[VAM] Don’t Rest in Vegas After Midnight

This waypoint is … well, it’s a copy of the announcement I’ve just emailed to everyone on the VAM mailing list. I’m extremely excited about this. VAM is a pretty big waypoint for me, and it has been at the center of a lot of my best gaming, certainly the focus of most of my best creative output, and also the one thing I’ve contributed to the hobby-at-large that has gotten the most support.

However, I’d also like to give some credit where it’s due. Part of the decision that is written about below was inspired by Judd Karlman. Judd wrote the excellent Dictionary of Mu, and also talked alot about his design philosophy (I don’t know if that’s what he’d call it, but it’s what I call it) on a recent episode of Independent Insurgency with Rob Bohl. So go check those out as companion pieces to some of what I mention below about scope.

Here’s the entry…

Don’t Rest in Vegas After Midnight

In the wake of the playtests and various discussions that have taken place over the past couple of months, Harping Monkey Studios has decided to shift the VAM project in a different direction that I honestly believe is going to produce a roleplaying experience much closer to the vision and tone we’ve been trying for. As a result, I want to announce that instead of being released as a standalone RPG based on the Fate system, Vegas After Midnight is going to be developed from here on out as an alternate setting supplement for Don’t Rest Your Head from Evil Hat Productions.

A bit of explanation follows:

The GenCon playtests for Vegas After Midnight were pretty successful. The players had fun – it was obvious during play and almost unanimously reiterated after the sessions. David and I had fun, too. It was amazing to share something we’ve worked so hard on with strangers and have them latch onto it with enthusiasm. In general the game worked, it was viable, and people ate it up almost across the board. I was very proud.

On the other hand, when the euphoria of having our efforts appreciated began to settle down, I began to realize that some aspects of VAM were not quite where I wanted them to be. For me, there were two main issues: tone and scope.

The tone problem can be summed up like this – If VAM were compared to the Batman mythos, then my ideal target in terms of tone and intensity would be the recent Dark Knight movie. But when the game is played in its current state, it supports a tone that leans pretty heavily toward the old Batman TV show from the 1960s.

When the Carnies show up to make trouble – I want you thinking of Heath Ledger’s Joker, more than Caesar Romero’s. It’s still gonzo over-the-top madness, but it’s DANGEROUS and edgy, not so much campy and silly. That’s the way we played the game when I first developed it as a GURPS setting 10 years ago, and that’s the way I’ve always envisioned it. But in the recent incarnations the system and color were drifting VAM away from that, because we were essentially lacking mechanical elements that would tend to push play toward the more dark/edgy end of the spectrum. So, the tone has drifted away from my intended target.

Secondly, scope. The version of VAM that David and I have been building is pretty massive in scope. Lots of in-depth setting material, lots of pre-written NPCs, lots of colorful backstory and pre-constructed potential conflict. And furthermore, in order to try and “enforce” the tone more, I was planning on pouring even MORE of that stuff in there. It was going to end up being a pretty big book – a full-on stand-alone RPG book built on the Fate system, full of all kinds of pre-generated color and lots of words from me trying to direct you on how to play it. Admittedly, that’s not very unusual for an RPG. Most people expect that kind of detail. Some even demand it.

But the problem is, philosophically, I’ve become a card-carrying member of the Judd Karlman school of creative design. In short, don’t overbake it, don’t overstuff it, and don’t take away opportunities for player-driven fun by forcing people to consume a bloated 300-page backstory. Roll the situational rock to the mountaintop and then stop, letting each individual playgroup push it down the other side. The designer provides a solid and well-rounded point of origin, and the play group takes it from there.

Don’t Rest Your Head allows us to accomplish all of that more effectively and with much less bloat. The mechanics of DRYH, not to mention the tone and the sleekness of the game, are an excellent fit for VAM right off the bat.

That’s the game I want to play. So that’s the game I need to make.

I’ll have more details on how this thing proceeds as we start to get it into shape. In the mean time, some notes for specific sub-groups of you:

Those of you who have been interested in playtesting VAM – we still plan to test the game and get feedback, and I will send out word once we’ve got a playtest copy ready – if all goes well, that will be January-February 2009, but I won’t make promises – and if you’re still interested in playtesting at that point, then you can let us know and we’ll set you up.

Those of you I’ve approached about providing art for the book – I feel like the art style we’ve been planning for VAM has always leaned toward the tone we’re shooting for, and so it will be even more appropriate now. So, I hope you’re still interested. I’ll contact you soon to discuss possibilities with you.

Those of you who actually WANT VAM to be a big, detailed, full-on Fate-based RPG that plays campy and gonzo, I get that. And if you’d like to try to make that game, maybe after the official version comes out, we can talk about your idea. But my focus for the duration of this project is to make the best game I can make in the style that I want to play it.

And if you have any questions, comments ,or other forms of feedback, please feel free to email me or post on the Canon Puncture forums, where a thread will be created to discuss this note because it’s going to be one of my waypoints entries for this week.

Thanks for being a VAM-supporter. I’ll be in touch soon with more info.

Mick Bradley