For completeness’s sake, and because it’s a post that involves Tripp as my DM and our group in general, I give you this link to my latest blog post at the Dire Cafe: The Empty Chair.

A friend in our gaming group died a few weeks ago. That post is one of the many ways we’re coping with it.

Game Designer Hunter Gough ran some friends, myself included, through a pulp-era adventure last weekend using some customized FATE rules. It was incredible fun! You can read his account here.

FATE is one of my favorite systems. It makes storytelling easy and dynamic. Hunter added very intriguing features to the character creation and streamlined the aspects/skills relationship, which I’ll leave it to him to explain. His custom system, F# (F-sharp), fit on a single page, which made it very approachable and easy to accentuate with player creativity.

Tycho and Gabe of legendary webcomic-and-so-much-more Penny Arcade sat down to give 4th Edition a run through with some special guest players.  Some of them are old timers at D&D, and others have never thrown a D20 before in their lives. 

For our listening pleasure, recordings are available.  It’s a fun experience for the personalities involved, and it also clears up a lot of questions I had about the mechanics of 4th Edition. This is some good stuff, folks.  Check out the D&D podcast here — you’ll find the Penny Arcade ones around episode 21.

Unclebear recently sat in on a game of Prime Time Adventures with a great twist: the show was Crime Scene Investigators, and the locale was Gotham City.  Read up on his observations at Unclebear.com for a recount of the game and a walkthrough of how PTA works.  It sounds like a fantastic game, and I’m glad he gave a fly-on-the-wall’s-eye view of it to us.

I followed Berin’s tweets (I have to say, being on Twitter myself is fun), and as the commentary flowed, I found myself pining for the Good Old Days when I could spend hours at the local gaming shop perusing the books, playing games in the back, and connecting with my people.

So I took a walk to the shop.  I’m fortunate to live near one in Albuquerque, and it is *active*.  There must have been thirty teenagers in the back room, sifting through their World of Warcraft decks, eager to play.  I was happy to see so many people there on the weekend, and the shop was providing a place to host the event.  Except for one thing…

I noticed there was no community bulliten board.  This came as a real surprise to me: how are gaming groups growing and drawing in new members?  FIguring maybe the shop had caught up with the 21st century, I checked the web page for a digital equivilent, but to no avail.  There’s a schedule on the web page, primitive but browseable, and it shows that the same three card games will be played nightly through eternity.

I have no idea who’s playing in Albuquerque these days.  I blame my own post-college disconnection fro the scene, certainly.  But I’m open to reconcect if I can find the inroads.  It’s enough to make me want to move to Tuscon to join the SAGA just for the company. 

You know that scene in The Matrix when Agent Smith sits down across a table from Thomas Anderson (AKA “Neo”)? He flops down an encyclopedic collection of folders, papers, and dossiers: all the collated facts of Anderson’s day-today life. I think Berin Kinsman, AKA Unclebear, AKA the Dire King, alias infinitum, would have a similar permenant file: astonishingly thick, full of intricate deceptions, and ripe with coverings-of-tracks.

Yes, Berin Kinsman. Disguised as a mild-mannered insurance adjuster in a major southwestern metropolis, Kinsman has fought his own personal battle for truth and justice. Like the best heroes, he has his secrets that make him the man he is.

“Being Berin Kinsman” is your chance to meet this man and to play a version of him yourself. This source book is part autobiography, part role playing handbook, and was recently re-released in a 45th Anniversary Edition with new edits and errata. A rules-lite version of Imagination’s Toybox accompanies the book, but for the most part it is a source text from which to draw ideas. Kinsman’s life is rich and varied, and like Buckaroo Banzai before him, he has been many things to many people.

The book introduces us to Berin Kinsman, the author and major character of the game. “Major character” is something of a misnomer, however. Berin Kinsman is actually the major characters, plural. As in, all of them. In the game, players each pick a particular Berin Kinsman to play. Instead of pouring over stats and tables to learn what is possible, the book presents stories from the many Berin Kinsmans it is possible to play.

As a whole, Berin Kinsman is a multifaceted, nebulous set of avatars. “Being Berin Kinsman” is an exploration of Jungian fluidity, the hero with many faces, and players of all stripes will find hooks upon which to hang their characters’ hats. One might have called this book “Crisis of Infinite Berins.” He morphs from era to era, retconning and rebooting as needed, playing radically different roles in the Kinsmanverse while maintaining a cohesive biographical thread.

In one era, he is Mary Poppins to a cabal of new age spiritwalkers. In another, he is a hired mercenary, guarding a secret airstrip in the deep jungles of South America. In yet another, he dominates the high school football team as a humble, underdog geek. The real Berin Kinsman never quite emerges whole cloth, but the stories are the centrifuge that separates out the major components.

Even the basic facts are difficult to pin down, and all present potential conspiracy hooks for the clever gamemaster. With a little digging around, any of the facts can be exploited as hidden paths to adventure. Kinsman’s birthday, for example, is officially documented to fall on both November 13 and 22, 1963. Kinsman claims this as his alibi for his whereabouts on the date of Kennedy’s assassination — but can we really be sure? Given all the people that Berin Kinsman has been, it is a quick leap into a frenzied, action-packed world of secrets and unexpected turns.

Inner reflection permeates the book. Kinsman’s writing is crisp and fun — his characteristic touches of good humor take the edge off of serious situations without taking away from their impact. As he spins each tale, readers gain insights into the ethos of the man. Kinsman is frank in his notes about who he has been. Players will need confidence in their own moral compass to play a Berin Kinsman convincingly: a man striving to be ethical, thrown into potentially unethical situations. This is the crux of Berin’s heroic struggle.

To know Berin Kinsman is to know an enigma, a poetry of contradictions. He is a man of a thousand faces and a million stories, yet he sticks to a firm sense of moral identity and human needs. Berin is by no means an Everyman, but he provides what the Everyman might aspire to: a plain, considered perspective of the world from many exotic angles. Kinsman has danced on the edge of greatness — from the heroic to the mundane — and he invites you to come along for the ride.

“Being Berin Kinsman” is a role playing source book, self-published via Lulu.com. Proceeds go to cover the author’s medical expenses.