favors.  Buy his books on Amazon and visit his website weekly.
 

His biographical sketches -- like this one about Wolf the Quarrelsome whom Ben mentions in the Talk --  are engaging.  They also make for wonderful inspirational fare for D&D campaigns.

Here's hoping that Ben is able to get a TV deal out of this.