The launch of their last two licenses was done with a hiss, a roar and the promise of great support and interest. However as time marches on it seems that this isn’t quite happening.

A Song of Ice and Fire has had it’s core book, a GM screen and an adventure in the year an a half since it’s been released which is great. But the Campaign Guide is almost a year overdue and momentum seems to have really slowed. This is a great game and one which has given me many hours of fun, but despite winning ENnie awards and getting great feedback from the community, I worry that it isn’t going to get many more books released.

Dragon Age is the other major licence they’ve recently released and while this has only been around since late last year there has been very little in the way of news about new products. A book of adventures and adventure seeds called Blood of Feralden has been announced, but a release date hasn’t been. This game has the potential to tap into a whole group of gamers who don’t have any experience with dice, but unless GR keeps up the momentum on this licence I think it’s just going to fade away.

While I’m sure that Green Ronin is certainly very keen to support these lines and no doubt see them prosper, it is hard to stay enthused when there is next to no news of what’s coming up. I know that they are a small company and that they no doubt would rather be writing and producing games than creating hype. However part of keeping a fan base happy is news, rumor and titbits of information. It would be nice if they were a little more forthcoming with this sort of thing.

So the point of this post, if there is one, is that a great company like Green Ronin, who release interesting games with good systems needs to work a little harder to support the communities it has already established. I’m more than happy to accept that games like A Song of Ice and Fire and Dragon Age will have long approval processes. But if that is what is holding things up, tell me and while you’re at it, tease me with what’s next to come.

Recently though I’m finding that the games that I play which demand a high level of player buy in and direction are the ones I’m enjoying the most. This doesn’t just mean “dirty hippie indie games” (or small press games, or shared narrative games or what ever you want to call them) but also more “traditional” games in which the players take an active role in trying to develop the plot, rather than just waiting for the GM to tell them what happens so they can react to it. This often means that I get disappointed as both a player (when a GM refuses any input from me into the outcome of an action or scene) and as a GM (when the other people I play with want me to tell them exactly what I want to happen, with no input from them) because I see this roleplaying thing we do as a a shared story telling experience.

I really enjoy shared narration games. I love how they promote more player buy in for their characters, especially in the compressed time frames of Con games. The fantasic play experiences the I’ve had with these games have made me expect more from the people I play with, and made me fight against the idea that as a GM I’m just here to “bring the fun”. Being GM doesn’t stop me from being a player, it just means I have a different role.

So what to do about this? How am I going to continue to play in and run games where I feel that I’m getting out of them what I want? Well for starters I’m going to write games where that kind of buy in is needed. Some times that means mixing more traditional games with shared narration ideas, like I did in a recent Mongoose Traveller scenario I wrote, Still to Come. Other times it will be to ask the players for the things they want to happen, and if they don’t focus on those who do. As a player I’m going to offer ideas to the person running the game and if those ideas are consistently ignored or  sidelined I’ll find myself another game.

All these things are easier said than done. But it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, so expect more posts of my random game related musing.

This year I took on the rather daunting task of running three written scenarios and one session in the Games on Demand room. This took me to about my GMing limit and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do the same thing again.

Day 1 started with me running In the Blood, a scenario I had written for the new Dragon Age RPG from Green Ronin. From a GMing point of view it went fine, though I don’t think I’ll be writing a game for 6 players again any time soon. Unfortunately I’m particularly bad at taking down quotes from players during games but it was a really solid start to the Con. Special mention must go to Erik playing Orik the Dwarf, who just nailed the drunken, overly regressive dwarf stereotype. He even managed to save his fiancé. Awwww…

The first game I played in for the con was American Gothix. It’s a road trip homage to 80s Goth culture in small town America and it was fantastic. I played the Newcomer, a former cheerleader who had recently moved towns and was desperate to fit in with the Goths. Jackie did a great job GMing for the first time at KapCon and the rest of the players really bought into the premise. I was stoked when I basically failed at all my character goals, it was way more fun that way. All the players nailed their characters but a few special moments were:

• Scott, as the Artist, for his angst filled poetry and obsession fuelled crime spree to get a meeting with Robert Smith
• Kat, as the Brat, who I managed to bribe with candy to make sure she didn’t let my secret past out
• Svend, as the DJ, for his interaction with his new pet rat. I’ll never hear the term “the package” in quite the same way
• Frank, as the Uber-Goth, for being just oh so creepy and misunderstood
• Thomas, as the Outcast, for being so very dysfunctional.

Then, after dinner and a quick change into my LARP costume (more on that later) I ran Slayage by Gaslight a Buffy RPG scenario, set in Victorian London, I first ran for my regular Buffy group which I tidied up for the Con. I had a great group of players and I felt they really captured the feeling that I was going for. Happily they beat the Big Bad and saved the world.

Honourable mentions:

• Sam W was a fantastic Slayer and she seemed to have a lot of fun playing Anastasia’s arrogance and totally got into the style of having Slayer strength
• The other Sam was just amazing as Ernest the Watcher. I have never before seen someone sleep with a prostitute because it was the honourable thing to do.
• Penny, as played by Tigger from Auckland. In my mind she was timid and afraid of her power. He just made her kick ass.
• Phil playing the street urchin Charlie, trying to kill steal from the Slayer once again!

Day 1 was almost over, but first I had a LARP to get to.

• Charles Stross writes on the issues to do with spaceships.
• Lev Grossman chooses his top 5 fantasy books of all time! (via i09.com)
• Something Awful dissects the art of Traveller.
• Paizo are having another of their RPG Superstar design competitions.

I think the internet is playing Dragon Age too…

Not sure exactly what I’ll do here – I’m planning on getting a new PC but it probably won’t be until next year and I don’t want to wait for Dragon Age. Stink!

In other DA news, there’s some details of the pen and paper RPG in a new podcast at the Green Ronin site. I haven’t listened but there’s details in this RPG.net thread. It sounds interesting actually – simple but with a stunt die sort of system called a ‘Dragon Die’.

• Inquisitor – Another cool looking isometric indie RPG. I hope that and Age of Decadence come out!
• The Magicians – this book looks pretty cool and based on this interview, the author Lev Grossman is pretty cool as well! He’s also writen a great article about the improtance of plot in the Wall Street Journal.
• Erik Mona is doing a new blog – there’s no RSS but Erik Mona, Publisher at Paizo is going a blog over at ENWorld. The 1st entry is all about his history as a gamer.
• DragonAge‘s lead writer – here’s an interview with David Gaider! Pretty interesting stuff…
• A huge list of sci-fi – writen by people who aren’t white men.
• Tim Holman’s new blog – Mr Holman is the Publisher at Orbit. He’s writen some cool stuff including the state of the Urban Fantasy sub-genre and what gets onto the covers of fantasy books.

Phew.

Check out the first 4 pages here, and check back every Friday (North American time) for a new page. It’s pretty cool and looks to be doing a bit on the back story before the game starts.