Fighting Demons: Finding Power and Catharsis in 'Commandroids'

(Content Warning: This article includes discussions of Conversion Therapy, which inevitably is a discussion of homophobia and torture of a physical and psychological nature. While nothing is in graphic detail, please be advised.)

So lately, I’ve been part of the Beta Test campaign for Nerdy City’s new title: Commandroids. Like most of NC’s recent titles, Commandroids is a loving tribute to the media of the 1980’s with a slightly horror twist. In the case of Commandroids, the properties of Transformers, Robotech, Go-Bots and Voltron take center stage. Symbitron warriors make bonds with human teens to strengthen themselves against the Corrupt Nemesites and their human slaves. 

The game is set in the fictional Bullrush County, a small area between Orlando and Miami, along the major highways. It’s 1987, guns and drugs travel freely and Bullrush is almost a nerve center of vice. Located several hours in to the Everglades is the Daytona Juvenile Rehabilitation center, and all of the human characters are teens sentenced to the facility.

I play Daniel Sylvaine, a rarity in Miami at the time: A Goth. He’s also openly queer and has had relationships with multiple men and women during his young seventeen years of life (several of the other player characters have at one point dated him, regardless of gender). One of the things about the 80’s and especially its media, was that there weren’t many openly gay characters, let alone any others under the queer banner. What if a character was out and open and unabashedly unafraid. 

So in came Daniel, Goth Prince of Bullrush. Part of the punk scene, he has enough street smarts to know the games being played by the power players in the region while staying out of it as possible. So his being arrested and sentenced for drug trafficking is ironic, especially as the Sherriff of Bullrush recently caught Daniel in his son’s bedroom. Most of the guards, especially the head CO and a large chunk of the population are racist bigots, some outright members of white supremacy groups. Daniel walked in to Daytona Facility prepared to Andy Dufrene the entire situation until he aged out and disappeared in to the Miami Neon. 

And then a white supremacist came up to him and others and said he owned them. Cue the beating on the white supremacist, with Daniel writing on his forehead “We Are Not Owned”.

This setting is one that requires a lot of trust between GM and player. I don’t recommend it for the casual player. I trust Sean Jaffe, and there have been some course corrections in how Daniel was to be seen. Daniel wasn’t playing to be a stereotype of gawking at boys in the yard. He was going to be working out in the yard. He wasn’t going to tart up for anyone, or be in any way camp. He’s a theater nerd who has survived the eccentricities of Bullrush County for his entire life. He is, at heart, a survivor. 

And then, a few episodes in, we learned more about the people who own the facility, who fund it. Several of the megachurches in the area have been funding it, and several of the children there have ties. And so, in one conversation, Sean casually mentions that Daniel is familiar with the facilities of one of the churches, having gone through one of their conversion therapy camps previously. 

So, hi, I’m Craig Page, and I have a Master’s Degree in Mental Health Counseling. I got to study about Conversion Therapy, aka ‘Pray the Gay Away and if not, Electro Shock works’ method of ‘treatment’ for people who identified as queer. It is seen in modern psychology as an evil perversion of the practice and has lead to numerous instances of suicides and post traumatic stress. It's torture and brainwashing for the sake of achieving some fanatic's idealogical purity.  Armed with that information, I blinked, and went “Oh. So we’re dealing with THIS level of evil. Cool.”

Again, this takes trust between GM and Player. You don’t just hand someone that piece of detail about their background unless they A) understand what it means and B) are willing to roll and role with what it means. And then, several more episodes in, we find that the rehab center is going to be turned in to one of the camps to deal with current plot and to double down on their nefarious practices. Enter Daniel, usually aloof, looking at the other players and demanding that they kill him if it comes to pass. None of the other characters had gone through the process, none of them know what's coming. And Daniel's breakdown is enough to get everyone with a shred of decency on the same page about escaping. Even one of the NPCs, a cop who recognizes what Daniel is going through, talks very openly about shared experiences with PTSD. 

Daniel is one of the few characters I’ve been this engrossed with over the years. Largely because through him, I get to fight the real monsters. I get to look at the things that corrupt a field of study I’d spent my life learning, that have seen countless people —many children—dead and broken. And, in some small way, on tuesday nights, I can confront that. I can fight them.

And if that isn’t the power of gaming, I don’t know what is.

And this is still all before the robots have come in. That may be a shock to players, but it’s really ingenious storytelling. Radical Shadows is about a break from the normal, and strange things have more gravity once you’ve established what “normal” is in your world and with your characters. I’ll probably write more on the subject later, or prod Sean to write one of his own. 

But I’m interested to see what will happen to Daniel when he meets his Commandroid. I already know she’s a medical transport taking the disguise of a Winnebago. I know that she is reserved and doesn’t talk much. I know that, in theory, he can be a source of socializing she might need and she’s a place of safety for him. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens when they are both opened up to their world now transformed. 

Commandroids is currently in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign. I am a contributing writer for it, helping with content and with writing the Fate Core Translation. For the sake of openess, the article you are reading now was going to be done Kickstarter campaign or not. If you like what you’ve read, and would like to support Commandroids (and me!) please consider pledging to the campaign. Later!

Hail, Hail, Rock and Roll: A look back of Waking Dreams

A pendant we were all given during game, as a part of the Burning Revel

At the end of April, I had the opportunity to go to Waking Dreams, the Changeling the Dreaming blockbuster experience produced by The Imagine-Nation Collective; headed by Ben Books Schwartz & Agata Swistak; and ran by Jeramy Merritt and Kris Kitts of Edge of Forever LLC and their crew. The experience was run at the Showboat Hotel and (now defunct) Casino in Atlantic City.

For the sake of disclosure, I will add that I knew most of the staff before the event either socially or through games that I or they were running. I was also asked to teach an in character swordplay class during the event.  This isn't being written at anyone's behest, other than the fact that I loved the event and wanted to discuss it.

Also for disclosure: this was my first blockbuster live action experience, and it was my first experience with Changeling the Dreaming. By the time I had gotten in to larping, Changeling the Lost, the successor to Dreaming in White Wolf's line of games in the World of Darkness, was the more prominent game. However, life is funny, and it seems that I have been surrounded by friends who have written for Dreaming on either the first edition or the more recently released second edition. So lets just imagine me being strapped to a chair and given the Ludovico Treatment, which is much more interesting because it has Faeries in it.

So by the end of my indoctrination, I had settled on an Eshu, the faerie storytellers and wandering wordsmiths. Because this was the World of Darkness, I decided on making a fixer. This was a guy who could get you anything, could make most of your problems go away with a kind word and a few noodle implements than with just the implements. It would be a good foil for a lot of the magical aspects if this was a guy working to keep the masquerade going, making sure that the Changelings don't get too wrapped up in the mundanity of it all, and that the mortals don't come sniffing around.

And that was the beginning of Connor Mayhew, self proclaimed "Professional Rat-Bastard, Disaster Bisexual, fixer of peoples bullshit through storytelling and swordplay". I should have realized I was playing it a little too close on the nose, but I also decided to run with it. A lot of what I was picking up from Waking Dreams (if not Dreaming altogether) was that this was a story about creative culture in a fading world.

The waking world had been entering a withering autumn since the early 2000's. Glamour, the essence that Changelings use as fuel and what they inspire in others, has been on the low. Enclaves had formed to keep it going, and only a few as strong as the Prince of Glam, Maxwell Starlight and their band: The Burning Revel. Glamorous, Androgynous, Superfluous, the Prince of Glam and their retinue had been the epicenter of rock and roll living for fifteen years, inspiring mortals while keeping the Changelings going. The travels of the Burning Revel created a roving band of camp followers, groupies, crafters, executives, general roustabouts and reprobates (that'd be Connor). 

Yo.

And, after fifteen years, the Prince of Glam was retiring. Headed to Arcadia, their show at the House of Blues in Atlantic City would be their last one. Those going to the show would have to face some hard choices: go out in a last blast or face fading away in to mundanity, a shell of their actual magical selves. Connor was going to make some last deals, keep glamour going a little bit longer, maybe break a few of the rules placed down.

One of the key things that was going on during game was that players of previous Changeling the Dreaming games were allowed to 'un-retire' their characters. Dreaming had been such a core part of the writers of this experience, they knew people would bring back their characters for one last hurrah.

We made our way to Atlantic City on Thursday, where we attended the safety briefings and all had some icebreaking exercises with group 'pods' of people. Everything in the game was focused on enthusiastic consent. There wasn't really to be a major plot point to solve, this was meant to be a weekend of characters engaging one another at an in character concert and festival. 

On friday, at noon, the experience began with a concert by Byrne Bridges in the House of Blues. Imagine walking around the concert area, attendants dancing at the front of the stage, a glamed out rocker is blissfully splayed across the stairs. Heavies standing at pillars and corners in case they needed to intercede on anyone's behalf. Wallflowers hugged the walls. People in the balconies and on the couches in the upper rows talking, carousing. Words were exchanged over the music, as were notes and other things. 

Watching this all, I was struck by how cinematic it was. By having everyone start in this moment, with nothing to do but be in character and enjoy the singer. That was a great moment, it got people to get in to the feel. This was going to be a rock opera. 

Having been working with Nerdy City for the past year, and Sean Jaffe's focus on soundtracks to enhance the gaming experience, I was struck by so much of how this weekend was enhanced by the music going on. One of my favorite moments was the saturday morning. We'd all been up late after the Unseelie Court's Goth Rave, so a lot of us were feeling a bit hungover. One of the characters working the tea-house started to blast "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen and the entire room started an impromptu dance. Getting us all back on track and back in game. 

The space also demands a mention. Shows were being performed in the actual House of Blues, a tea-house had been opened in an entire wing that was already decked out to look like a hookah den. Deep seated booths with curtains, small rooms with divans with buddha statues. Low tables and lush carpeting, a painting at the bar of Zeus sleeping with Leda while transformed as a Swan (because Zeus). An entire hallway with small shelves where characters could partake in a pharmacy of magical drugs (literal if you had a sweet tooth). The space demanded to be played in, to create a world of lived in whimsical decadence. Players and staff had transformed the space in to something more, and made it feel like it had been like that for years.

Open mic concerts and burlesque shows, dramatic readings of textbooks, goth raves and magic rituals All bookended by two concerts. This was about performance, not for the sake of a major storyline, but for each other. Patrick Rothfuss had said in one book, and I heartily agree, that performers are more apt to go the extra distance when it's just for the sake of performing for other performers. The room gets it more, gets the effort. You can get bad days with a regular audience, you bring your A+ game when its just you and not the fate of the world. 

That doesn't mean to say that there wasn't some plotting and drama going on about it. As the Prince of Glam was making their exit, there became a rush to forestall the fallout of their exit. Deals were being made to find new Princes, and potential pipelines were being built between the magical land of Arcadia (from whence Changeling souls are from) and the mortal realm. 

Connor, being the storyteller, got to be poltical for a while. He pushed the narrative of Maxwell Starlight, and how their disappearance would inspire thousands for generations, producing glamour galore. That by exiting, they made a moment of infinite possibilities. Whatever magic we did, what ever intent we had. We were going to blow the doors off the hinges.

And, as a player, I don't often get to play the politic. I don't often get to play the someone who pushes an agenda. I'm the lore-monkey, the investigator. I deliver the message, I don't create it. And getting to do that and realizing that information sunk made me feel like I'd done right with this character. 

By the end of the game, a pipeline had been created by sacrificing one of the more powerful characters at the event. As the Prince left for Arcadia, the doorway was open for others to do so. Few did, but one of Connor's friends, a player who brought back her character from years ago, went through the gate. They left their children and a note for them behind, leaving Connor to be the executor of their will. Connor had given up someone whom he loved for someone else, had also been given a job opportunity that saved him from walking off, and had his mentor literally rip their own heart out and consume it in ritual suicide. 

By the end of Saturday Night, I'd reached maximum saturation. I'd cried, I'd laughed. I laughed while crying. A lot of me went in to Connor, and after the The Burning Revel (played by real life band The Manimals, with lead singer and frontmonster Haley playing our Prince) began to play Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" was I truly at the point of tears. Connor had been a creator who had been creating to survive, taking gigs from really anyone worth paying him. He'd had an opportunity to Do More, to Be More, to Have More. And the moment passed him by. It was replaced by another moment later on, but the feelings Connor felt struck home to the core.

It was at that moment that I "Got It", I got the appeal of Dreaming to a generation of gamers. I got the appeal of blockbuster larps. I'd experienced a lot of feelings through Connor, and I got to experience and let it out.  And I'd seen others go through their moments and shine so brightly in those musical, magical moments, culminating in transcendental torch song "Midnight Radio" by Hedwig and the Angry Inch as Maxwell Starlight disappears in to the night. 

And to be honest for those of you reading this, this past year had not been a year of larping for me. After a bunch of years running stuff for people, seeing my friends brought down low and burned out on the wonderously bathshit (and sometimes contemptuously entitled) elements of the larping community, I was ready to call it a day. Getting to play in this game, to have this experience, to be a player again, and to see other people I'd been running games with share in this experience made me fall back in love with live action role play experiences. I began to want to create again, thinking of projects I'd laid down for a while: with Kensei being at the top of the list.

One of the things that made me feel so good about this game was that this was an experience all about community. There was no antagonist, there was no real back biting or back stabbing. Everything was out and open and everything in the end was about the experience and the community built. It's telling that, even months after the game, a large chunk of us are still talking to one another and sharing stories and other experiences. 

The only downside, if there was one, was that while we had full control of the second floor spaces, the hotel was still up and moving. A fraternity had come to the hotel for the end of the year. Their brief interactions caused discomfort with some of the players. I had my own run in, covered in sigils along the entire left arm and the right side of my face, sipping Coca-Cola from a clear red plastic tea cup. 

Elevator Bro (Behind me): I told you there would be stuff like that going on this weekend.

Other Elevator Bro: What stuff.

Elevator Bro: I'll tell you when we get off the elevator. 

A bunch of uniform looking and sounding people all trying to fit in with one another, contrasted with the unique weirdos and magical people I was walking towards. For the most part, we kept it in character, because the real enemy of the weekend was Banality.

I want to thank everyone who was involved in this game, players and staff alike. I especially want to thank some of the people involved in the production: Dmitri, who served as the emotional support kitten in real life and in game for the decompression room; Geoffrey, who was usually running around in the background to help out the staff--doing the job I normally do. Game recognizes game; Kris, who had asked me to teach the class and who put a lot of trust in me, thank you; Emily, who was the best red cap door person; Leanna, for being a boss and The Boss at the fighting arena. 

And, especially, I want to thank Michael. Four years ago on the road to GenCon, in a hotel bar outside of Pittsburgh you told a group of people-- including a very inexperienced larp runner-- about your dream larp. It involved Changelings in a hotel and one final night of the Dreaming. Thank you for sharing your dream with me, and with all of us.

Souvenirs: Vial of drugs, crystal from the staff of a departed Sidhe, crystal won in the fighting pits by not boring the MC, letter of a departed friend to her children, sigil and bottle of wine from the RedCap DJ who asked Connor/Craig a favor.

Waking Dreams is one of those experiences that will stay with me for a long time, and even now, two months after the event, I want more of it. I want to experience more, and I want to create those experiences for others. There's a Mage game I've been threatening to do since I left the MES, and Kensei wants to be born still. I got to have one hell of a Dream, it'd be a shame to waste it.

Thank you.

Later.

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Combat As A Form of Storytelling

For the past year now, I've been teaching classes on stage combat at gaming conventions. Using a lightsaber (because it's the great equalizer) to teach basic stage combat skills to role players. This past weekend, I was asked to teach a class on dueling at Waking Dreams, the Changeling the Dreaming blockbuster larp in Atlantic City. I was to teach the character as my character, Connor.

My main goal was to impress the notion that while dueling is a combat scenario, it's still a part of storytelling. "It's a conversation" I said during game. "Between parties who have decided to use violence as the language of discourse. The First Rule of Dueling: Do Not Get In One. Second Rule of Dueling: If you end up in a duel, Get Out of It. Rule Three: If you have to fight, make it public, make it a scene. Rule Four: Because if someone is forcing you to duel, let it be known by civilization that they are AN ASSHOLE."

We were all then brought in to a special fighting arena lead by one of the staff Non Players, playing the MC. A darkened bar next to the House of Blues, bathed only in garish red flood lights. Those that wanted to fight could fight. Those that wanted to watch could watch in the shadows. The rules were simple: First to five touches wins. No stabbing. Don't bore the MC.

I know some pretty kickass women 

And then I got to some of the best fights I've ever seen in boffer combat. One of them even included a grenade and a very reluctant "Boom".

Afterwards I got to talk to some of the players and especially Leanna, the staffer playing the fight-room's MC, about combat storytelling.

Which in itself was actually refreshing. For years, every time I try to bring up Combat in gaming, people gloss over, tell me we don't need to talk about it, or it becomes a session of reliving our worst experiences in role play. What I'm about to discuss is dedicated to the last, and in spite of the first two.

I think that we, as players, game designers, and game runners, need to discuss combat in gaming and make it an open dialogue. The first reason is obvious: Safety. We're in the fun making business here, kids. If we aren't being safe, we deserve the consequences.

As I was writing this, I had posted a fun meme about Player vs Player/Character vs Character combat, and it created a discussion about some of the more terrible experiences about players being attacked in the dead of night without ever knowing in real life who did it. There was no story to it, no fun. Just suddenly woken up, as a player, and told you're murdered. No discussion, no checking in with one another, no in character or out of character repercussions. Nothing. That's fucking traumatic as shit, and to this day, players (former now) are still trying to process the experiences that happened. 

The second reason we need to make combat a dialogue is almost important: It makes combat fun. When everyone is in on the combat, they're more likely to have fun. When we were told to make the fights interesting at Waking Dreams, we made the fights interesting. I got my throat ripped out by a RedCap while screaming bloody murder and saw at his back with my sword. I saw the MC get coup de grace'd (she got better, thank you magic-blood-ritual room)  in a gurgling heap. I've seen combat before, which can just boil down to playing the numbers game and landing points, but nothing beats putting on a show for ourselves and an audience.

Combat, as I said in the class, is a conversation told in conflict. It's a tool to help the story in four ways:

1) Instigate the plot: Bruce Wayne doesn't become Batman if his family isn't mugged and his parents die in the struggle. John Wick doesn't come out of retirement if criminal scumbags don't steal his car and kill his dog.

2) Escalate the Plot: Things have grown intense, tensions have risen. A fight breaks out. It doesn't end conclusively, at least not for one of them. Tybalt fighting Mercutio and Romeo setting the stage for all that comes after.

3)Conclude the Plot: The final conflict, when all has been said and done. "I have no words, my voice is in my sword." This is when all avenues have been closed, all other doors shut down. And either one or both must go.

MacDuff was done with MacBeth's bullshit

4) Show, don't tell:  Is the character someone who talks fast, but will run faster to the exits when the blades come out, but will tank a gang if they think an innocent is in danger? You can't tell someone that and make them believe it. It needs to be seen through action.

So, here are my thoughts on how to make combat in games fun and safe for everyone. This is not a comprehensive list, and I will be expanding on some of the points as time goes on.

Before I do that, let me break in, because I can hear people saying "Who are you to suggest this?". Actually, my favorite one I'd heard was 'I don't think most game designers are qualified since they haven't experienced ACTUAL combat.' (paraphrased, but close enough to the mark). So, an introduction: I have been a member of a stage combat collective since 2009. I have been on stage for fight shows at conventions and events throughout the tri-state area. I have written several of those shows, a treatise on a martial arts surrounding a certain fictional weapon, a follow up blog to that, and I'm currently writing the book for it.

And, for those of you looking for more of the practical: I have a black belt in JiuJitsu (Japanese, not Brazillian) and with the thanks of said ten years of being in a stage fighting collective I've gotten to experience and discuss a variety of styles ranging from fencing, longsword, escrima, kenjutsu, systema, kenpo, and a few of the kung fu derivations. I also have two years experience bouncing for an event planner.  I do not consider myself a trained martial artists. I'm an artist who has trained himself to research the martial aspects of humanity.

And now, Craig's ways of making combat fun, safe, and entertaining (The Short Form). This is not comprehensive, or exhaustive. I'll be coming back to these in the future and expanding upon them.

1) Role Play is a Collaborative Storytelling medium: This is not open to conversation or interpretation, this is the spirit of the law. Digital; Tabletop; or Live Action, everyone is in the room, at the time, to tell a story and to help others tell their stories. This includes the game runners, too, because sometimes the runners and the players need to be reminded that they're all in the end a bunch of fucking nerds making make believe.

2) You're partners, not opponents. This is one of the things I tell everyone in their first class of stage combat. The illusion is to make everyone feel the enmity or the tension, but at all times you're working with your partner to tell this story, communicating with one another, engaging them and making sure they are okay. Your characters can hate each other, you as players are in this together.

3) Fight like everyone's watching.  One of the first mistakes people make when making a fight is making the fight for only them. It gets boring, because they're too busy making the fight happen then making the fight interesting. In stage combat, there's always an audience watching, or else its just practice. In Role Play, you are always surrounded by your audience. Let it be performative, let your character show. Let the story show.

4) As partners, you're there to make each other look good. It's hard as hell to come off like a badass is no one in the room gives a shit. If your character got hit, sell it for all its worth. Scream your pain, shout your frustration. Put some bruise make up on after the fight. You can play with this, depending on what you and your partners decide.

It's how I won the crystal I'm wearing. Screaming bloody murder while getting eaten

5) It's okay to lose. I know the model is to see this all as a game, but role play is about what's the best story to tell here. What is the worst that happens if your character loses? Is that a fun challenge? Lets see what happens there. Also, with an audience, you get to do something a performer enjoys: Awesome 'death' scene. It doesn't mean 'expect your character to die' unless you and your partner are both down for that, but expect to sell your defeat.

6) Play out the consequences of your actions. This comes from stories where people try to shirk away from the consequences of their actions. The drawback of violence is that violence is often all that it breeds. The best story to tell is what happens next. The cycle of bloodshed continues and these violent delights have violent ends.

Again, this list is not exhaustive. Nor, I should point out, is this the only way to tell a story, let alone one through combat. But from the conversations I've seen over the years, and from the rise in focus on collaborative narration, we should start seeing combat as part of the narrative toolbox. From what I've seen of this past weekend, and from the seeming demand for it, performative combat is worthy of discussion. I look forward to any thoughts.

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It's not an Error, it's a Feature: My love of Rememorex's Tracking Error mechanic.

Saturday afternoon. Nine of my friends come in, and we start to play 7th Sea. It's my first time starting a long form tabletop campaign with this group, especially with 7th Sea. It was a short game, due to the size. Amongst my post game notes I have, underlined:

KEEP THE PLAYERS INVESTED: USE TRACKING ERRORS NEXT TIME.

Tracking Errors were designed for the Omnisystem, debuting in Nerdy City's game ReMemorex. In a game of 80's horror in suburban land, tracking errors allowed players not in the scene the chance to effect it in indirect ways. This gave the game a sense of watching a found VHS tape and seeing weird distortions in the tape. It's been helpful considering that Sean Jaffe, the creator of ReMemorex, ran the game with more than a dozen players at one time in a West March style.

A helping hand, placing a shovel where a fleeing PC can use it to flee or bar a monster's path; A monkey wrench, used to give the PCs more of a challenge (within reason); a cameo, where the player takes on the role of an NPC in the scene; adding a detail to the scene to make it more sad/tragic/horrific/funny; or creating the greatest element of an 80's movie: a montage.

It's one of my favorite tools in gaming, right now. One of the bigger problems I see in games is that when players aren't in the scene, they lose interest. They lose interest, they start going off. They start going off, then it's hard to get them all back. It's why I hate combat in most games, why I hate splitting up the party. Time is precious and if half your game is spent staring at your phone looking at facebook, then you need to rethink your game.

By having a system like the tracking error, you decrease that. It makes being out of game part of the game.

One of the key facets of the tracking error is the ritual of using it. You grab a handful of dice (Ominsystem used six-sided dice, but there were always a handful of 20 or 10 sided just for the effect) and throw them on the table to declare. The dice and the numbers you get don't matter, the importance is the ritual of throwing the dice, breaking the fourth wall.

In general, everyone got one use of a Tracking Error per scene, otherwise there is nothing stopping someone from spamming its use. If you have a game system that has a number of meta-points to spend on certain effects, like Evil Hat's FATE Points or the Hero Points of 7th Sea, this adds an added element in the economy of your game. To use 7th Sea closely, Hero points are gained by doing things appropriate to the character and used to do BIG COOL THINGS and HELP OTHER CHARACTERS. I'm fairly even handed in giving them out and that makes SPENDING them a hell of a lot easier, especially since they may not get to do so if they aren't in the scene.

In short, by allowing people to do more stuff out of scene, they potentially buy in to doing more in scene because it nets them more points and the other players are more inclined to pay it back.

The Tracking Error is a simple solution to a persistent problem in gaming: keeping your player's focus on the table. You can't guarantee it, but you can make downtime become just another form of play. And that's a handy tool to have.

And I'm not afraid of my players getting confused with the new addition to the system. Most of them are Nerdy City and the Original ReMemorex players. But if you do start using something similar in your games. Let me know.

Later.