It's all so recursive...

Responding to a posting of mine aikon posted http://www.livejournal.com/users/aikon/124466.html.

I'll still on track to move from Couch Potato to running 5K by the end of the program. This is week six (nine weeks total). I'm still running, and now that I'm not trying to stretch out before I run, I'm not having calf pains. I've reached the stage now where instead of running the same intervals three days a week, each day I'm running longer at one time, so that on the third day once I've done the initial 5 minute warm up walk I just run. It felt like quite a stretch to go from two 8 minute runs separated by a five minute walk on the second day to a 20 minute run on the third day, even though it's really only four more minutes.

And technically, I suppose, I failed. I had to take a couple of 30-second breathers during the run, slowing to a walk for half a minute before forcing myself to continue. No doubt if I were in the military a drill instructor would have been in my face telling what a pansy ass I am. But I'm not. So I'm gonna call it good and start the sixth week routine after work tonight.

Yes, I run at the end of the day rather than in the morning, though I have gone running after getting up on Saturday a couple of times. Of course, that was after I got up at 11 a.m. But get up early to go running? Surely you jest!

Role-Playing and Inevitability

Over on theferrett's livejournal, he's been discussing role-playing games and the quest for the perfect "art" game and how various games and their mechanics measure up.  I agree with him about some of the games.  Champions is a very flexible system--at the cost of mind-numbing complexity.   Unknown Armies has some really nifty ideas, but I don't care for the mechanics.  One of the issues he mentions is creative mechanics.

Fudge is a very rules-light system (which is why I like it) that can be made as crunchy as you like.  I've seen tomes devoted to converting Transhuman Space (from Steve Jackson Games) into a Fudge version, maintaining all the complexity and crunchiness.  Don't see the point myself.  If you're not looking for a simple system, why convert to Fudge at all?  But...different strokes.

Just today, however, a message was posted to the Fudge mailing list.  It suggested a somewhat different approach to character challenges and the resolution of those challenges.  I've quoted the entire message behind the cut tag.  But basically it boils down to this:

We know the heroes (PCs) are going to succeed.  The suspense comes in wondering what it's going to cost them to succeed.  So stop pretending otherwise.  Admit up front that the PCs will ultimately prevail.  If the PC fails a vital* die roll, the player is free to offer up a scenario in which he succeeds--at some (variable) cost to the character.  That cost could be injuries, plot complications, even death.

Many games, including Fudge, have some kind of meta-game mechanic that allows players to, uh, fudge the results of die rolls in the crunch.  Most of them, though, are limited--you have to hoard your fudge points or whatever lest you run out of them.  If you do run out of them, a bad die roll can still ruin your whole day or kill your PC.  This approach does away with that mindset--without depending on the GM to orchestrate a victory that may feel scripted.  The PCs are going to succeed; the only question is how much they have to pay in blood, sweat or tears to do so.

*what constitutes a vital die roll?  That's part of the beauty of this approach.  That's up to the player.  If he doesn't care, or doesn't care enough to offer up a setback to justify changing the result, the PC has to live with the failure.

( Anyhow, here's the text of the message )

I've been thinking about running a Fudge game for my wife and some friends.  If I do, I think I'll make use of this idea.