First Law: Override - Beta Rosters

Greetings friends!

Today i'd like to share with you what I hope will be the first pass at Official First Law: Override Rosters!


These currently come in 2 flavours:

First is the Stand-Alone Roster. This is the one for a one off game of 500Nt where you don't intend to make use of the campaign system.

It might sound a bit strange to people; why have a campaign driven game if we are then going to release print&play rosters that encourage one off games?

The answer is simple: the game is fun enough for that!

I remember a lot of the time when playing GW Specialist Games like Necromunda and GorkaMorka where essentially the game didn't really begin until after a few games were under your belt and the stat/skill increases started to roll in. If you were unfortunate enough to get yourself caught in a loosing spiral, then this would heavily screw with your enjoyment of the game.

So maybe you only want to play a one off game to test a Force out? Or maybe you want to play in an organised play event? Then this is where the stand alone game comes into its own.

The stats for our units have been allocated in such a way that you don't feel your Force is gimped to begin with, you can compete straight outta the box so to speak.

Sure a lot of the fun equipment and skills are gated behind the Technomancy (Tm) and Initiative (In) stats, but these are about rewarding those who are lucky and adding a bit of advanced fun and added complexity over time. Even without these a force is still extremely fun to play and can be as varied as you fancy. Want to play a Raider force with a Big Bro, 2 Ghosts each rocking 3 Link Bots? Go for it! It is a Hack heavy 'list' that really well balanced the risk/reward mechanic that we have tried our best to implement within this game. If however it doesn't work for you and you would rather less link bots and more actual gun toting dudes, then you know to do that in future games!

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Next up is the Campaign Roster. Unlike the stand alone roster, this is designed for use within a campaign for you to record your full 1,000+ Force.

Notice the column on the far right, the one called Selection? It is here you record your current selection for the game you are playing.
Maybe your game requires 600Nt, so you write down the total Nt in that column, and then the total should add up to 600 or less.
- I personally find it is a good place to mark your units who are recovering from injuries that force them to skip a game. I personally show this by putting a big X in that space.

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So give them a look, play around a little and let us know what you think is missing.

We look forward to any and all feedback!

Until next time; stay safe and be excellent to each other!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

To take part or not? (Extra Life)

Greetings friends!

So today I've been thinking...

For years I've seen people taking part in Extra Life, an event for those who don't know where gamers get together, game and try to raise money in doing so normally in the form of an (attempted) 24hr gaming marathon.

I've always thought that this is something I would like to do, mainly for the reason that it seems like a challenge. I have done long gaming sessions before, but NEVER any that lasted 24 hours!

This year the designated day is Saturday 7th November from 8am and running (as mentioned) for 24 hours, and I'll be honest. I'm tempted, seriously tempted!

Of course there are issues I need to consider, and I need to consider them very seriously, most importantly is that of childcare. At that point my little Moo will be very nearly 4, and there would be two choices: 1). Involve her in the stream, which I am not comfortable in as I don't particularly like the idea of streaming her across the net. 2). Not involve her and require that someone (probably my amazing wife) looks after her entirely for the day, which goes against every ideology I have as what fatherhood is supposed to be like as it would not be fair on her or my wife.

Assuming that was all solved/resolved and I decided to go ahead with this, would you my dear friends be interested in this? Would you tune in to my twitch stream LoxBotLive and watch as I try to stay awake and same for 24 hours gaming?

If so what would you like to see? Is it online action games, like Heroes of the Storm, Diablo 3, Unreal Tournament and Nosgoth? Maybe online CoOperative games like Colonial Marines, Resident Evil 5/6 and Portal 2? What about offline games? Would you be interested in a full run through from start to end of classic games like Beyond Good & Evil and SNATCHER or horror games like Outlast, Amnesia and Alien: Isolation? What about one of those long games, the MMOs like World of Warcraft and The Secret World or open worlders like Dragon Age? They all have more than 24hrs worth of content within them and that alone could fill the entire time without requiring alternating every few hours.

If any of the above which are multiplayer, would you like to play along too? Maybe get a bit of voice chat between us going? Have a chat to be shared between us and the entire streaming Internet!

What do you think?

It's a big investment, but one I think could be fun, however I would need to know if I have support or not, so please answers on a postcard to the usual address (or Twitter @doctorloxley, @loxbotlive or comments below)

On that note; stay safe and be excellent to each other!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Empathy of Videogames (SOMA)

Greetings friends!

So over the past couple of days I've been playing the excellent SOMA by Frictional Games, famous (or perhaps infamous) for Amnesia: The Dark Descent.


It's a fantastic game, and for the first time in a while it has made me stand back and question a few things in my own gaming experience.

Now if you go and read any other review of SOMA you will see much the same sort of comment as I have made above, citing moments from the game where you as the player have to make tear jerking and horrific decisions that make you hate the developers for putting you in those situations.

My experiences so far have been very different then these, and why exactly I feel that way is the questions that I have been forced to ask myself.

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One of the things the game makes you ask yourself early on is quite simple:

If something thinks it is self aware and alive; is it?

I've had a chat with my significant other about this, and despite probing questions and many disagreements, I don't know where I stand with this. Does "I think, therefore I am" really stand up to scrutiny?

If an artificial intelligence walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, is it a duck?

Can we really define ourselves by our physical body, or are we more than that? How much of what identifies us as us is personality? And how much is simply how our mind interprets the electrical signal of stimuli? If you were to take a digital map of your identity, and if it reacted in the same way as you, had the same opinions, the same ideas and the same prejudices, would it be you? If you were to then die and it was 'downloaded' into your body, would you still be you?

Honestly, I don't know where I stand with this. And likewise there are countless other questions that I don't know where I stand; is Artificial Intelligence potentially equal to or greater than organic intelligence? If everything you perceive is in the form of electrical nerve impulses, then is a reality made up entirely of digital electrical impulses just as real as the 'real' world if you perceive it to be so?

All I can understand is my own reactions to the game, and how when presented with situations where I was supposed to be moved, I was not. My reactions and actions seemed clear and obvious. Do I kill something that is of no use to me, but believes itself to be alive, or do I kill something that is useful, but would not feel pain?

The 'human' way of reacting is to kill the thing that would feel no pain, that we should be 'humane' and 'care' for the sick and the elderly.

My reaction was not that at all. But to look and decide what is of use. By killing the one who feels pain and believes itself to be alive, would I be worse off? No! By killing the thing that IS of use to me, would I be worse off? Almost certainly!

What has bothered me is that this reaction seems so different to the other reviewers of this game, that they all either put themselves in a worse-off situation, or they made the logical decision but felt bad about it.

I felt no remote for my actions, it was the right thing to do in order to prolong my character's survival chances and I know that in a heartbeat I would make the same decision again.

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I spoke to my significant other about this, I asked her why she thought I felt no remorse for these 'digital' actions compared to others who apparently felt like the game was figuratively ripping out their heart.

Her response was (jokingly) "It's because you have no soul".

It reminded me of a conversation I had with a good friend the other month, where we discussed how when I read about the suffering of others in the paper or on the TV I feel nothing but indifference, and if asked why my reaction is simply "why should I care about people I have never met?" Emphasis on should, as if it is expected.

We came to the conclusion that I simply lack empathy for others; something I find very interesting due to arguing for years (over a decade in fact) that empathy does not exist. Having this opinion would make sense if I did not feel it.
- Why that is the case, and if it is something that I 'switched off' as a learned defence mechanism, or was just born biologically incapable of feeling; that is a question for another time.

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So what else have I found in the game which has been a challenge? Surely if I am feeling no empathy towards these characters (and considering what the other reviewers state about the game, it would be very easy to think the game was one whole empathic mess) then the game should be a cake walk, with nothing to challenge my choices of right versus wrong?

Far from it my friends!

Just last night I encountered a databank full of AI constructs; personality matrices which is put into a digital simulation would act and think just like a real, living person. I had to ask myself what to do with them.

My choices were simple: erase the data! Doing so would put these people to rest. Currently they were in a dormant state, doing so would be putting them out of the misery of one day waking up and seeing just how shit their lives had become and they would feel no pain. Plus it would save them from the maddening corruption that was spreading through the world.

The other choice was to leave them be. They would remain in a dormant state until either being later erased, woken up or corrupted to see the world through twisted eyes, a horrific mockery of their former lives.

I chose the latter.

But it was a difficult decision, I won't lie to you, but not for the emotional reasons others may experience.

For me I looked at the situation; essentially kill them and drastically reduce my chances of running into them later on as corrupted versions of themselves, or instead leave them be but in a state that meant if I had a use of them I could use them.

Like I said, it was a difficult choice. I want to further my survival, but what is a greater threat; a potential enemy who may come to kill me later? Or being in a situation where I need their expertise to survive and not having them available (because I had killed them?)

I chose Door B. There were already hideous monsters running around, a few more wouldn't be that bad, but being in a situation where I need a technician's access code and being unable to work around it was more worse!

Is that the same question I had to ask myself that the developers wanted me as the player to ask? Of course not, but it stopped me in my tracks and made me think for a moment, and that was a first for a video game!

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And on that note; stay safe and be excellent to each other!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Trials and Tribulations of KickStarter

Greetings friends!

Today I'm here to beat up a dead horse some more as I go over the already heavily discussed topic that is KickStarter and crowdfunding in general.

Now part of me wants to try and analyse the current trends we have seen with the crowdsourcing medium, but I know it will be redundant as someone else will have already done so in a better way.

What I can do is provide my own viewpoints and observations which I am sure will be unoriginal and uninspired, but at least they will be mine.

I've been following KickStarter for quite some time now, many years in fact and during that time I have backed a small number of campaigns:

The first I ever backed was City of Titans aka The Phoenix Project, an MMO aimed at being the spiritual successor to the online superhero game City of Heroes.

This campaign was successful and I am glad of it. It was run by a tiny team of individuals who began working on the game in their spare time whilst trying to balance home and work life alongside. This was a true startup campaign and it is my belief that without this money they would have never had the funds to get as far as they have (and you should see what they've done! Utilising the U4 Engine is a great move for them).

Following on from that was Blackmore: A Steampunk Adventure Game. This was being developed by the team who was behind my favourite game of all time; SNATCHER and so it was obvious that they would get my support.

Sadly however their marketing campaign was non-existent and it failed to fund.

Next up was Bio Syndrome: A Survival Horror Tabletop Wargame. Like those before (in particular City of Titans) this was a true start up campaign. It was a single guy trying to create a ruleset with custom cards, art and a single 'novelty' miniature.

Bio Syndrome was a success, however that was largely down to the small asking requirements for the campaign and the fact that the rewards were all digital apart from the single novelty miniature.

The creator of this campaign was realistic with his expectations and did not promise the world with his campaign.

After this came something that I am unable to talk about right here, as I pledged for a double pack and when it arrives I'm gifting one of the packs to a friend of mine who reads the blog, so I need to keep that quiet.

What I can say however is that this was a campaign I wasn't entirely happy with backing. I wanted the product; yes, and apparently it would not be shipping without KickStart support, however the parent company is a well established publishing company, one that I know does have the capital to push this to market by themselves.

Moving on...

Next came We Happy Few, a survival horror set in an alternative England. Again we are looking at a truly indie game that would be very unlikely to reach funding without public support, plus it looked awesome! Backed and funded!

Next up is something different for me; the first time I pulled out of Kickstarter - and this one is still going on and passed it's goals on day 1.

In this case we're talking about The Others: 7 Sins by CMON.

I was initially torn by this game. CMON do not need to go to KickStarter, we all know that there is the demand and capital available. In the miniature-boardgame world, it's the equivalent of EA Games starting a KickStarter. However ever since I first saw the Pride sculpt I had wanted it, and figured i'd give it a go and ride the CMON stretch goals.

As time went by however I got more and more uneasy with all of this. As more got released I noticed a distinct decrease in quality of sculpt and conceptual ideas and watching people scramble to add $30+ to their pledges just for additional dice which 'apparently' they were not going to reduce later just left me with a pit in my stomach.

Here was not a company who needed my pledge and me pulling out would not hurt them in anyway, I had yet to see any real ruleset, and the example of play video I saw had blaring gaps in rules. All of this tied with the knowledge that it was a sizeable amount of money £60 for the base game then additional add-ons you may want, for a game that I had not tested, and would probably play once a year, if at all. It just wasn't worth it.

So out I came.

At the same time the campaign for Allison Road, a survival haunted house horror game similar to the infamous Silent Hills: PT on PS4 began and again, we had a small team who with backed support will be able to release a project that they may not be able to without. Pledged!

Then today I saw The Icarus Project another scifi skirmish game with some very nice models that when I first saw I plugged in the @FLOverride account as proxies.

As it stands they are currently at £10k out of £30k with 11 days to go. The owner has stated, even if they do not reach their goal then he will still continue to develop the game but with releases at a much smaller rate, because for him this is a personal project of which he has already sunk £6,000 of personal investment.

Again we are looking at a campaign that needs support and backing and is offering fantastic looking models for their range. So yea I have gone in for a small amount, mainly because after reading about the project I would like to see it succeed, and I guess in a way I can relate to the creator.

I hope all of you who read this will check out that KickStart and if it looks like something you like, you'll give it a small backing, as currently reading the comments it looks like they are residing themselves to defeat, and that would be a true shame.

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So why is this the case? Why is it some games that look like great campaigns but do not have the big name behind them either only barely make their target, or fail altogether?

Why is it that brand recognition works so well on KickStarter for some, but for others like me it acts as a dissuasion (on principal alone I will never back a Mantic KickStarter).

Sometimes it seems obvious, that the campaign creator has promised the world straight from the word go and has either been unable to follow through, or due to a lack of brand familiarity has not picked up much speed early on, meaning weeks into the campaign they are still promising the world through stretch goals when even meeting a funding target looks doubtful - and let's be honest, this is one hell of a turnoff to backers!

Then we have the breakout successes, things like Guildball.

What was it Guildball did differently that others who failed to fund or just nearly scratched by didn't do?

For me the answer is simple: marketing!

Without good marketing, support from podcasters, twitchers, youtubers and Joe Public, you do not have ANY brand recognition. People need to know what the product is before they shell out their cash which in some cases can be seen as a Catch-22 situation: you need to show product to get the pledges, but you need the pledges to get the cash in order to make product!

That is where we are going with First Law: Override.

I'm currently doing the rounds again trying to arrange follow up interviews on podcasts now that our latest full colour rulebook has been simmering in the public forum for a while and am making arrangements for public demos to get people interested.

I know how the game looks, I wrote the initial rules and on paper it looks good but it isn't until you get your head down amidst the miniatures and start to roll the dice that you start to see how splendidly cinematic the game plays.

What this means, is that if I ever want to see any sort of crowdfunding pushing for an actual print run of the rulebook, then I will need to follow suit and market the game to hell and back, but ensuring to follow the right avenues so the right people see it at the right time, all the while not shoving it down people's throats so they are sick to death.
- Unless of course that last boat has already sailed...

Until next time; stay safe and be excellent to each other!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

How things are going: FLOverride & General stuff)

Greetings friends!

So just wanted to put out a little general update post today, nothing major.

First things first, I'm currently building up a small collection of suitable PC games for my Game of the Year 2015 award in January. Got a few real gems of some games in here.
- Saying that part of me wonders how much of them are true 'gems' or if I instead feel a little starved of truly great games this year.
The past two year's GotY (DMC and Alien: Isolation were both games that I think blow this year's competition out of the water, and while other games might be great, they are not truly as great, or they may not (currently) qualify. Take Life is Strange, a game I've recently started playing and am loving, but being episodic, and still missing Episode 05, if they do not release that final episode before January, then for me it doesn't qualify. Likewise there are plenty of games that are great which are currently in Early Access (Layers of Fear, ARK etc) but are not due to have actual release dates until 2016, therefore currently count as 'beta'. I am not convinced that when put up against the games of 2016 they will stand up.

Got a few plans for First Law: Override! Oh yeah I haven't forgotten about that baby! Still am in need of painting, and I would like to set myself the goal of getting all 2.5 forces I have fully done before the new year.

Tom and I are currently playing with a new build that makes some small but very significant changes to Hackers.

If you are curious as to the current rules, as always you can download them from firstlawoverride.com and if you are curious as to these new rules, then I am afraid you will need to wait like everyone else, however if you had signed up to the Ghost Project you would already know as all Ghosts get privileged information before general release!

I'm also looking to do a little bit more PR and we'll be contacting a few casts in due course, but if you would like us on your show or you have already had us and would like to talk about how things have developed and how much you love the rulebook then drop me a line at richi@firstlawoverride.com

One thing I am looking to do is record a player Q&A, possibly to be featured on Hobby Sofa if there are no other mediums. If you have a question then fire off an email to the address above and we'll see if we can answer it!

That's all for now, and so until next time; stay safe and be excellent to each other!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Code Black: Classes?

Greetings friends,

So here's a question for you all; should Code Black use classes?

In a traditional RPG classes are things we see all the time ranging from the tanking Warrior and Healing Cleric, to the DPS Rogue and Archer. These are all tropes that are used as nauseam.

Of course Code Black will not use these fantasy style classes, but it could use others.

Looking at possibilities, there are two ways I see a character could be created to begin with:

1). The WoW Model.
This is what we see with a lot of MMOs, most famous being World of Warcraft.

First you pick a Race, that will give you certain stat benefits and deficits, and maybe access to a skill or two that are treated as 'Racial'.

Second you pick a Class, this could be determined to a degree by Race, so for example the Red Claw are less technologically advanced than the rest of the Outer Fringe, so perhaps the Mechnomancer (example) would not be a Class that would be available to them.

Once race and class is determined you have a rigid progression of skills as you earn XP and level up.

2). The Free Form model.
With Free Form you pick a race for starters, and you may or may not pick a class depending on if they are available, but then you have a large pool of skills available.

Now if you take this model you can go down the route of having classes, in which case skills are blocked together, maybe say 25 skills available for every class, but you only get 1 skill per level and there are 10 levels.

Or you can try it another way, having no classes and instead a pool of skills available to all, so if someone wants to pick a skill that would normally be a 'tank' skill and marry that up with a 'heal' skill and a 'DPS' skill, then so be it!

The first of these would be restricted free form, while the latter is true free form.

I am personally drawn towards a free form model myself, but whether to restrict it or not is still undecided.

One thing I would like to look at, and this is a knock back from my original design plan of Override is to include Combo Powers. That there are certain abilities that can only be learned after you have learned others:

Bull Charge: You run 10 feet in a straight line knocking anyone your Height or less and who is not Steadfast in your way to the floor.
Requirements: Sprint skill, Toughness skill

Conduit: Any data access point becomes a potential weapon for you. By standing next to the access point and touching it with your bare hands you are able to release a discharge of electricity in a 90 degree arc of you choice up to 6 feet.
Requirements: Electrical Resistance, Data Affinity

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You see, since day one of mentioning the Mantiverse I've talked about how the Hackers are the superheroes of this place, and this is how that is realised.

Pick the right sets of skills and you could see yourself turning into Neo from the matrix, or at least in one or two ways.
What we will probably see is a progression tree, where every 'level' you get something, but you should only end up with maybe six skills total, of those 4 might be base skills, which in turn unlock 2 additional skills.

But what if it went further? What about if you could pick unlock able skills, but get the right combo of unlockables and you then get another.

We've already mentioned as an example the Unlockable skill Conduit allowing you to unleash energy from a data point. What about if there was another Unlockable that allowed you to generate energy from nothing at all, by itself this would be useful for countless reasons, but in this instance would combine with Conduit allowing you to fire off bursts of energy almost whenever you wanted!

Creating these skill combos would require both planning and time from the player, but that is why I'm the Mantiverse there is belief in the existence of those capable of superhuman feats, but little to no proof: because they're few and far between (and probably all working for Code Black).

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So what are your thoughts? Is this something that would interest you?

Let me know!

Until then; stay safe and be excellent to each other!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

GeekShave II

Greetings friends!

So a short one right now, but just to let you know this November I will most likely doing #GeekShave again raising money for ProstateCancerUK.

Last year we raised just over £250 if I remember correctly, and it is with hope we can raise double that this year!!

That's right, I'm setting the bar higher and saying that if you want to see your short, fat, furry Richi P to be just as short and fat, but less furry then we'll need to raise a big £500!

I don't know exactly what stretch goals I will be using at this stage, however I do know that unlike last year I will not be touching anything until the first goal has been met.

As before, there is the Big Spender goal of the full whack (£500 this year) if I can receive this in a single transaction, then the sender gets to dictate a certain style of facial hair that I have to grow and maintain until 1st December!
- Notice I say a single transaction, it doesn't have to be one person, only that it needs to come in at once.

Anyway, that's all for now. More on this year's #GeekShave as we get closer to the month in question.

Until next time; stay safe and be excellent to each other!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley