>Anyway, make with the quarterly update, SJR, and I won't bug you
>until July.

:)

Well, in the local campaign, the players are currently playing their
characters' girlfriends, rescuing their regular characters from evil lawyers.

I'd say "it's a good deal more serious than it sounds" but that'd be a lie
in this case. The look on their faces when they realized why I was handing
them pregens was pretty classic, though. Since we're nearly to World War II
and one of the characters is Asian, I figured it'd be nice to have
something light on the plate before things get ugly.

Oh, you mean the GAME game ... The system's still done; the sample
adventures are taking shape; the GMing and playing chapters are nearly
fleshed to capacity, and the 800-pound gorilla remains the enormous black
timesink of the resource chapters, which are quite the lesson in why games
on this scale are normally done by teams of a dozen or more people, plus a
separate team for the graphics and layout and indexing. Of course, it
doesn't help, either, that my models for the game's density are each in
their fifth edition. Quixotic much?  Guilty. Still, all in all I'm really
pleased with the shape of it. There's something awfully satisfying and
certain about it, these days, since it's been slapped into its current
shape by tons and tons of for-real campaigning. I dunno if it'll feel like
a fifth edition right out of the gate, but it'll be at least the equal of
most games in their third or fourth ...

And due to unexpected turns of fate, I'll probably have a complete FRPG
available sometime between now and the FFE release, although in that case
all the setting and resource material was already written three years ago,
and I'm just hammering out the cool combat rules :)



|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

It's April, so you know what that means.

No? Really, no? Guess I don't make much of an impression.

Anyway, make with the quarterly update, SJR, and I won't bug you
until July.

--Marty

>I loved the "blind hit points" mechanics in other games (like UA)
>because they added unpredictability, that for many genres is a
>necessity.

Yeah, we used to use 'em in AD&D and then Call of Cthulhu in our games in
North Carolina; they're a good thing but - of course - an extra bookkeeping
step. And I never mind skipping a bookkeeping step.

>As a newcomer to the list, I don't know if you have a politic of not
>giving away too much details (if so, I understand), but....

I do, but mainly because answers create more questions, and then the whole
thing becomes a time-sink :) So this post will close the curtain again, for
now. I'll do my best to make it a satisfying one, however:

>Could you explain us a bit more how you get the effect without blind
>hit points ?

Sure, the game just separates the short-term impact of an attack from the
long-term. You've got a simple, fairly traditional five-stage wound track
that locks in directly with the game's five-step difficulty scale. It's
(much less traditionally) split into two overlapping tracks, one for the
quality of the attack(s) and the second for how much the victim is
"feeling" it at the moment (very tough characters can, for a time, delay
being incapacitated by an attack, though it always catches up eventually).

That twin-track is something the player sees and uses, but it bears only a
theoretical relationship to the _deadliness_ of what's happening. When a
fight scene ends, there's a "Taking Stock" round where everyone can see how
badly they're really doing - and it can be a lot better off or a lot worse
off. If it's the latter, they may be fighting for their lives. If it's the
former, they may be dusting off their hat and thinking about maybe getting
a drink.

The short-term effects of an attack (pain, shock, intimidation, etc) depend
entirely on character abilities and intentions; the "Taking Stock" stage
layers in the hardware, after the fight is over.

There are no blinders because the GM isn't keeping any information hidden
or making any other kind of secret bookkeeping. Unlike in a blind-hits
method, even the GM has no idea how hurt the PCs really are until the smoke
clears. Anyone can make a guess based on the wound tracks and the weapons
used, but it's a bit like shaking the box with Schroedinger's Cat inside to
see if its the Christmas present you're hoping for.

Separate from this is the concept of Victory; anyone scoring a good enough
hit can just say "I win" and that can mean all sorts of things, none of
which have to include injury at all. Victory isn't the exclusive province
of the PCs, either; it cuts both ways, with all the attendant danger one
might expect :)

Again, it boils down to a more codified version of the Risus approach, at
least in broad strokes. The major difference is that, in Risus, the
hardware _never_ matters except as a guide to the GM's judgement when it
comes time to set the healing rate. Also, in Risus, killing is _always_ a
conscious choice, whereas in FFE carrying a deadly weapon is a conscious
choice but, once you decide to draw it and attack with it, people might die
that you didn't intend.

Anyway, I'll close with a passage from the player-advice chapters that
follow the rules in the game, a brief article on the choice a PI makes to
"carry" or "not carry."

================================

CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON

The Lieutenant put his hands on his knees and leaned forward. His greenish
eyes were fixed on Spade in a peculiarly rigid stare, as if their focus
were a matter of mechanics, to be changed only by pulling a lever or
pressing a button. "What kind of gun do you carry?" he asked.
"None. I don't like them much. Of course there are some in the office."
"I'd like to see one of them," the Lieutenant said. "You don't happen to
have one here?"
"No."
- Dashiell Hammett
The Maltese Falcon (1929)

In Fly From Evil, the use of lethal weapons is more a personal choice than
a tactical one. In terms of potential combat Margins, a Muscle score of 11
is exactly as potent as a Gunplay score of 11. Beyond that, there excellent
reasons - both professional and personal - that many private eyes prefer
native wit and bare knuckles to carrying a gun, and a few equally good
reasons to carry one just in case. Some of the advantages of bare hands
over guns:

* A well-placed punch can end a threat without ending a life.
* Hands don't need to be concealed, rationalized, or justified to anyone.
* The presence of guns can inspire unintended mistrust, hostility, and
violence.
* Guns can be taken from you (so can hands, but if somebody chops your
hands at the wrist you can't hold a gun anymore, anyway).
* Guns are vulnerable to dust, moisture and jolts that would never harm
your hands.
* Fists are always ready; you don't need to get them from a holster or coat
pocket.
* If you miss with a punch, it doesn't send stray bullets into the local
scenery and innocents.
* Fists don't cost any money to acquire or maintain.
* Fists don't run out of ammunition.
* Fists leave less traceable physical evidence than a gun.
* Hand-to-hand attacks produce no muzzle flash, and much less noise than a gun.

The advantages of firearms over bare hands:

* Guns can attack at range.
* Guns are intimidating.
* Guns can deliver a more devastating attack without injuring the attacker
(compare double-ammo and knuckle-bruiser rules, page XX).
* Guns have occasional value as a tool - for signaling, for starting fires,
or for blasting stubborn locks.

Some details depend on the PCs. If anyone in the party has a low Gunfight
Initiative, engaging in gunplay puts that character in danger - he could
freeze to helplessness while the gunmen on both sides are busy blazing
away. That's an excellent way to get dead. On the other hand, if all of the
PCs are accomplished gunmen, that liability becomes an asset, because the
only weak links will be among your foes.





|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

--- In FlyFromEvil@yahoogroups.com, "S. John Ross" <sjohn@i...>
wrote:
> It works _perfectly_ in FFE; we eroded, then discarded weapon
damage about
> 15 months ago in mid-playtest and haven't missed it since. Guns,
if
> anything, have gotten much scarier, since their deadliness was
moved
> entirely into the post-combat "getting up again" question ...
Which means a
> shot character has no idea how bad things really are in mid-fight,
without
> resorting to any kind of "blind hit points" gimmick.


I loved the "blind hit points" mechanics in other games (like UA)
because they added unpredictability, that for many genres is a
necessity.

As a newcomer to the list, I don't know if you have a politic of not
giving away too much details (if so, I understand), but....

Could you explain us a bit more how you get the effect without blind
hit points ?

Thanks in advance.
David

Somebody on RPGnet asked about RPGs where non-lethal attacks are as
effective as lethal attacks, and of course that put me in mind of Fly From
Evil, so I posted.

Then it occurred to me that I wasn't sure I remembered mentioning that bit
about the game here ... So, anyway, here's the post; it's mostly FFE related.

==========================

Fly From Evil is like this, since it's fundamental to the genre, although
_absolute_ equality isn't there since different weapons have a lot of key
advantages over one another that have nothing to do with "damage" or
stopping power or whatever you want to call it - things like range and ammo
and intimidation power and flash and noise and (on a subtler level) the
fact that carrying a gun or knife can invite hostility and mistrust that
might otherwise never arise.

Up close, though, a good FFE private eye can deliver a knockout punch
that's as good for winning as a shot. That is to say, in Fly From Evil
combat victory is based on character ability rather than hardware. It's
just a matter of altered definitions. Your Gunplay score isn't "your
ability to hit a foe" it's "your ability to hit a foe in a way that puts
him down" and likewise your Muscle, etc.

It works _perfectly_ in FFE; we eroded, then discarded weapon damage about
15 months ago in mid-playtest and haven't missed it since. Guns, if
anything, have gotten much scarier, since their deadliness was moved
entirely into the post-combat "getting up again" question ... Which means a
shot character has no idea how bad things really are in mid-fight, without
resorting to any kind of "blind hit points" gimmick. Though the doubters
can weigh in with their doubt, it has honestly granted the game a lot more
drama, a lot more verisimilitude, and arguably even greater realism.

Risus, of course, has always been a proud carrier of the "character over
props" banner, but Risus' alignment is Comedic/Casual and it can't be held
accountable on any grounds other than goofiness.

Hrm. All combat's non-lethal in Pokethulhu, and again it's all based on
character ability (or combined character and thulhu ability) so I guess
that kinda counts.

Actually, so far, my upcoming Medieval Russian FRPG takes the same
approach, so who am I kiddin'? I dig it. Neener-neener, weapon damage. Bite
my ass. Or shoot it! Whatever! Ha!

So, in sum, every game I've done and every game I'll be doing in the
forseeable future. It hasn't been on purpose, I swear. It just keeps
playing well at the table.






|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

A correspondent wrote this morning asking me what boiled down to: "The FAQ
says FFE won't be much for doing the Shadow, but what about the early
Batman?" I figured my response might be of general interest, so I've pasted
it below for the list:

========================================================

John Terry <jmterry@...>

The thing about the "can Fly From Evil do this or that?" question is that
quite a lot of game designers abuse the opportunity and say "heck yeah; my
game can do damn near anything, that's how cool it is!" when, in truth,
pretty much any RPG can do damn near anything if you take an hour and tack
on a house rule or two ...

So, for the FAQ, I drew the line very sharply at things I'd be providing
explicit resources for. On that score, the Batman (any version) fails as
quickly as the Shadow. But the fact is, Fly From Evil will provide a solid
_foundation_ for either.

For Batman, it'd be missing basically two things - a decent writeup on
Gotham City (see the Batman RPG from Mayfair, for that, and just turn the
clock back using Fly From Evil's period resources), and a quick set of
rules for Batman's genius with inventing and improving devices.

Similarly, it would take only a moment to toss some superpowers into the
list of special abilities.

So it's not that Fly From Evil can't handle these things, it's just that
Fly From Evil won't come ready to do them "out of the box." It'd require a
little metaphorical putty and a hobby knife, but not a lot of either.
Certainly, FFE's combat system would be really sweet for showing off the
Batman. Since several of the great literary private eyes refused to (or
simply didn't care to) use firearms, FFE is built very carefully to let the
slugfesters shine without having to run scared whenever some two-bit yegg
pulls a rod.

FFE recommends Gotham City, in fact, as a prime candidate for a "fantasy
city" approach to the game, for GMs who'd rather not play in a real-world
setting.



|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/ffe-faq.htm

I've done a few relatively minor spiffs to the FAQ page, adding a line here
and there and clarifying one or two implications that may have been muddy.
If you've already read it, skip it, or skim it for the differences. If
you've not read it before, now's as good a time as any. :)

|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

>I just wondered if it was possible to add an appendix that is a hand-out
>to introduce players to the genre. I think I've succeeded in making my
>players want to play such a game, but I'm not sure if they know what
>awaits them (though we don't have time anyway, at the moment). I know
>this can't be done by a small intro, but it would be nice for the
>players who don't want to read novels to get familiar with the FFE-world.

The viewing list, really, will be the most useful tool in that regard. Just
sit the group down with some munchies and a copy of one of the key genre
films and you've got as perfect a genre-intro as you can get. While the
bulk of the game's inspirations are literary, there's a small handful of
great films that really nail it.

For the rest, there will be plenty of filled-out example character sheets
(including one indexed one in the character-building chapter); there will
be an introductory solitaire adventure, examples of play, and more. The GM
can build his handout by printing whatever pages he feels most captures the
feel of the campaign he has planned. There's too many possible approaches
for me to be able to guess which one a given campaign might take :)



|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

>S. John Ross wrote:
> >
> > And we play pretty much every Thursday. The campaigns been going on for
> > nearly 16 months now, less holiday interruptions. Good fun, and _lots_ of
> > practical fodder for the GMing advice and adventure-design chapters ...
>
>Oh wow!
>I want every single adventure you've run as an adventure seed in the
>final book! I mean it.

In one form or another, nearly all of them will squeak in ... the
adventure-design material will be pretty extensive.

SOME of them, though ... Well, as in any campaign, there are a few best
left glossed over :)



|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

Hi,

I just wondered if it was possible to add an appendix that is a hand-out
to introduce players to the genre. I think I've succeeded in making my
players want to play such a game, but I'm not sure if they know what
awaits them (though we don't have time anyway, at the moment). I know
this can't be done by a small intro, but it would be nice for the
players who don't want to read novels to get familiar with the FFE-world.

What I'm thinking of is a hand-out of about 2 pages, that can be freely
copied and distributed among the players. It has some paragraphs on the
genre, what their characters could be like, what kind of play would fit
the genre and what they have to expect generally.

Thanks!
Andre

S. John Ross wrote:
>
> And we play pretty much every Thursday. The campaigns been going on for
> nearly 16 months now, less holiday interruptions. Good fun, and _lots_ of
> practical fodder for the GMing advice and adventure-design chapters ...

Oh wow!
I want every single adventure you've run as an adventure seed in the
final book! I mean it.

Thanks for the update, I just can't await it!

Andre

>Considering all of the projects you have going on, I understand that
>you are a busy man. However, those of us eagerly awaiting Fly From
>Evil (ok, maybe it's just me) would love to hear where the game is,
>status-wise. Feel free to post something vague and infuriating.
>
>Also, I can't believe I haven't hounded you to death on what
>the "Murder Money" rule is that was mentioned in an earlier post.
>
>Anything you want to share?

Sure, no harm in being vague and infuriating :)

Basically, the only thing holding up Fly From Evil from what I assume will
be the final blindtest round is the resource material. I'm not fond of
rushing that kind of thing, so I'm pecking away at it steadily. The
mechanics are finished and pretty extensively tested (with one more round
to go), the sample adventures are in half-done form, the appendices are
basically done, yadda yadda.

The resource chapters - which contain what most publishers would happily
call two or three full supplements - are the big monster that I'm still
beating senseless with an eye on the princess-in-bondage and heap of gold
coins.

Some sections practically write themselves after a few days snuggling with
some basic research material. Others - like some points of criminal law in
the early 20s - eat up a week of research time for what will amount to a
15-word toss-off line in the final game :)

For several months, Fly From Evil was my front-burner project as I drove it
hard through the last development stages. That's done, so it's just a
matter of writing the resource articles as quickly as my standards permit me.

And we play pretty much every Thursday. The campaigns been going on for
nearly 16 months now, less holiday interruptions. Good fun, and _lots_ of
practical fodder for the GMing advice and adventure-design chapters ...

Murder Money is just the house term for distinguishing between boring
day-to-day life expenses (which FFE ignores) and fluid spending cash used
for useful stuff like guns, bribes, and a disguised armored car :) It's a
corruption of the term "mad money," pretty common in the first half of the
game's period, less so in the latter half.

Other projects? Yes, a few. But I'm whittling them away and keeping them
sane. Right now, my only burning priority is finishing Points in Space 2.
The Risus Companion is finished and getting some nice warm responses I'm
very grateful for. While I'm working on a half-dozen other things, too, Fly
  From Evil is a higher priority than all of them, and still nets a scary
amount of my weekly working hours. That said, some of the others will
probably still be _finished_ first, just because they're much shorter ...

Anyway, as long as I'm being a tease, here's a random paste from one of the
appendices (the obligatory bigass list of stock NPC stats). This should
give a rough impression of the shape of the game:

===============================

Tough Police Detective
Athletics 8; Gunplay 10; Jimmy 6; Muscle 9; Nerve 10; Persuasion 8;
Reflexes 9; Stealth 7; Wits 9
Resources: Seasoned Veteran, Thrifty Shot, Killed a Man
Notable Equipment: Revolver
Toughness 9; Vitality 8; Initiative 8/9
Notes: This cop emphasizes the gun more than the careful line of
questioning, and he's often in trouble with his superiors -- but he's
pretty good at most things.

Smart Police Detective
Athletics 8; Gunplay 7; Jimmy 8; Muscle 9; Nerve 9; Persuasion 10; Reflexes
8; Stealth 9; Wits 10
Connections: Law Enforcement (Community Standing 2); Underworld stoolie
(Contact Standing 1)
Notable Equipment: Revolver, this morning's newspaper
Toughness 9; Vitality 8; Initiative 8/7
Notes: A different sort of detective than the tough-guy. This one is smart,
observant, and persuasive. He can also jimmy a lock like a burglar, and
he's taken the time to cultivate his connections on the street and back at
headquarters. He prefers to avoid gunplay, but he doesn't mind a brawl now
and then.

Master of Kung Fu
Athletics 15; Gunplay 6; Jimmy 6; Muscle 10; Nerve 12; Persuasion 8;
Reflexes 12; Stealth 8; Wits 12
Languages: Fluent Chinese, fluent English
Resources: Cool Under Fire, Bruiser, Fighter, Martial Artist, Martial Arts
Expert, Martial Arts Master, Ferocious, Inscrutable, Man of Action, Student
of Human Nature, Untouchable, Vigilant
Toughness 10; Vitality 12; Initiative 14/11
Notes: A quietly confident master of hand-to-hand fighting. He may as well
be bulletproof, too, as far as ordinary gunmen are concerned. An
experienced group of PCs could challenge him, though, if they're careful or
bring a few friends to the fight. Give him Leader of Men and a half-dozen
hatchetmen as flunkies, and he's nearly unstoppable.



|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

Considering all of the projects you have going on, I understand that
you are a busy man. However, those of us eagerly awaiting Fly From
Evil (ok, maybe it's just me) would love to hear where the game is,
status-wise. Feel free to post something vague and infuriating.

Also, I can't believe I haven't hounded you to death on what
the "Murder Money" rule is that was mentioned in an earlier post.

Anything you want to share?

-Anjin

>I was just working my way through Sue Grafton's Q is for Quarry (just came
>out in paperback) when I remembered a question that I had for you. The PI
>business is generally a solitary effort. I picked up the pdf of
>Gangbusters which had a very different take on running a game. (Goodness,
>do I miss the days before d20.) Thus I was wondering how FFE suggests
>handling a multiple player campaign.

Fly From Evil goes in from the ground up with the assumption that the ideal
private eye RPG campaign is a 2-player or 3-player campaign, and all of the
GMing advice [more than a hundred pages of just that], rules systems,
sample adventures and other material orbits that assumption ... adapting
the genre to what works best in an RPG. Fly From Evil covers one-on-one
gaming, too, but doesn't regard it as the ideal. For a good working example
of this kind of adaptation, just look to Call of Cthulhu which is, really,
a historical/pulp mystery game also adapted from a body of stories
traditionally focused on a single protagonist.

In some cases, it's just a very subtle attitude shift. The Continental Op
tackled many cases with the assistance of other operatives, for example, so
even though the Op is a "solitary" central character we often see him
working with other detectives. Spade and Archer didn't get much time to
work together in the Maltese Falcon, of course ... But Effie Perine was
essential to Spade's work, and a pip of a character to boot. A good many
fictional private eyes also have a supporting cast of newspaper reporters
hanging around hoping for a story, lawyers working the same case, and
private staff doing legwork. To bring those stories to the RPG just
involves broadening the spotlight by a slight degree ... letting the
supporting characters step one step into the light to become partners in
the story.

In other cases, it's a matter of looking past the Spades and Marlowes to
the other great detective fiction of the period, which isn't always about
solitary main characters at all. The excellent Lam & Cool mysteries by Erle
Stanley Gardner (writing as A. A. Fair and running from the 1930s onward)
are a long-running example of a "partnered" private detective agency (and
Bertha Cool is one of the toughest hardboiled dicks ever to wear a skirt).
The Thin Man (both the Hammett and the expanded cinematic body of work)
explores an even more famous detective duo (plus Asta). On a less
traditionally-gameable but no less idea-mineable level, you have
relationships like Archie and Nero, etc.

Going even further, Fly From Evil spends some time exploring angles the
genre never really got around to ... You'll have to see one of the sample
adventures to see exactly what I mean. I also recommend some more modern
resources in the Reading & Viewing Guide, since a large number of detective
TV shows focus on groups of two or three, plus supporting cast.

In terms of game mechanics, Fly From Evil adventures are all geared to a
specific overall power level, the equivalent of a _very_ potent solitary
character going it alone, or that same amount of potency divided among the
participants. Part of the emphasis of local playtest this past year has
been carefully tweaking and testing my approach to measuring character
potency, to assure that the balancing act works, and to say that I'm
"pleased" with the result would be a tasteful understatement.

Short answer: Fly From Evil doesn't just provide a little bit of advice for
multi-person PI games, it provides a whole RPG with a small library of
sample adventures for multi-person PI games. :)

>  The suspense is still killing me.

Well, that's part of the genre, too. :)



|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

>Here is another of my infrequent requests for an update. Sounds like
>you're keeping busy (can't wait for Points 2). So how is FFE coming?

Great!

Well, it's a vague question :)

The weekly campaign chugs along ... I'm actually a _player_ in it right
now, which is cool. One of the die-hard regular playtesters has donned the
mantle for a while with a sadistic little maze of an adventure ... The last
session was a hoot since it included Amusing Senior Citizens (they're among
the campaign's trademarks, despite what I'd like to consider our better
judgment) and I got to see a man in a bathrobe beaten insensible by my
partner (well, I didn't literally see it ... my guy was busting in through
a second-story window while he was providing this very thorough
distraction) ...

The rest is just continued pecking away at the keyboard to produce a draft
that threatens to form its own gravity well and fight the Earth for
dominance. While the mechanics continue to be worn glassy-smooth by
playtest, the resource materials continue to grow unchecked like a patch of
Brown Mold from the olden dayes of D&D (and probably from the newen dayes,
too, but I don't keep careful track). I have begun on some parts of
production, though, having built a few of the games many many (many many
many) many maps. Points in Space 2 is largely responsible, there; it has me
in a maps-and-floorplans kind of mood, and Fly From Evil is going to be an
act of cartophilic excess.

Hrm. It's all just bits here and there; it's hard to nail down much
specific to report.

Oh, I know. I can talk about Abercrombie's :) Anyone not already glazed in
the eyes can come by it easily from this.

While the FFE FAQ describes the four main FFE books (The Game Book, The
Hardboiled Era, the Casebook and the San Francisco Book), it glosses over
the appendices, which of course a tragic oversight on my part since I'm
sure I speak for every sapient life form when I say a thrilling appendix is
really where a game comes to life, and that all that stuff about crime and
morality and guns and cars and chases and such are really just the gloss
for the boring math chucked in the back where it can't bother anyone.

If that's true, then the real heart of FFE is Professor Abercrombie's Guide
to Fly From Evil, a kind of "peek under the hood" revealing the charts and
curves and ugly streams of decimals humming along behind FFE's streamlined,
can't-even-be-bothered-with-pip-mods exterior. While FFE is on the light
side, mechanically (crunchier than Risus or Pokethulhu, certainly, but not
by as much as some might expect) this is the chapter written for incurable
math-heads in desperate need of fresh air (which includes, on some days,
me, although I'm usually very disciplined about not letting it affect the
main text). Here, to pad out this progress report and put everyone back to
sleep for a while, is a paste from the Abercrombie's Guide, describing some
aspects of the game's prices and money rules:

==================================================================

ABERCROMBIE OPENS HIS WALLET

The combination of the "Murder Money" rule and the game's lists of period
prices should prevent any need for further equipment-list building,
excepting personal quixotism. That said, economic matters can while away
many a winter evening if you find them interesting.

The Fly From Evil dollar is the average dollar of 1930-1939, stretched
across the hardboiled era for sanity's sake. I derived the game's baselines
by averaging consumer price indices, wholesale price indices, fluctuation
of salaries and related figures. Since most of these indices agree with one
another (as far as the shape of the era's curve goes), the FFE$ is a
self-consistent currency that reflects its era well. Since prices,
salaries, and Murder Money are all slaved to this central standard, prices
stay fairly accurate relative to buying power, but don't reflect the
specific values of any particular year. In terms of specific dollar
amounts, and ratios between salaries and prices, they're most accurate from
approximately 1931 to 1941, and reasonably accurate for nearly every
pre-Depression year and the first years of World War II. They don't reflect
the Truman era much at all.

Interestingly, the American consumer gets more bang for his buck in the
depressed 30s than in the roaring 20s. That's mainly because salaries climb
slowly during the recovery years, but prices climb even more slowly,
maintaining a cautious Depression standard. So, if it's the mid-1930s and
you're fortunate enough to have a job, you can buy a better car, and better
food, than you could with a comparable salary ten years earlier. Buying
power continues to edge up as the era progresses, but all bets are off
after World War II, when inflation throws nearly every index off the scale
and the nation has to adjust its lifestyle considerably to adapt. That's
just one of the many changes that form the clear divide between the
hardboiled era and the years after it.

ADOPTING ALTERNATE STANDARDS

When designing Fly From Evil, I considered several different models to
build the FFE Dollar, including flat averages of the entire period, curved
averages of the period weighting toward the mid-1930s, and averages
baselined to specific years. In the end, I decided that focusing on the
1930s would be more satisfying than averaging the entire period, weighted
or otherwise. I strongly recommend using the FFE$ as is. If you're dead set
on adjusting Murder Money, salaries and prices year by year, see the
bibliography for my sources, and warm up your favorite spreadsheet software.

For a quick-fix, close-enough-for-a-game conversion of FFE$ to a
pre-Depression standard, increase Murder Money (and salaries) by 10%, car
prices by 60%, and all other prices by 30%. For a comparably simplified
shift to post-World War II inflation, double Murder Money (and salaries),
increase car prices by 90%, and increase all other prices by 60%. For the
years in the thick of WWII, use a slope averaging between the game's
baseline values and the postwar ones.

These alterations ignore lots of specifics, of course. In the early 1920s,
for example, hardtops are a lot more expensive relative to ragtops than
they are in any other part of the era, because hardtop bodies are still new
and ragtops are the standard for mass-production. Once the sedan takes the
lead, the hardtop/ragtop ratio settles into place for the next few decades.

FOUR DOORS AND A LOT OF MATH

For those curious about the specific methods I employed to arrive at the
game's prices (or interested in the relative price of different automakers
of the time), here's a list of notable marques along with the real-world
price of their least-expensive 1935 four-door sedan (the two-door sedan was
the best selling style overall that year, but the four-door was the only
style every automaker and brand had a version of, so it makes a handy
yardstick): Willys ($495), Chevrolet ($550), Plymouth ($570), Ford ($575),
Terraplane ($655), Hupmobile ($695), Pontiac ($715), Dodge ($735),
Studebaker ($745), Hudson ($770), Graham ($775), Oldsmobile ($790), Auburn
($795), DeSoto ($795), Chrysler ($830), Nash ($875), Buick ($895), Packard
($1,060), LaSalle ($1,545), Cadillac ($2,445), Pierce Arrow ($2,895), Stutz
($3,095), Lincoln ($4,300). In terms of actual recorded transactions, the
average 1935 price paid for a car (not just sedans, but every sort) is
$705, which means a lot more "Working Class" and "Middle Class" cars were
sold than Cadillacs and Lincolns. Not much of a shock there. The Fly From
Evil price are based on existing averages sorted by body type, divided into
approximate "class groups," adjusted to the FFE$ standard (1935 prices are
a little cheaper than the 1930s prices overall) and weighted according to
manufacturer dominance (that is to say, Ford sold a lot more sedans than
Terraplane, so Ford's price got a bigger "vote" in the pre-rounded
average). The game's other monetary figures are rooted in similar methods.

==================================================================

And so on and so on with some bits about custom bodies relative to the
basic chassis and yadda yadda.

Now, in the actual game, you just plunk down $600 and suddenly own a
Working Class Sedan. But behind that, there is what's above ... lurking in
the appendix behind the Designer's Notes (nono ... the Designer's Notes is
a _separate_ mind-desiccating essay).

Ah, the appendices. The beating heart of a great game.

On the other hand, there are also amusing random tables in there.
Appendices are a many splendored thing.

This is what happens when I respond at 7 in the morning.



|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

If anyone's hovering near a keyboard, I'm in the #BlueRoom channel on
magicstar.net -- you can get there with any IRC client. I'll be there for
the next hour or three while I'm working on some stuff prepping for our
trip to Newfoundland. Drop by, ask questions, hang out, yap.

If you've never done IRC before, just do a Google on it (or on mIRC, the
most popular Windows client for it ... Mac has 'em too but I don't know
what they're called) and you can be up in running in a minute or two.

Best -



|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

>Not from me, mind you. I don't have anything to add, except that I did
>finally read Poodle Springs on your recommendation (S. John) and quite
>enjoyed it. So let us know what's going on, even if you are still just
>tweaking the name lists. :-)

This past week I've been doing expanded material on life in the FBI,
including some fresh details I've dug out of some memoirs. I've also been
doing lots of simple vehicle diagrams ... Lots of pulp-era games sling
model terms around without explaining them very well, so I want to make
sure FFE players know the difference between a sedan and a cabriolet and a
phaeton (and between a touring car and a touring sedan!)*** that kind of thing.

The local campaigns have been doing really nicely. Tonight, for a change of
pace, we did a scenario with ordinary beat cops to test out some recent
tweaks to the initiative rules :) Lots of action, including a fun climactic
rooftop sequence. It was the first session in ages that didn't include any
hints of the campaign subplots, but there were so many knuckles and bullets
flying around we didn't much care.

Sorry about the radio silence ... This is such a huge project (think 4th
Edition Pendragon, only about hardboiled crime drama, and done by one
person all at once instead of by several writers, graphic designers and so
on over four editions) ... that doing any kind of day-to-day "design diary"
would be pretty tedious.

The focus is, if anything, getting tighter. More and more, I'm describing
the world specifically from the perspective of the private eyes. They have
the best seat in the house, in terms of how many "worlds" they're privy to,
and by keeping the angle focused I can let the genre biases give the game a
deeper character. Again, like Pendragon in that regard (one of the biggest
design influences, along with Paranoia, Gangbusters, and Call of Cthulhu).

If I yabber much more I'll start getting abstract and philosophical, and
that would annoy nobody more than me. Suffice it to say that local playtest
continues to be very satisfying, all the parts are coming together well,
and I look forward to the next round of blindtest tremendously.

As a note of trivia, my new BESM worldbook, URESIA: GRAVE OF HEAVEN is on
game shop shelves. Members of this mailing list are probably among the very
few gamers who'll notice the hardboiled crime-drama in-joke tucked away in
the eastern islands ...

Whoever points it out first, in email to sjohn@..., will get a free
Sparks set of his choice immediately, and a free copy of Fly From Evil when
it comes out. ;)



=================
*** I had originally written a brief explanation of the difference between
touring cars and touring sedans here, but it just went to prove why it's
much better to do simple diagrams for that kind of thing. ;)

|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

>  Please let me know what
>you think.

I think you missed some classic RPGs ;) The most serious omission is the
one and only GANGBUSTERS by Mark Acres (TSR). Years later, it's [first
edition] still the very best hardboiled RPG, at least until FFE goes
public. Despite being a thin little wisp of a game, it packs more genre and
period resource material than many modern games five times its weight,
including good stuff for secondary roles like the men of the press.
GANGSTER! by Rick Marinacci and Pete Petrone is another worthy classic.
There are quite a number of others.

The very best RPG available currently for the period/genre, I think, is
MOBSTERS - a nice little amateur freeware game from Burger Games
http://www.burgergames.com/

In addition to the pure-genre games, you have genre-mixing games like
Bloodshadows (noir with supernatural elements), and pulp-era/modern action
games that give good coverage to private eye gaming (dozens of these,
including MS&PE from Blade, JUSTICE INCORPORATED from Hero Games, and so on
and so on).

Anyway, the Fly From Evil bibliography will, of course, explore the entire
history of crime-drama gaming, especially those games focusing on the
Machine Age.



|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

Greetings everyone. I recently joined this list and wanted say hello.
I've been a fan of hard-boiled detective stories for sometime now (I'd
say Chandler in my favortie).

Incedently, I recently created a noir/hard-boiled rpg website. It's
small at the moment, but I plan to expand it. Please let me know what
you think.

Cheers,

Forge

http://www.geocities.com/forge88/shadow_line.html

Good morning :)

>1. As I'm a huge fan of Raymond Chandler, how much material are you
>devoting to other major cities like, say, Los Angeles? Will there be a Los
>Angeles suppliment, or was the comment in the FAQ a little joke?

The genre/period sourcebook will include a whirlwind tour of other American
cities of the time; major ones like Los Angeles get a couple of pages of
description and a rough street map.

As for a Los Angeles sourcebook: Yeah, I'd love to have one (not only do I
love Chandler, I'm a major Stuart Kaminsky junkie). It'll certainly happen
if the game supports itself (and I have every reason to expect it will, at
this stage, judging by the positive reaction the All-Systems Library and
other things have had).

Speaking of Chandler and L.A., I _finally_ bit the bullet and read Poodle
Springs a few months ago, and I feel deeply ashamed of myself for
superstitiously avoiding that book for all this time. A very engaging
novel, I found, worthy of Marlowe in every sense.

>  2. You said in the FAQ that the game stops at 1949 do to changes
> necessary to go beyond that date. Could you expand on the meaning of
> that? What changes were you refering to?

God, there are so many. The hardboiled era (that's the Fly From Evil term
for its chosen period, from 1920 to 1949) isn't just an arbitrary set of
dates; it's a very distinctive and somewhat _stretched_ capsule of time in
terms of social change, technological change, and even changes in police
standards and procedure. The bracketing is mostly a matter of the two World
Wars, the stretching (slowing) of period change is mostly a matter of the
Depression . . . But there are other factors as well germane to the game,
including the birth of urban America (1920 is the first year the Census
told us that more Americans lived in cities than in rural environments, a
tiny note that would correlate to many related social upheavals) and then
the huge shifts in the economy (the post-World War II economy bears little
resemblance to the pre-war one, with such violent jumps in costs of living
and prices of goods and services that it would throw the game's already
abstracted fiscal structure into a nasty tailspin). And then, of course,
there are the big differences in law enforcement . . . the 1950s begins the
era of the modern, technologically-assisted professional cop: the 1950s
sees the introduction of real police cars (manufactured to specialized cop
standards instead of just ordinary cars painted black and white), the first
consistent use of in-car _transmitting_ radios, huge
war-technology-inspired leaps in forensic technique, and other matters
deserving not only separate treatment, but demanding a pretty different
style of play (many of these things _exist_ in the 1940s, but they aren't
standard enough to disturb gameplay).

And, in more elusive terms, America just wasn't "hardboiled" anymore. The
Cold War is the next social era in America, and it's just a different
country. If you'll look at the private eye fiction of that time, that's
when it starts becoming a self-referential genre; it becomes conscious of
its own traditions because the traditions are frozen. By the 1950s, the
private-eye image is already starting to settle into nostalgia, because
we're into the next phase of the cop's existence. After the hardboiled era,
cops shed the last of their "corporate bull" patina and become legitimate
heroes in the public eye ... Which means the _private_ eye is no longer
necessary as a "cop for the people;" he becomes a relic. Since Fly From
Evil is very much a romantic game of a particular breed of American
mythology, the game stays put in those years when the PI was an extension
of urban myth and hope.

>  3. Since I want this game so bad I can taste it, is there any chance of
> seeing a little tease of your work-in-progress? Pretty, pretty please?

Well, if you're ever in Austin, let me know and I'll slip you into one of
the local playtest campaigns :) We've got a fun double-game running now
(nearly) every week, with alternating weeks devoted to private-eye and
gangster campaigning. It's been a hoot.

... I'll put up some substantive samples of the text closer to release
time, though. You'd find this week's work pretty dull going, anyway -- lots
of stuff on character names! Endless ramblings (badly in need of
forthcoming edits and trims) on stuff like the different approaches to
Jewish naming conventions (Ashkenazim avoid naming babies after living
relatives vs Sephardim making a _point_ of naming babies after living
relatives ...) and going over the name lists to make sure they match the
trends of the turn of the last century and avoid subtle anachronisms like
suggesting that an adult Irishwoman be named "Colleen" in the game.

Lots of yadda-yadda, but playtest has demonstrated time and again that
questions like "What are some good Irish names? What are some good Italian
names?" and so on are questions the GM will need to be able to answer with
a smile and a page-flip ;) Not quite as sexy as the sections on cars and
guns, to be sure, but every bit as useful, if not moreso.

======
Just to save time: "Colleen" is an old Irish word for "girl" but it was
never used as a name in Ireland. The practice of naming girls "Colleen"
began in American Irish communities with infants born in the 1940s; the
name peaked in popularity in the 1960s.



|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

One of the local playtesters pointed this out today; its good news!

http://www.svgames.com/downloads-wotc-gangbusters.html

Gangbusters and the three adventures are available in PDF form. It's the
3rd edition of the game, which isn't my personal favorite incarnation, but
it's still head and shoulders (and about another 700 million miles) above
any other existing game relating to the genre. There's a pretty good slice
of worthy source material in there -- a bargain at triple the price. The
adventures are more of a mixed bag, but they're cheap, so its not a big
risk if you're feeling splurgy.

NOTE: I haven't actually seen or reviewed the PDF version; I'm just going
by my well-worn hardcopy stack :) But all of the WotC PDFs have been of
reasonable quality, so give it a look!



|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

>Just saw this mentioned over on the Daily Illuminator...
>
>http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historic_us_cities.html
>
>And thought I'd pass it along to here.

Amusingly (perhaps), that's the library (the PCL) where I do 75% of the Fly
  From Evil research, anyway (at the physical archive, not the website),
and, in fact, where we played one of the playtest sessions two weeks ago
(those group-study rooms are handy) ;)



|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

Just saw this mentioned over on the Daily Illuminator...

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historic_us_cities.html

And thought I'd pass it along to here.

Key Largo starts on TCM in a few minutes, and it's been a good day since
the break of dawn (both Angels with Dirty Faces and The Petrified Forest
have aired).

But, more important, today they've got the two fundamental Bogart
private-eye films running back-to-back. The Maltese Falcon airs at 11AM
Central Standard Time, and The Big Sleep airs at 1PM. If you're a genre
fan, you've already got at least one copy of each, but if you're a
newcomer, you need to catch up :)

(And stick around for High Sierra afterwards -- an excellent "one last
heist" Bogart film).

Today's more than a prime taping day, though: Today begins the local
(non-blindtest) series of "second wave" playtest. Blindtest won't begin
until this fall, but I've assembled a local crew to help me take some early
pot-shots at the new draft, and we're doing a social get-together tonight
to make characters, discuss the game, and see how we click. As you can
imagine, I'm pretty jazzed ;) Wish us luck!

Hope this finds you well -




|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

This week, I've had a lot of Fly From Evil correspondence, including one
_really_ long exchange that ended up reading like a half-written Fly From
Evil FAQ ...

So, as long as it was half-written, I brushed it off, padded it out, and
finished it.

http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/ffe-faq.htm

With my luck, it'll inspire more questions than it answers, but it answers
a LOT of questions. I've included a link to an easy-to-print RTF version,
since reading the whole thing online would not be good for the eyes ;)

MONK

I'm watching the new detective show on USA ... And it's really fun, but
I've always been a sucker for Tony Shalhoub, anyway. He'll always be "Ben
Geisler" to me, but this is one of the better "gimmick PI" shows I've seen
in a long time. Strong start ...



|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn

GRAB A BLANK TAPE ...

Turner Classic Movies is showing some fun stuff tonight. After the Thin man
is in the home stretch, now (an obvious favorite, with both a San Francisco
setting and Powell as amusing as ever), but lots more on the way, beginning
with The Kennel Murder Case in about a half an hour. For those who've seen
all the Thin Man movies but have managed to miss Powell in his earlier
remarkably-thin-man-like performance as Philo Vance, give it and the other
movies following a nice gander with the VCR.

Speaking of the High-Society-Detective subgenre, I caught an interesting
non-crime film with Sandra at the Paramount last night: The Women, a crazy
little comedic ensemble piece from the late 30s, starring Rosalind Russel,
Joan Crawford and about sixty other women (not a single man passes before
the camera). It'll probably make the cut into the non-crime period section
of the filmography, because in addition to being a crackerjack comedy, it
has much to offer any Game Master doing the Society angle (or, as a bonus,
any film where divorce is a key feature in the crime).

Oh, while I"m here: Tomorrow night at 5PM (Central), TCM are showing Dark
Passage, a very "key" Fly From Evil film, with Bogart, Bacall, murder,
plastic surgery and other oddness, all against a San Francisco backdrop
with plenty of exterior shots. Good fun.

GENERAL UPDATE

I get a lot of questions about Fly From Evil in the mail, but 90% of them
all translate to a request for an official release date. Here's the
boilerplate: There is none, and there won't be until the game is 99.9%
finished and redundantly backed up on several CDs and a few corners of the
net, just in case :)

The game continues to develop nicely as we edge to the end of our second
year of design and playtest. With a little luck and several months of elbow
grease, this autumn's major round of blindtest should be the final step
before the game goes into production ... but, as always, no promises. Fly
  From Evil will be one of the finest RPGs ever assembled for any genre for
any reason, and I'm staking a lot of hours on it, so I won't be hurrying it
at any stage. Quality remains the _only_ priority. I've turned aside quite
a few promising freelance contracts over the past couple of years to build
Cumberland, and Fly From Evil is the ultimate expression of what Cumberland
is about ... So, no skimping.

As always, I'm working on several different projects, but this year is
FFE's year as my front-burner project, and I've touched little else for the
past couple of months. The new revision of the slender section of
rules-material is done (and I'll be doing several rounds of local playtest
in the next few weeks; drop me a line if you're in Austin and you're
interested), so most of the work is, as ever, on the REAL heart of the
book: the big wobbly mountain of gorgeous source material. Even those very
familiar with my work will, I'm very sure, be shocked by just how much
STUFF I'm digging up and sifting into the final game. Nothing on this scale
has ever been attempted in a single pass by a single designer before, so
you'll pardon me if it doesn't whiz by ;)

That said, keep the questions coming (private email is best, but feel free
to post to this list if you think it's a matter of general interest).
They've been nearly as valuable as some of the blindtest rounds, and that's
saying something ;)

Hope this finds you all well.

Best -



|| S. John Ross
|| Husband · Cook · Writer
|| In That Order
|| http://www.io.com/~sjohn