Happy Bishop Games

Triune seems to have offended someone. I knew this was only a matter of time.

A gentleman caller has posted a few notes in our forum basically stating I am going to hell  because of the Triune rpg. You can read the posts here and here. Now, you could make any number of arguments for my soul being hell-bound, such as my fondness for the drink or all of those times I took the name of the Lord in vain while watching football, but really? A roleplaying game? I thought this is the 2010′s, not the 1980′s.

I don’t mind if people hate the book or hate me for writing it. That’s your opinion, and if your life is so empty that you need hate to fill in the empty spaces, that’s your call. But please don’t get righteous on me by saying you’ll pray for me and the people who bought Triune. That, and saying this game proves I’m “angry and sad”. You don’t like it? Go away. Read the Bible. Volunteer somewhere. But don’t tell me I’m defective because I wrote something you don’t like. That’s not Christian – that’s arrogance, akin to pride which is what brought down Lucifer.

And for the record, I have accepted Jesus Christ, thank you very much. So please peddle your arrogant advice somewhere else.

As some may have known, I’ve been hard at work on a secret project the past six months. However, it is finally complete and I can talk about it. I wrote a novel – and it’s published!
The novel is called Traitor Hangout (part of a series of novels set in the PARANOIA rpg universe) and is for sale via Amazon.com as a Kindle e-book. Here’s the description taken straight from the website:

FOLLOW ALL MANDATES SO ALPHA COMPLEX WILL WORK PECFERTLY.

In Alpha Complex, The Computer’s underground city of the future, happy citizens follow all mandates. If they don’t, The Computer will be unhappy. This will make the happy citizens unhappy too. Quickly.

THE COMPUTER DID NOT SAY “PECFERTLY.” THE COMPUTER ALWAYS SPEAKS FERPECTLY.

Efficiency auditor Clarence-Y enforces mandates – and he knows them all. By owning a secret pet, the mutant lab mouse Ignatius, Clarence has already broken 22 mandates. And it’s not even lunch.

ATTENTION: REPLACE ALL USES OF “FERPECTLY” WITH “CREFPETLY.” THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

On assignment for Internal Security, Clarence impersonates notorious criminal “Superstar Pirate” and infiltrates four treasonous secret societies in one day. All the mandate violations! They’re making his head explode.

No, wait. Heavy weaponry – that’s what will explode his head.

TRAITOR HANGOUT
A PARANOIA novel by WJ MacGuffin
(61,000 words – about 250 Kindle pages)

PARANOIA
Light-hearted stories of backstabbing, treachery, and Internal Security “Friendly Tap Justification” forms (to be completed after truncheon use). Based on the bestselling roleplaying game of fear and ignorance in a darkly satirical future, official PARANOIA novels are now available as ebooks from Ultraviolet Books — and they’re even for your security clearance.

If you were looking for paranormal romance with dreamy dead guys – well, citizen, it sounds like you’re off your hormone suppressants. But if you like Douglas Adams and stories of know-it-all rules lawyers put through four kinds of hell (how could you not?), your friend The Computer requires you to enjoy PARANOIA.

PARANOIA NOVELS ARE FUN. OTHER NOVELS ARE NOT FUN. READ PARANOIA.

The price is a mere $3.99 USD! Now that’s a bargain! Other formats (such as Nook) will follow in the days/weeks ahead, so if you don’t have an e-reader that supports Kindle format, don’t worry. It’s only a matter of time.

There you go. Now, go and buy my book so I can become a Famous Author! Please?

Finally, Personality Chess has been accepted by both Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble for the Kindle and Nook respectively. Now, we just need some reviews. How about a trade?

If you are willing to to review Personality Chess for either website, please send us an email (wjmacguffin at gmail dot com) and we will send you a free copy. Sounds like a fair trade, yes? Please indicate which format you want: Kindle, Nook, PDF, or other e-reader version. And to be clear, we are looking for true, honest reviews.

The same holds true for our earlier game, Triune. However, we do not have an e-reader version of that product, just PDF. Still, it is for sale on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, so if you’re willing to write a review of the game for either site, we’ll send you a free copy of Triune too.

If you’re not interested or don’t have the time, spread the word! Tell others how they can get free games this Christmas season!

Happy Bishop Games is proud to announce its second game is now for sale – Personality Chess!

This chess variant brings chaos, fun, and personality to the classic game. When you want to move your piece, you must roll a die. If the die comes up 1-3, you move that piece normally. However, rolling 4-6 means that piece uses special moves only available to that piece. Your pawn could move normally, go run and hide, or charge forward and capture whatever is in his way!

Currently, the game is available as a 33 page PDF for $3.99. Check out our store to purchase your copy. Personality Chess will also be available for Nook, Kindle, and iPad in the near future.

Those who purchase Personality Chess from our store will receive a Discount Code for $3.00 off the purchase of the Triune Corebook (Gamemasters’ Edition). Buy a small, great game and save money off a large, equally great game – Happy Holidays indeed!

Personality Chess has finished playtesting and is nearing publication. Hooray! However, we came across an interesting question while writing the rules: How smart or dumb should you assume your audience will be?

For example, one of the possible moves in Personality Chess is, “[The knight] will move as close as possible to an enemy knight.” Obviously, some clarification is needed. “This does not have to be a legal move” helps give the reader a proper understanding of how the rule works. But how deeply should a designer go in explaining a rule?

Should we say, “This does not have to be a legal move. Pick up the piece and place it down in the nearest adjacent square”? Do we need to define “adjacent” or “square”?  We want to be as clear as possible, but we also do not want to treat our audience as dolts with no understanding of the English language.

If we have to err, doing so on the side of clarity is probably the safer option. It’s better to over-explain than to under-explain. And while this wonderful modern age allows easy post-publication of errata and clarifications through forums, message boards, and the like, it’s preferable to fix it the first time. After all, we’re not software publishers!

Therefore, the rules to Personality Chess will be as clear as possible. Please don’t read this as “dumbed-down”. Instead, think of it as the best way to translate our fevered, caffeine-addled minds into something comprehensible.

I normally don’t get political with this site, because that’s not the point. However, this is something I really believe in and will use my bully pulpit–as small as it is–to spread the word.

The Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, is an attempt to limit internet piracy of copyrighted material. I’m all for that. However, this law is dangerous. It allows businesses to force the government into shutting down websites. That’s censorship. Sure, backers of SOPA claim it would only be used for shutting down websites that distribute pirated material, but remember how the RIAA conducted themselves? Suing children and grandmothers? Now imagine if the RIAA could force the government to do its dirty work.

Besides, SOPA is broadly defined, meaning if you posted a picture of your family at Disney World on your blog, your blog could be shut down for using Disney trademarks without permission. Is that likely? No. Then again, Disney has sued preschools in the past for using their intellectual property without paying for it. Do you really want to give that much power to businesses?

For more details, check out this site or this one.

Yet again, it’s large businesses verses the people. Make the right choice.

American Censorship Day

As we discussed previously, Personality Chess is the next product for Happy Bishop Games. We are currently playtesting the rules and, thanks to some great people, we’ve uncovered and corrected several unclear, muddled, or just plain bad rules.

Therefore, we are announcing version 1.1 or the beta rules for Personality Chess. This corrects several rules about capturing and moving as well as adds some improvements to the tone and flavor text. It’s not very pretty–just plain text with some basic formatting–but it’s ready for open playtesting.

If you already have a copy of the rules, send us an email and we’ll give you the updated version. If you don’t have the rules, all you need to do is ask! Send us a message one way or another and we’ll send you a link to the 1.1 rules.

The following is not really a review of  Unity Underground by Red Moon Medicine Show.  Rather, it’s my experience playing the game at GenCon 2011 filtered through the game designer part of my brain. Your mileage may vary.

Unity Underground is an unreleased game by undergoing playtesting at GenCon. When I read the GenCon description and realized this was a playtest, I had to sign up. It’s only right since I’ve pushed Triune playtests at GenCon for several years! I’m happy to say this game is real nice and would recommend it when it’s published.

According to the game’s designer (who ran the game–nice touch!), he wanted to capture cinematic action rather than D&D style tactical combat. And in that respect, he really succeeded.

The mechanic is as simple as Dying Earth but with more logic and less luck: Roll 1d6 equal or under your attribute or skill. There are modifiers, usually +1 or -1, so it stays simple. This creates a game experience that’s very quick and fluid, much like a movie action scene. No checking distance in meters, no counting up scads of modifiers, and no referencing rulebooks to see the reach of a pike. Just aim, roll, and play!

Another great design element that supports the game’s theme is ammunition. Instead of counting ammo, you get a small number, say three. Every time you roll the worst die possible (a six) during combat, you decrease that ammo number by one. When your ammo number gets to zero, you ran out.

Theoretically, you could never run out of ammo. Fine! This game isn’t about realism, it’s about cinematic violence, where running out of ammo only happens if it’s important to the plot! The designer could have forced in an ammunition system that counted bullets or clips like many other games. Instead, he kept true to his vision and designed the ammo system to fit that vision.

The game itself is a sci-fi rebellion against the tyrannical government, nothing we haven’t seen before but still fun to play. Yet I give kudos to the design team for building a system that supports the setting and theme.

In the past few posts, I’ve described my experience playing games at GenCon from a designer’s perspective. Here’s something different–the experience of a GM running Triune at GenCon that’s not my own.

Jonathan (libraryrpgamer at aol dot com) is a buddy of mine who agreed to run Triune at GenCon. He played Triune before but never ran it, so it was interesting to me to see how his game would turn out. I believe his post-action report speaks well of Triune.

Happy post-GenCon and welcome back to the real world.  Here is
my update on the game I ran for you.

I had 4 people – 3 had event tickets, 1 used generic tickets.

Ups- Everyone liked the system.  It was simple and all caught
on quickly.  I only had to explain it once.  One commented that
it was a system that allowed for intense character RPing and
that she liked that.  Everyone also thought that the setting
was unique and like the idea of a cold war between heaven and
hell.  Although, people were a little fuzzy with the details of
the setting.  This included various tech levels, the full time
line, and the differences between common public knowledge and
top-secret/enforcer knowledge.  But again, everyone got it with
a little explanation.

Downs – There was a lot of material to cover in the Underground
Light adventure and, basically, I started running out of time
and had to crunch the last scene.  Actually, time was the
biggest/only issue.  Triune is such a unique setting and rules
that it took some time to explain and go over each and every
clue.  I reccomend that Underground Light be given a 6hr time
slot in the future for con games.

Summary – everybody had fun, enjoyed playing the Hell side,
thought the setting was a blast and unique but, because of the
player’s superb involvement with the game and puzzeling over
every clue we ran out of time and had to rush the end.  All in
all, good times.

Jonathan ran Triune using the One-Sided playstyle, where all the PCs worked as enforcement officers but secretly worked for Hell. I prefer the Competitive playstyles, where all the PCs have different secret agendas that conflict, but I know some people prefer the Traditional playstyle that provides a gameplay experience more in-line with traditional cooperative rpgs. This is one reason why we are proud of Triune–there’s three very different ways to play the game!

If you have any questions for Jonathan about running Triune, feel free to contact him. (Again, that’s libraryrpgamer at aol dot com.) He’s not only a nice guy, but he’s well-versed in roleplaying games and quite intelligent.

Thanks again, Jonathan!