By Steve Kenson

"Would you … mind signing my book?"

I’m pretty sure I looked behind me the first time somebody asked me that.

It was at the FASA Corporation booth at GenCon, back when I was freelancing for Shadowrun and the Awakenings sourcebook (my first project with cover credit) was brand new. I figured they had to be talking to somebody else at the (relatively busy) booth but, no, it was me. Truth be told, I’m still almost as surprised and flattered these days when people ask me to sign books I’ve written as I was then, well over a decade ago.

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Imagine, if you will, that today is Friday, August 16, 2013. Some of us are busy on the floor at Gen Con, and some of us are wishing, a lot or a little, that we were at the show. And Steve Kenson is waiting in a security line or is strapped into a tube blasting across the ocean. And while you’re imagining that today is that day, please imagine that we remembered to post this for Steve…

I am not at GenCon as you read this. In fact, I’m not at GenCon this August for the first time since 1990. Although my first big game convention was GenCon/Origins in 1988, I skipped ’89 (a pity, too, as it was a banner year, with the release of both Shadowrun and the fourth edition of Champions). Since ’90, however, I haven’t missed a GenCon until now: Twenty-three consecutive GenCons (twenty-four in total) and it looks like I’m not going to make that consecutive silver anniversary (although I no doubt will make it to twenty-five total GenCons).

Where am I right now? At Logan Airport about to board a flight to the UK, most likely, or on-board said flight. You see, it had to happen eventually that the difficulties of scheduling would catch up with me and, sooner or later, something would conflict with going to GenCon. This year it’s a once-in-a-lifetime weeklong trip to Wales to visit a series of sites with my pagan spiritual community. It necessitated leaving in the midst of GenCon weekend, so only one could happen. While I certainly don’t regret the decision, I know that I will miss "The Best Four Days in Gaming!™" that has been such a big part of my life.

I appreciate the understanding Green Ronin (my GenCon "home base" for nearly half the time I’ve been attending) has extended over this. It seems like circumstances have conspired to leave them short-handed this year, so please be kind and patient when you drop by their booth. I apologize to all those whom I won’t be able to see to sign your books, answer questions, or run games. I’ll miss seeing and chatting with you, but I hope to see many (if not all) of you next year!

I’ll miss the fledgling "Queer as a Three-Sided Die" seminar and get-together I helped start last year. It was such a rousing success and a heartwarming part of my convention, and I feel responsible to help keep it going. I know it is in very good hands with Wes Schneider, Jeremy Crawford, and new panelists Judy Bauer and Renee Knipe, I just wish I could be there to join in the discussion! Hopefully, a YouTube video of it will be awaiting me upon my return.

I’ll miss rooting with my coworkers and colleagues at the EN World Awards, mingling and talking before and after. There are a lot of worthy nominees this year, and I wish the best to all of them.

Most of all, I’ll miss spending time with my colleagues: Green Ronin is a far-flung company, the game industry even more so. For those of us who don’t live in Seattle, events like GenCon are rare opportunities to meet face-to-face, catch up, chat over drinks or dinner and, yes, play some games. I’m kind of glad I’ll be largely out of touch with my Facebook and Twitter feeds on the UK trip, since I’d rather read all the "live from GenCon" posts after the fact, rather than while they’re happening.

Still, one of the things about GenCon is its dependable place at the heart of the gaming calendar each year. Although I’ll miss it (and I like to think parts of GenCon will miss me), summer is almost over, then Fall will be upon us (and I’ll get to visit Green Ronin and Seattle in October), then the holidays, the New Year … and, before we know it, that time will draw near once again when we’ll all converge on Indianapolis for the four days of games and geekery that is GenCon.

I don’t know about you, but I’m already looking forward to it.

Steve Kenson

Tailoring Adventures to Player Characters

by Jack Norris

Adventure design is a funny thing. Published adventures need to appeal to the widest possible group of PCs. Whether the PCs are bandits, knights, businessmen, or criminals an adventure included in a publication needs to do the best job they can to motivate and include those characters in the action. This is why published adventures based around classic plots like the Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven are a good model; anyone who needs money, is a halfway decent person, or has some useful skills can be hired to defend a village from bandits or monsters.

Designing adventures for a particular group is a different beast. You can tailor an adventure to the PCs you actually have, not those you might have. This allows GMs to populate the adventure and the setting with plots, characters, and twists that speak directly to the PCs, their motivations, and skills. I call this the Silverado Effect, from the Lawrence Kasdan western film of the same name.

In Silverado, four "PCs" find themselves on the wrong side of some bad people. One of them used to ride with the main bad guy, now a corrupt sheriff and boss of the town of Silverado. Now he seeks some peace but still ends up coming against his old "friends." Two other characters, brothers, find themselves the target of the evil sheriff’s business partner, the son of a robber baron the eldest son killed to save his kid brother. They come into town to see their sister, and end up getting revenge when the bad guys take a run at their family. The final character arrives in town to find his father beset by the sheriff and robber baron who want their land and that his sister has abandoned the homestead to work as a saloon girl. Throughout the film these four characters alternate between friendship and suspicion until they finally come together to take on the bad guys and clean up the town.

It’s a great film and a classic of the modern western, but perhaps more importantly for the topic at hand it’s a story that only works with those characters. You can’t throw in a different main character without changing the whole dynamic. That’s because every bad guy, sympathetic character, and event is designed to motivate those characters in ways that wouldn’t work on someone else the same.

Have a PC whose parents were killed by bandits? Put in a bandit chief antagonist. Another PC loves kids? Add a needy waif who will meet a bad end without their help. Another is a politician and schemer? Then maybe the bandit chief is working with a corrupt lord or worse, maybe the lord hires the chief and his men as his personal magistrates to help him execute a complex scheme. By making these adjustments, you can even tailor a published adventure to your group and make it a very personal affair for the PCs.

This is the great advantage of designing adventures directly for your gaming table and while it can be some work, it can lead to truly fantastic games. It might not always be easy, but it is often worth it.

by Chris Pramas

Last night I went to a midnight show of Pacific Rim with Ronins Nicole Lindroos, Marc Schmalz, and Intern Kate, along with Stan! of Super Genius Games and our pal Vinny. If you grew up on Godzilla and Gundam, you’re going to love this movie. We all had a blast and as gamers, our thoughts naturally turned to the age old question: how do you game that?

We just published a new Gadget Guide PDF this week called Mecha. If you are a Mutants & Masterminds fan, it’s a great place to start. There’s another way to game Pacific Rim farther back in our history though! In 2005 we ran a setting search for our True20 Adventure Roleplaying game. Other companies pitched us settings and the best four were included in the hardback core rulebook. Jonathan Wright and his company Big Finger Games pitched us a setting called Mecha vs. Kaiju. I remember opening up the pitch package and reading the title to Nicole. I said, "I think we have a contender!" because I immediately loved the concept. It was well executed too, so when we picked the four winners, Mecha vs. Kaiju was on the list. It was published in the 2006 edition of True20 Adventure Roleplaying.

When we were talking after the movie, Nicole suggested that we remind people about Mecha vs. Kaiju. Surely we weren’t the only ones who were going to think about gaming Pacific Rim or something like it in the wake of the movie. So we’ve decided to put the PDF of the 2006 edition of True20 on sale again for only $5. It also includes the settings Caliphate Nights by Paradigm Concepts, Lux Aeternum by BlackWyrm Games, and Borrowed Time by Golden Elm Media.

You should note that we later did a Revised Edition of the True20 core rulebook that replaced the setting search winners with the contents of the True20 Companion. It’s the original 2006 edition we’re putting on sale though.

If you already have True20 and you want some sweet giant robot vs. giant monster action, Big Finger Games later expanded out Mecha vs. Kaiju to a full sized book. You can find that here.

I think the reason Mecha vs. Kaiju grabbed me right away goes back to my childhood. When I was a kid, we had a black and white TV and cable was years away. One of the UHF channels in the Boston area was Channel 56 and they ran something called the Creature Double Feature each week. I saw a lot of Japanese monster movies despite the shitty reception we got. They ran kung fu movies too, so my later love of Hong Kong action cinema has roots there as well. In the early 80s, we first started seeing anime on American TV. I used to watch a show called Force Five, which was actually five different Japanese shows under one banner. Several of those featured giant robots and I was in. No surprise I ended up playing a lot of BattleTech in college.

So strap into your mecha, pick M&M or True20, and defend the Earth from giant monsters! Green Ronin super robot power…gooooooo!