Pulp Gamer Out of Character

Hi folks,
I just finished 118, another good show.
The new website is sweet. I like the Twitter feed and the Facebook area. The topics for discussion on Twitter sound interesting. I suppose I'll have to join up now. Thanks for changing to red on the banner instead of that pink.
I noticed something. Jeremiah returned and Derrick went missing. Hmmm.
Don, congrats on stealing the seque crown from Ron.
GenCon - Oh how I wish I was going. The meetup sounds fun and the panel is going to be a blast I know. I really wish I could make it. Darn lack of $.
It was cool to hear Paul Tevis' feedback. I always enjoyed his shows. I'm glad to hear that you are working with Full Light Full Steam, Jason. It's a neat system. I would be interested to see what you are doing with it. I like the Story Batteries mech. How about some more about it?
Smallville is shaping up to be a cool setting and system. I'm looking forward to hearing more on TGTT.
Forbidden Island is super awesome! What a winner of a game. It invokes Pandemic in so many ways yet has its own feel and life. This is my 8 year old son's new favorite game. He loves the 'we need to get out just in the nick of time' part. And he is becoming good at figuring out what he/we need to do to accomplish our goals. He says he is ready to play 'that disease" game now. Very cool. AND it is a big hit at game night at my FPGS.
That's all for now.
Go Forth and Game.
tomg
tomgurg.wordpress.com

I am here to bless you with my presence, albeit in text form. I would like to mention how impressed I am with the quality of the show. The technical aspect is superb. I find the new website to be entertaining in a simple way. The addition of the Twitter and Facebook feeds is a bit disconcerting but understandable. Those of us in these types of positions need to keep the teaming masses informed. Control of information is control after all. I would like to commend your crew. With such a large cast, it would be easy to slide into in pointless babbling and noise. The PG crew is adept at avoiding such inanity. While other shows' ensembles tend to result in confusion, you dance daintly around it, jabbing it with a pointy stick and laughing.
Thank you for being so professional.
Regarding the games you mentioned on this broadcast, I quite enjoy Forbidden Island. Full Light Full Steam intrigues me. I would like to hear more about it.

This is The Magnum Opus.

PG Team, great show and like the new site. Having just finished listening to book 3 of A Song of Ice and Fire series, I'm interested working political intrigue into my rpgs. However I'm at a loss for how to begin. It would be great to hear your ideas of how to incorporate "War of the Roses" style elements of politics and treachery into an existing or new campaign.

Sean T

Good question Sean. I'm interested too. How do you bring political intrigue and treachery as well as social combat into your rpg? I know there are games that do this as a core mechanic. I just haven't played any of them yet. I hear Diaspora is one. What are some others and how do they do this? How would you do it in say, a Savage Worlds based game?

Great question. We've discussed it very briefly before but I think going into greater detail would help.

Politics, like drama, is thwarted desire. Until you work out what people want and why they can't have it, you don't have a political situation. i.e., Joe wants to become Vampire Prince of Albuquerque and he can't, because someone else much more powerful is.

You don't necessarily need social combat in a politics game any more than you need hand-to-hand combat in a wargame. When my little dudes attack Kamchatka in Risk, I don't need to know if any particular Alaskan soldier defeats any particular Kamchatkan soldier. Similarly, if you can marshal enough resources against your opponent in a political arena, there doesn't need to be any kind of "social combat" rules to determine who wins. You can just look at the two sides and figure it out with normal interaction and resources rules. That's how inherent politics is to everything that we do in life.

That said, social combat can be an interesting and fun way to spice up political maneuvering. I would say one of the best that I've seen is Burning *'s Duel of Wits mechanics.