The Gaming Outpost

  Every time you roll the dice, you take a chance.

  This may seem like the most obvious thing in the world; yet most of the time most of us don’t really recognize what it means.  You see, each time you roll the dice, you take that chance again; and that means the odds increase.

  It was called back to my attention recently as someone was trying to develop a mechanic for a game set in a Star Wars-like world which would tempt players toward the equivalent of the dark side of the force; but I recognized the problem long ago, and included some support for it in Multiverser.  I’ll start with the way I first saw the problem.

  Let’s suppose you’ve got your typical adventuring party, and they come into a room in which someone or something is hidden.  Each member of the party gets a check to see whether he notices, right?  That seems fair.  After all, the question on the boards is whether the party is going to see whatever it is, usually before it’s too late.

  But the dynamic of this is unexpected.  Let’s say, for convenience, that each person in the room has a twenty percent chance to notice this object.  That means that if there is only one person present, he’s going to fail to see it eighty percent of the time.  But if you add a second person to this, that drops to a sixty-four percent chance of failure.  Each additional person in the group increases the probability that someone will notice this hidden object.  With a party of a dozen, the chance of failure is something below seven percent–about one chance in fifteen of not noticing the object.  Get the size of the group up to twenty and you’re looking at almost one in a hundred of having everyone in the group miss it.

  Yet intuitively we know that this doesn’t make sense.  After all, assuming these people aren’t all searching for whatever this is, the odds of the third person noticing something that the first two missed are not as good as the odds of the first person noticing it in the first place.  That is, if it’s hidden well enough that several people haven’t seen it, it’s probably well hidden.  To put it in perspective, let us suppose that it is the player characters who are hidden.  An enemy is passing their hiding place, and it seems appropriate for the enemy to get a chance to notice them.  Now, if the enemy is two guys, and they each get a check, the chance of them missing the characters is pretty good; but if we’re talking about a hundred guys, and we’re going to roll thirty checks, there’s no chance of the characters escaping notice.  Yet if we really were hidden there, once the first three or four guys passed us without noticing, wouldn’t we start to relax a bit, start to think that we were hidden well enough that they weren’t going to see us?  In this case, the cumulative effect of so many checks creates an outcome which doesn’t fit our expectations.  Two guys would actually be more likely to notice us than a hundred, because a hundred guys are going to be more focused on each other, and aren’t going to turn at the sound of a twig cracking among the trees by the road.

  Multiverser’s solution is to allow a single die roll for such a check, which will be compared to every opponent’s chance of success.  If any character in the group would have noticed given that roll, someone notices.  This saves the players from the impact of cumulative odds in such a situation.

  Yet once you recognize the power of cumulative odds, you can use them to your advantage.  This idea of being tempted over to the dark side is an excellent example.  The trick to the dark side is that it is seductive.  You should be afraid on the first roll that you might fail; but each time you take the chance, you should be less afraid.  To draw the player into this, a mechanic could be designed in which the chance of success on this roll increases each time the roll is made.  Of course, there would have to be benefits to using the power of the dark side, or there would be no temptation; we’ll assume that if a player chooses to tap the dark side, he gets immediate bonuses on whatever he’s doing, but then has to roll to resist the dark side.  The first time he rolls, he must roll seventy or less to succeed; he has a serious thirty percent chance to fail.  Assuming he succeeds, he has escaped the lure of the dark side this time, and next time he draws on its power he will have to roll seventy-one or less, only a twenty-nine percent chance to fail.  With each successful roll, he seems to increase his ability to resist the dark side; at this rate, if he successfully resists the dark side thirty times, he will be immune, and can never fail.  That thirtieth roll will present only a one percent chance of failure–a chance anyone would take.

  What is hidden in the fact that with each roll the odds of success improve is a cumulative chance of failure.  The odds of successfully making all thirty of those rolls–of resisting the dark side through thirty individual uses of its power–is slightly greater than one half of one percent.  Fewer than one in one hundred characters will survive twenty such rolls, and only about one in twenty will manage to resist the dark side through ten.  The system is alluring, because all the player really sees is the odds of making this roll; he doesn’t see that this roll is one of a series he’s been quite lucky to have survived so far.

  There is a sense in which that perception is correct; his chance of failure on this roll is lower than it has ever been before.  Yet one of the features that drives Multiverser’s chance to botch is that eventually you will botch.  As long as your chance of success doesn’t exceed ninety, you’ve got at least one chance in a hundred of rolling a botch.  The more you do, the more rolls you make, and the more likely it is that the botch is going to occur.  The fact that one character in two hundred might resist the dark side is an incentive to try; the fact that each roll offers a better chance of success than the last is an incentive to try again.  Failure looms not in the odds of this roll, but in the accumulated odds of all of them.

  If you’re designing a game, bear in mind this aspect of accumulated odds, and remember to use it where you need it and avoid it where it creates problems.  If you’re running a game, be cognizant of when the characters should already be covered for something, such that another roll would unfairly penalize them.

  If you’re only playing, remember that whenever the dice are passed to you, you are taking a chance that adds up over time.

  Next week, something different.

—–

M. Joseph Young is co-author of Multiverser and Vice President for Development at Valdron Inc.  His many contributions to online literature are indexed for convenience, and he looks forward to discussing these things by e-mail or on our Gaming Outpost forums.

How I love vacations! I love not having to be anywhere I don’t want to be, no working (unless I want to), just relaxing… it was great. The only thing I always regret about them is that they eventually must come to an end. So, now I’m back at work and getting into the swing of things again. Figure I’d best get back on the article wagon as well, so let’s take a look at Mark’s Waltz article and see were that leads us.



“I say I have my favorites; but there is one particular style which I have never enjoyed. I don’t care for the waltz.”



A simple statement, but it really caught my eye when I read the article. It got me to thinking about the various different likes and dislikes of the players in my groups. One group likes horror, the other doesn’t. One likes Sci-Fi, the other not so much. One likes to develop character personalities above anything else, the other wants to kill the monsters and take their stuff.



Every group has a particular style of gaming that fits them best, be it traditional D&D style dungeon delving or complex character and sub plot development. Same goes for the PCs. Lots of players have their favorite character classes and character personality types that they prefer to play. There’s nothing wrong with knowing what you like and what you don’t like in an RPG.



One of my players always plays an older male, mage/occult type who hates technology and is rather surly. This player enjoys the heck out of these PCs and plays them very well – which he should after years of practice. I asked him a few years ago if why he didn’t want to try something different. I was told that over the years of gaming he found this PC type to be his favorite and that he had the most fun in games where he was playing his favorite PC. Hard for me to argue with that. RPGs are about having fun so I figured if he’s having fun, there’s no problem right?



Well, after a few campaigns, and a few chargens later, I was running into a problem with this player and a few others who were playing their favorite PC types – I was out of ideas to challenge them. I don’t like to repeat myself too often in my games, but I was finding that I didn’t have many options left because some of the PCs were basically the same in the current game as they had been in the last four games. The players and I were getting into a rut. I hate being in a rut.



I contemplated forcing the players to make new PCs that were against their normal types for the next campaign. But I was afraid that would cut into the players fun as I knew my players made these “same old same old” PCs because it was fun for them to play them. I didn’t want to stress out or alienate my players so I had to come up with a different solution.



I finally settled on what the players and I found to be a nice compromise and a good change of pace for everyone. I told the players I’d like to run a totally different game, different rules set, different setting and everyone was to try something new. We’d only play this new game for a few sessions and after we’d go back to our regular game.



The players thought it was a good idea and everyone sat down and made new and different PCs. Because I was basically running a one shot style mini campaign the players felt they had a chance to try something new and that if they didn’t like it – no big deal. After all, this wasn’t a PC they would be stuck with for too long and all the other players were doing the same thing. No long term consequences gave the players a willingness to take a risk with their PCs they normally wouldn’t.



After the mini campaign the players all told me they had fun, but wanted to get back to their regular PCs and the old campaign. I was also ready to slip back into the regular game, having recharged my creative batteries by doing something different myself.



I’ve done this a number of times over the years and I’ve had good results each time. My advice is that if you find yourself in a rut, either as a player or a GM, try something different for everyone. New rules, new setting, new PCs – the works. It not only gives you a chance to try new games, or to revisit a game you haven’t tried in a while, but you’ll also get a needed creative break so you can return to your regular game with some new ideas and a fresh mind.





Well, now that I’ve written this I’m thinking that my vacation was a bit of a “new game” change for me as well. While I didn’t plan to tie that into the end of this article it’s worked out nicely now that I think of it. Sort of helps to bring things about full circle and all that. More proof that sometimes a break from the normal is very helpful. You can get good results even if you weren’t expecting them.





That’s all for now. See you in the forums!

My ectoplasmic form fled into the crust of an alternate Earth evading pursuit by seeking psi’s while my real body choked to death in another world at the hands of the lady I wished to rescue.



It was not my best day.



The sudden flight into the floor threw off the Alexander MegaCorp psi’s who somehow had arrived in this strange world, and gotten themselves a base, or something. Last, I knew, they were a pet team of prototypes in a cyberpunk, tech-dominated world. The information their slave, the lady Twyla who I wished to rescue must have told them how to make a gate.



Gates tend to imply scriff, so I reached out and sensed for it. Three different locations came back. I fled at a pace tens of thousands of miles per hour fast. There was little time before I died physically for me to act.



I needed to find something to save myself. Much as I’d like to go back, and compel a few AMC psi-techs to release Twyla; I did not think I could do so in time.



The gate, metal ring telekinetically hung in the air above a closed shopping center, and I flung myself through it breaking past the startled defenders.



On the other side, I saw more advanced machines, but still close in time to the other side. And I could tell that my psi powers were hard to use in this world.



I felt for scriff, and found three locations, and some understanding of what I faced occurred to me. I’d read in a scroll compiled by the Learned and Venerable Voshtag, a cruelly clever man about the existence of alternate related dimensions. The original AMC world must have a small group, a cohort of dimensions, attached to it. Usually, according to Voshtag, there was some ordering scheme attached to them. Here seemed thirty or forty years later than the last world. And AMC seemed thirty or forty years from the description past this world.



This was bad; it could mean that AMC was the most advanced world in this group, and thus could more easily conquer the others. My day just kept getting better and better.



I crashed back through the gate, and raced away in the confusion my original arrival had spawned.



The next closest gate took me into AMC world, and I nearly blacked out upon arrival. This was AMC’s homeworld with high technology, polluted skies, and very little psi bias to support such a creature as I currently was.



Wounded, and near streaming energy, I staggered back through and soared through the Earth one last time to the last gate to meet a force of psis ready for me who could have taken me in my prime. Meanwhile, I felt a steady drag of energy as my physical body died, and as the gaping rents in my ectoplasm leaked.



The gate hung before me, and dozens of psis watched and waited for my attack, for my rush through the field of awareness so that they could reach out with their sweet lying words and lull my mind to sleep, the better to rule me forever like they did with Twyla.



So, I grabbed the gate structure by main force of will, and jerked it flying toward me. No control, no finesse, just raw brute strength. I fell through the gate, and saw a world that might be older than the AMC world.



Technological devices rusted in the streets, and adolescent unicorns played atop rusting Volvo(r) hovercraft.



Before too many could follow me, I cast the spell for making passage to the Borders of the World, if this world had one. It was my only hope.



A sparkling rainbow fell around me, and suddenly everything glowed with an inner light. My pain faded, and my watch stopped, and I relaxed. My enemies were gone for now.



A bird of paradise resplendent in all his colors flew up to me, and landed on a tree nearby.



“Well, I’ve seen more beat-up people, but them’s was usually involved in Christmas shopping.” It said, and I laughed at the madcap fey in relief.

“I’m very glad to be here.”

“But not so glad that you’ll join our side will you, Taduesz?” The bird said with a jaundiced tilt of its head from upon the tree branch which was rapidly covering itself in gold.

“You are of the Sidhe, the fey, undecided as to whether to support the Lords of Light or the Shadow, are you not?” I replied trying for time since the “bird” seemed to be about ready to kick me out of here, and I needed to catch my breath, and a big favor as well.

“True, and you support the Creator God.”

“Well, yes, that is true.”

“Welllll, ” The “bird” said in mockery of me, “Then why should I help you since you are not even going to buy anything? We do have a special on Universal Enlightenment or my personal favorite, Cool as the Meaning of Life, but you already got the Mark of Heaven glowing on your forehead, so what’s the point?” He raised his scarlet wings as if to blow me away back to the real world. The “bird” was trying to tempt me for temporary advantage to um, not sell my soul, but “rent” it.

“I could help you.”

“Really?” He said drily.

“Yes, I know several good recipes for chicken soup, I’m sure we could adapt something, maybe add a little taragon?” I stared at the bird for a long minute hoping I had edged the joke at just the right level. Too little, and I would be declared boring, and few things are worse than to bore the fey. Too much, and well, the temper of the High Fey is not bound by human limitations or even physical laws. A human will eventually pass out if he gets too angry.

“Heh, heh, umheheehehehe” The “bird” began to cackle as it lost its grip on the branch, and then fell off head first toward the ground. It thumped unharmed in a patch of rainbow tinted clovers that appeared a moment before it landed. Then he rolled around in the clover chortling.

I started laughing, but mostly in sheer relief.

I hate the fey, I really, really do. Except when I like them.



Taduesz

The balance of the blade in my fist felt right and good. The curve of the cutlass gleamed, the grin of a killer aglow with the same fever that burned from the lurid eyes with which I watched the landing of my pursuers on the beach below. The sounds of my former mates echoed up to my perch atop a massive wall of granite.



“Keep a sharp eye me dearies”, the Captain ordered, “our matey be a right trig cove.”



“Not half enough, but he’s learning”, I thought. The malice for the ‘Johnny Two-Face’ that I myself hounded to the island festered in my breast.



My former mates were of the lowest sort, and the Captain the lowest of the low and therefore king among them, but I dared not underthink the depth of their cunning… as I had done with mine own prey. My lead upon them measured well, yet I set foot into the jungle with the unsettled feeling of one whose grave has been tread upon.



I watched my going more for ambush or trap than for sign of my quarries passing. There was no doubt as to the destination of my foe. The map that I took from the First Mate shown clear and true the dangers that lay ahead, and the treasure beyond. Those coins and baubles were but dross next to the choice bit that devil-spawned bastard had set after. Woe be to us all if I should fail to stop him.



As I blazed way through vine and brush my thoughts crept back to the storm of a fortnight past. It was a near miracle that the savage swells had not swallowed us in their hunger. After the worst had been done and the sky melted into the shade of gray that declared a truce, the crew sat upon the battered deck in near silence. The reverie was soon broken by a cry from aloft; there was a vessel close at hand. It was no true ship that we set eyes upon but a small boat made for perhaps a dozen men, bereft of oars and with only two occupants. The very moment that these unlikely strangers were hauled aboard I knew something was amiss.



I have what some call The Sight or even Witch’s Eye, and although I’ve received much harsh treatment for it when others have found it out, my eyes have never steered me wrong. One of the men, a huge Turk, had the witless expression of one who is no longer in possession of his soul. The duplicitous and fae nature of the other man was apparent to me even though his face and complexion were that of a seafarer and his clothes bespoke some station of no small importance. For fear of ridicule I said not a word to my mates. They were likely not to believe a word I said when their own eyes told them a far different tale. I could say that I regret not having spoken when the creatures first laid foot upon the deck, but there be no gain in that course.



The Captain and the First Mate retired with the strangers to the Captain’s quarters in order to hear their tale and to no doubt gauge the best means to profit from the encounter. The rest of the crew went about preparations for the homeward journey. My slumbering fear did not begin to show a face until a few days later when the First Mate ordered the Helmsman to change course, into the heart of uncharted waters. There were rumors among the men that we went in search of a great and magnificent treasure. These rumors said that the smartly dressed stranger, now known to us as Lord Thulaine, had in his possession a map that would lead us straight to this golden bounty, that he had in fact been on such a journey himself when the vicious storm had risen up and swallowed his vessel and crew. Since the stores were still high and the winds favored us even the more practical of my mates was obliged to a certain giddiness of demeanor. In my heart of hearts though I knew that little good could come of the yearnings of one such as this Thulaine. So I set about to find the truth of the matter.



The needs of discretion hampered my searchings and I had no ally to take up my defense should events turn ill. Opportunity came to me one starless night when I was woken to take up the watch. Old Vandric had taken sick and my stone was drawn from the pot to see who would carry on the remains of his duty. It was deep into the dark hours and all lay quiet when the tune of a hushed voice drifting from the Captain’s quarters caught my ears. I moved close the better to hear these secret murmurs and was gifted by a small tear in the cabin’s heavy draperies with which to view those within. A faint cast of greenish light flowed like fish oil from a black and twisted stone carving that squatted upon the table. The Captain stared into this dark idol, his face slack and waxen. The Turk, with his dead man’s face, had one thick arm wrapped about the First Mate’s shoulders and the other clamped about his head, forcing him to look upon that blasphemous stone. My eyes were drawn to the visage of the creature that was set into the sable stone as the Lord Thulaine reached out to a small hollow, empty of whatever gem it once held, in what might have been the thing’s head. Despite the caution urged by my gypsy blood I found myself drawn to that unnatural artifact. It whispered to my most precious desires, stroking them, as only a skillful lover is able. Then Thulaine begin to recite from a much-abused parchment that he held forth and a venomous dialect issued from his vile tongue. These were words of power, and the abominations of which they spoke curdled my manhood and drove my mind into a frenzy of despair. Only after I felt the hot piss running down my leg did I recognize the choking sobs in the air as my own wailing. The veil of madness was close upon me and I put up not the slightest struggle when the Captain had my former mates drag me into the hold and throw me into the brig.



I lay in a thick and vicious stupor for several days passing. The fever of my thoughts took me from my body and set me adrift in the realm of visions. Some might say that angels came to me in those desperate hours, but I harbor no belief of such things. My salvation was due the graspings of a fearful and animal mind. Memories of when I was but a peck came flooding back upon me, every scrap that the old gypsy crones ever spoke about the dark folk, the ones that caused cows to run dry and left changelings in the place of human babes. All the cunning I possessed, and the scruples that were left to me, set about putting my predicament and it’s cure together like a child’s puzzle. By the time I came upon my senses a full and bloody plan was set firmly in my mind. I began by strangling the lone guard set to watch me with the belt off my breeches as the fool dozed with his back against the slats of my cage.



After that it was no trouble to work free of my prison. Taking sword and knife from my dead mate I crept like hooded death through the darkness of the hold. It was still the small hours before dawn and the bunks were full of my mates resting their poisoned souls. With the knife clenched in one sweating fist I worked through the cabin, slitting the throats of the entranced fools that would drag me down to the abyss with them if given half a chance. As the fifth sacrifice fell under my blade the cry of a land loving bird set my feet towards the deck. The sun was but the slightest sliver of light upon the horizon as I came up from the hold, rebirthed into the wide world only to find the ship anchored in the arms of the ghostly silhouette of an island. One of the ship’s small landing boats was missing from its berth and a lone figure stood against the rail, a spyglass to one eye and pointed towards the sleeping isle. I was upon him with the meaty thrust of my knife and had him silenced in the space of a breath. Lowering the carcass to the deck I took up the spyglass and scanned the waters in the direction of the island. A sickening feeling overcrept me as my eye focused upon the missing boat as it drew ever closer to shore. In the craft sat Thulaine, the hunched and gibbering form of what used to be Old Vandric, and the massive, empty-eyed Turk at work on the oars. Turning back to the watcher lying like so much offal on the deck I recognized him now as the First Mate. I grabbed up the sea-proof case meant for the spyglass and discovered a blessing and a curse within, a map parchment with freshly scribed notes giving detail to what I had only been able to imagine. A great anger, at Thulaine’s arrogance and in part of my own fear, rose up within me. I lashed the case to me as well as sword and knife and lowering myself into the cold grasp of the sea I set at a swim for the island.



My pace was strong, and even after the sun had broke upon the water my passage was hidden from those I pursued by the islands long shadow. The lead Thulaine had upon me was cut well in half and my limbs cried out for rest as I reached the sands of a beach surrounded by granite cliffs. Rest would not be mine though for as I looked back towards the ship I caught site of the second landing boat well on its way to shore. I could say that I regret not having thought to scuttle her, but there be no gain in that course.



Following the footprints in the sand I made my way to an overgrown and ancient stair dug crudely into the cliff face. In many places the stair was completely gone, having fallen into rubble on the beach below, and the creepers and vines threatened to snag a foot at every step. I knew that same long climb would keep the sorry dogs that followed off my track long enough for fate to roll the bones. The pips had always favored me and I could only hope that my luck and the savage anger that served as my only nourishment would hold for the course.

  It might be a bit pretentious for me to claim to be a fan of classical music.  After all, I’ve actually been to few professional concerts, have a very limited collection, and don’t support public radio with my few dollars.  Those who are legitimately fanatical about classical music could rightly look askance at any claim on my part to be connected with their hobby.  However, it is the type of music to which I most listen, and although there is much written unknown to me I recognize most of the major composers and periods and have my favorites among them.  I might not send money to public radio, but it’s the station to which my alarm clock is set, and I listen in the car.  Further, as a vocalist and instrumentalist, I’ve performed a fair amount of it over the years, even if only in small concerts or rehearsals.

  I say I have my favorites; but there is one particular style which I have never enjoyed.  I don’t care for the waltz.  I’ve heard many of the great waltzes, and can recognize a few of the major ones, but my feeling is that they all sound the same.

  Oddly, I don’t have the same feeling about marches; not even John Phillip Sousa marches.  These, for some reason, do not strike me as all the same, despite the rather rigid structure he followed in creating them.  So perhaps the march and the waltz offer something to consider about creative endeavor generally.  Both are highly structured forms, with constraints placed upon their completed versions by the requirements of the application.  That is, a waltz, as much as it is a beautiful piece of music through which much emotion may be expressed, is ultimately intended for dancing, and fails in its purpose if one cannot find the steps; a march, obviously, is written for marching, and if the band cannot walk crisply in time with the music, it has failed regardless of the patriotism and courage it may inspire.

  There are exceptions, of course.  Within The Nutcracker Suite, Tchaikowski offers us both The March of the Wooden Soldiers and The Waltz of the Flowers, neither of which are particularly conducive, the one for marching or the other for waltzing; but these are neither a march nor a waltz, really, but part of a ballet, composed to provide the background over which professional dancers and choreographers may express their crafts.  It is not the name of the form but the form itself that matters.  Sousa wrote marches, Strauss wrote waltzes, the one for marching bands and the other for dance orchestras, and these are the songs that represent the form, whether by them or their contemporaries or their imitators.

  I find myself wondering what it is about waltzes that make them all sound the same to me.  The answer that suggests itself is that the constraints of the form override the differences between examples.  That is, the things that make them the same, in my opinion, overwhelm those which make them different.

  This is a hazard in every creative effort.  My wife has refused to this day to watch Blazing Saddles or Unforgiven (two entirely different movies, in case you missed one), because they are both Westerns, and to her, all Westerns are the same.  I’ve never played any Final Fantasy game because I had my fill of same-old-same-old computer simulations of role playing games in the eighties.  Some people can’t tell Dali from Picasso, Beethoven from Dvorak, Dickens from Hawthorne.  The greater the strictures of the form, the more the differences are in the nuances.

  Which brings us to the subject of the column:  role playing games.  There are people who have played one, and decided that they have played enough.  Those of us in the hobby think they have been hasty, rushing to a negative conclusion based on a single experience; yet to a large degree it may be our fault.  We have created the constraints of our own form, and locked much of our gaming into that.  To us, the nuances of difference between fantasy settings or character creation mechanics or resolution systems are important.  We fail to recognize that we have built boundaries which restrict the definitions of the game perhaps unrealistically and certainly unnecessarily.

  Many of these boundaries are being challenged; new games frequently attempt to push the envelope.  Yet our common parlance reverts to certain assumptions.  We speak of the Gee Em as if it were an immutable rule that all games must have one, and even as if the role was strictly defined across the entire medium.  Multiverser’s books do not once use the phrase hit points that I am aware, and yet in play the words are used constantly by players and referees who use the vocabulary of earlier games.  Games have been written in which role playing occurs in courts of kings and on space stations and in innumerable other worlds, and yet we still refer to game sessions as the adventure and think the word fantasy means there are elves living in the woods.

  People still waltz; the dance is still taught in academies and considered an important part of high society.  No one, however, writes dance waltzes–everyone dances to the old ones.  If the structure dominates the form, it chokes innovation out of existence.  If we want role playing to continue well into this new century, we must look for ways to break out of the mold (in both the metallurgical and the biological senses) and do something new and different.  We must recognize that much of the trappings of role playing games are not the essentials, and look for new ways to improve old ideas.  Otherwise, like the waltz, we will be relegated to the oddities of the past, something done for nostalgia rather than for innovation, learning to dance to the old music to which no one really listens and certainly no one writes anymore.

  Next week, something different.

—–

M. Joseph Young is co-author of Multiverser and Vice President for Development at Valdron Inc.  His many contributions to online literature are indexed for convenience, and he looks forward to discussing these things by e-mail or on our Gaming Outpost forums.