I Waste The Buddha With My Crossbow

Dukes of Biohazzard - Chapter 2, Part 1

2012-01-26T12:59:00.000-05:00

CHAPTER 2

“BECAUSE THEY’RE COUSINS” -- Character Creation
As mentioned before, all PCs in The Dukes of Biohazzard are cousins. Them’s the rules. In fact, let’s call them PCs, or “Player Cousins”. They don’t have to be first or even second cousins, but cousins they must be. Because they are all kin to each other, they stick together, cover each other’s butts and stand up for the family name.
Or not. Whichever.

What You Is?
As you can well imagine, gamer that you are, there’s no shortage of booger-headed mutant freaks in this game. Player Cousins may choose to be relatively normal baseline humans with virtually untouched genes just as easily as they can decide to be real weird-ass Rob Bottin nightmares. Possibly, PCs can just lie somewhere in between--call them “genetic scratch-and-dent” cases. If you’re making a character, choose this level of messupedness now. NOW! GO ON, CUZZ! YEEEE-HAAAW!
By the way. The choice you just made has no mechanical benefit or detriment other than to guide you on how to spend your dice, which you get to do in this next section, called--

Fixin’ To Get Ready

Just as in reg’lar Mini Six, all PCs start with 12D for Attributes and 7D for Skills and Perks. The Attributes are the same as always, but with different names, like so:

Might	Heftin'
Agility	Squirmin'
Wits	Brainin'
Charm	Courtin'

Skills

Most skills from Mini Six are likewise available, although most having to do with technology more advanced than the carburetor in a Dodge Charger are going to get real lonely.

Living in Biohazzard County (the in-game name of the setting) requires and allows its own unique skill set, though; here are some new skills that you may wish to use in your game. I could only think of two, though...but that’s OK, because this game doesn’t need to go getting all complex and nuanced.

Wrasslin’ (Heftin’): Not just a form of combat but also a performing art, Wrasslin’ is an important skill to have in the post-apocalyptic thigamaplace here. A good wrassler is not only a formidable opponent in a fight, but can also be an imposing presence in social encounters. In some places, a good wrassler has certain social advantages, too...

Stillin’ (Brainin’): As fossil fuels are no longer available (having all been consumed during the war...did I mention that?), citizens of the post-apocalyptic whatchamacallit must rely on alternative fuel sources, both for survival and for trade. Ergo, Stillin’ is the ability to make combustible fuel out of whatever biomass is available. It can also be used to make hooch, which can also be used for trade or entertainment. Don’t drink and drive, kids.

Perks

Of these, there are more. How else you gonna trick out your Player Cousin with, like, eye lasers and stuff? (Note: “Eye Lasers” is not an available perk. I am a liar and a jerk.)

Muscle Car (2): You have a muscle car. It’s whatever color, make and model you want, and it can be decorated as you please. A Plymouth Duster with an airbrushed Virgen De Guadalupe would be nice; maybe a lime-green AMC Machine with...I dunno, like, how about an elephant stencilled on the hood? That’d be different. Working door latches are optional. NOTE: Two PCs may each contribute 1 die to this Perk, and thus receive joint ownership of the car.
Gams (1): Ooooh, you is a sexy cousin. Gain +3 to all social interactions with other sentient beings who are not repulsed by you. Also, you can wear cut-off denim shorts without looking like you’re walking on cottage cheese hot dogs. Note that “Gams” need not be restricted to female cousins, nor does its other form, “Pecs”.
Muated Up (1-3): You have a beneficial mutation, and you can even use it. This is purposely left vague, because I’m less keen on lists of powers and more into makin’ stuff up. So just describe the mutation (Third Leg, Cat Eyes, Tobacco Spit Gland) and what it does (bonus to balance rolls, see in the dark, spit a stream of foul ichor at a target within 15’) and you’re golden. But hang on, here are some rules of thumb:

Each die you spend on this Perk grants either a +3 bonus to a logically-related roll or set of rolls OR 1D of effect in damage or whatever
You can’t have more than 3 mutations of mechanical consequence
If you have a 3-die Perk, then you are Mutated Up Something Fierce and must describe yourself as such

Dukes Of Biohazzard: Interstitial

2012-01-23T12:59:00.000-05:00

Chapter 1, "Because They're Cousins", is going to be the character creation chapter. It's been started, but it's not done yet.

In the meantime, please enjoy this preview image:

The Dukes of Biohazzard: Chapter 0

2012-01-20T12:57:00.002-05:00

THE DUKES OF BIOHAZZARD

A Mini-Six Game of Post-ApocalypticCrick-Jumpin' Mayhem

INTRODUCTION; or, "What The StinkIS This?!"

Well,it's a Mini-Six Game of Post-Apocalyptic Crick-Jumpin' Mayhem. Itwas inspired by a comment made some years ago on a blog, or on agamig forum, or something. It is driven by my desire to see how muchof a game supplement I can write on my luch hour, while listening to"The Best Of Al Jarreau".

Yeah. It's like that.

Moresalient to your interests, "The Dukes of Biohazzard" is anaction/comedy game set in a mutated future USA, where all the PCs arecousins, there are cars to drive and wreck, fuel to distill up in themountains and semi-intelligent electric kudzu. If you're of acertain age, let me just say "Mad Max Meets The Dukes Of HazzardAt Thundarr's", and it will all make sense.

See?

THESETTING; or, "Where The Stink does this happen?!"

Look,matey, I'm not gonna lie to you--this setting is pretty vague, butyou've probably figured out that it's not the type of setting thatought to be anything BUT vague. Still and all, here's where we areand how we got there...

1980:WHOOPS!

Theworld was on the brink of nuclear war as the United States and theUnited Socialist Soviet Republics had been ratlling their giantthermonuclear sabres at each other for the last, like, twenty-fiveyears. Tensions mounted, ideologies clashed, political alliancesswayed and The Village People sold out stadiums. Truly the stage wasset for the end of times.

From aremote base on the far side of the Moon, a team of Traxelianscientists observed the conflicts closely, using their advanced alientechnology (they were aliens) to remain hidden and study the Earth'shuman population. The Traxelian Xenosociologists at the base hadbeen gathering data for five years straight, looking for signs ofintelligence. They'd found it right away, but hesitated to publishtheir results until such time as they had mapped a few select trendsin human sociological development and thus had some nifty charts tosubmit with their papers.

Ofthese scientists, one team in particular had been assigned to studythe effects of mass media communications on societal development,specifically as related to variety programs. The team had beenfascinated by the content of a short-lived television programstarring American comedian Jeff Altman and Japanese singers MitsuyoNemoto and Keiko Masuda, who together comprised the singing duo PinkLady (well, the girls did, not Jeff). The program recieved poorviewership reactions on Earth (not so on the Traxilonian base), andstruggled to find a successful time slot for it.

TheTraxilonians struggled to keep up with the scheduling changes andsoon became frustrated. In their efforts, they attempted to set up asurface listening station outside of the production studio--a compactdevice that would register and transmit tiny variations in the localenvironment. The team applied for clearance to deploy the sensorpackage, and received it right away. On April 4^th,1980, the Traxilonian lander set down in Hollywood California, andbegan broadcasting via tight microwave beam to the Traxilonian base.

Thesignals were detected by the US Military, reported to the CIA,misidentified as a Russian plot, and caused World War III.

2012:DANG!

32years later, Earth's all mutated up and stuff. It all looks likerural Alabama, only with glowing plants and weird messed-up creaturesand like that.

Thisis the world of "The Dukes of Biohazzard".

MORELATER!

Hail Eris! 23 Questions!

2012-01-18T19:54:00.000-05:00

1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
That's a toss-'em-up between the Pyrurse, The Adventure Funnel and something I've probably forgotten. Yeah, that's not a single. You wanna fight?!

2. When was the last time you GMed?

Just before Christmas. The last time before that was in the Summer.

3. When was the last time you played?

The Lincoln administration.

4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.

"Doc Rotwang!'s friends finally have time off concurrently and come over to game."

5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?

Think of new and entertaining ways to propel the plot.

6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?

Whattaya got?

7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?

Yeah...I'm not 16 anymore. DAMMIT, THANK YOU FOR BRINGING IT UP.

8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?

Your question requires that I have a recent-enough memory of such an activity.

9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?

No, they're pretty respectful.

10. What do you do with goblins?

Make 'em go 'vroom vroom' and crash 'em into each other.

11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?

I don't even bother anymore, it'll never get used.

12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?

I'm now too depressed to think of funny stuff.

13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?

"Philotomy's Musings", because I want to run OD&D next month. HA HA HA HA HA! HA! AAAAAH, HA HA HA HA HAHAHA!

14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?

Jim Holloway.

15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?

Nope! If it does, they got badass poker faces.

16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)

Ha! Dude, that was sometime in the Pleistocene.

17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?

The body I had when I was 16.

18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?

HERO FREd and Theatrix.

19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?

Mexico City ca. 1983, Star Wars, New Wave music and not being 16 anymore.

20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?

The kind who is active, engaged and never, ever quotes Spaceballs.

21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?

Yak wrestling.

22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?

Yes. But since time is linear, it cannot exist.

23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?

Yeah, but I keep those conversations short more for the sake of brevity and not being a dull, overbearing interlocutor.

That Girl's Hair Doesn't Let The Light Pass Through

2012-01-17T23:16:00.001-05:00

...but the cruelest thing is that every time I listen to it, I move further and further away in time.

Type V Elephant In The Room

2012-01-16T21:58:00.000-05:00

Has anyone else noticed it?

No?

No one?

Anyone?

Just me?

I gotta wonder, 'cause every time I read about how D&D: The New Hotness is supposed to bridge all editions, I think of how Castles & Crusades...kinda...um...

...

...does that already.

Am I the only one? 'Cause, dude, I can slot any an' alla that D&D stuff into C&C, since C&C doesn't particularly care what edition your character is from as long as you have stats, a level, a class and an idea of what that class means.

Has anyone else thought of this? Am I alone?!

AM I INSANE?!*

PICTURED: Rotwang!?

*ANSWER: Yes, but not in a rifle-and-clock-tower way.

R E A D Y

2012-01-11T20:34:00.003-05:00

I busted out the old 2nd Ed hardbacks one night in college; talkin' 1999 or early 2000, here. I was running the game for some pals in the dorm, plus a girl from my Broadcasting classes (Megan Grady, where are you, baby?). I fell back into the rules pretty quickly, which was, at the time, a bad thing.

The rules felt clunky; I can't tell you how, but something felt wrong, even though it was all familiar. I started to feel the way I felt when I dropped the game ("like a greasy fingernail taco", as I used to say) in the first place. More than once that night, I hanged my head and shook it and muttered, "I can't wait until Third Edition comes out."

Then Third Edition did come out, and I loved it, and I was the first person at my FLGS to buy a copy at the midnight release party, and I loved the new game and I playes it and played it and then got sick of it and screw that noise.

Only, now and then I pull those old 2nd Ed rules offa the shelf, 'cause unlike the 3rd Edition stuff, it's all still in my house, and I crack them open and I get to looking at them and I go, "Huh".

"...Huh!"

"Hmmmm...mm-hm."

...and all those feelings of crusty old dislike start to flake away, and my stance towards the old tomes softens; I start to see things in there which I always knew were there, but I see them now in a different light.

It's almost as if...as if--

--AS IF IT MAKES MORE SENSE TO ME NOW.

2nd Edition was virtually my introduction to D&D (it was not my first RPG; that honor belongs to Star Wars). I had a copy of the Red Box, but as far as I was concerned, that was just as a preview of The Real Deal. I got in on the ground floor on it, too, as this preview booklet came home with me from the comics shop on the day I decided to take the plunge.* Once I got the PHB and the DMG for Christmas, I spent the next few weeks absolutely devouring them, ferreting out every rule, studying every procedure and absorbing, absorbing, absorbing.

Not all of it made sense--minute-long combat rounds, what?!-but all of it made magic. I got ready, and I made it happen.

Eventually the magic wore off and I picked up Rolemaster 2nd instead, and then years passed and hi, I'm Dr Rotwang! and this is my blog.

So it's easy (in fact, too easy) to dismiss my increasing 2nd Ed jones as mere nostalgia, rose-colored glasses. But look, man, I don't roll that way. I see its warts and all. I see the good and the bad, and now and again I run into a blog post that serves to remind me of what I'm looking at (and thanks for that, Mike Hensley). Now I am ready for real.

Before I started running AD&D, a schoolmate and gaming buddy cautioned me that it was a difficult system to run, and that I would have quite a challenge in front of me, and that he knew all this from experience. I saw through him; he was blowin' me smoke to aggrandize himself, and possibly to intimidate me. In a sense, though, he was right--but not for the reasons that he wanted me to believe.

Don't ask me how...

...but I understand this game now.

And I want to run it again.

*I used to go to Waldenbooks and gawk at the games section, and the AD&D books always looked so...I dunno, so advanced. The sight of those austere orange spines stood like a fence behind which only the mighty could stand. Those orange spines were The Guardians of The Big Time, and I wasn't ready.

I Don't Understand Why The Internet Is Not Vibrating Like A Vegas Motel Bed Over This Announcement

2012-01-10T22:56:00.002-05:00

For Reals.

2+3=X (Solve For X)

2012-01-09T19:55:00.002-05:00

Hail Eris!

Yeah...I don't believe in any gods, but I make kind of an exception for Eris Discordia. I don't believe in her--


"I'm a scientist, Ranger Brad..."

--but I do think Discordianism is funny, and reading about it truly helped shape me as I am today. Why, I remember when I was but a whelp of 20 Summers, when first I--

--what, the WotC thing? Naaaah.

EAT AT JOE'S: Irvania!

2011-12-29T23:22:00.000-05:00

Look...I'll put it like this. If you haven't checked out Dave Ferris' Irvania.com, what with its free wargames, wacky fictional nation and copious images of miniature guys with sticks and robots wearing ties...

...man, you oughtta. Trust me. This is some stuff, babies.

A Very Atheist Christmas

2011-12-24T21:01:00.001-05:00

May yours be like mine -- Merrily spent with family, with food, with fun and with love.

See?

Not evil.

I Am About To Live One.

2011-12-20T18:51:00.001-05:00

[[[Sound 360]]]

"And here's a poster of the Landmaster from Damnation Alley."

Troy Allen had seen a lot of SF that I had never heard of. He was older than me, and sometimes it seemed like his past had taken place in a long-gone neverwhen lost to me through time.

"I'm not familiar with that. Was it a TV ser--"

"Aw, maaaaan! You haven't seen Damnation Alley?" Alan Rice, too, seemed to know of this distant wonderland; he was the one who introduced me to Troy, after all. Maybe that's where he found him.

Troy smiled, a big-ass goofy smile. He may have squinted with delight to have another shiny memory to share. "It was a post-apocalyptic movie. They had these vans, see, with the wheels...."

He and Alan went on with this little bit of my nerd education (nerducation?), there in Troy's grey-lit room in a little house somewhere in Harrodsburg, IN. I couldn't tell you where it was, now.

Troy, man. Troy knew a lot of stuff, and when he told me about stuff like this the gleam in his eyes and the glee in his voice made me want to fall in love with them, too--these ephemeral things that I knew I'd never see, these obscure and unknown tidbits of my geek heritage. I'd written them off, though, as things of another world, never to be seen by me.

Standing in Troy's room on a cold winter day ca. 1990, I would never have dreamed that, when babies born that week would finally be able to get legally blasted at a bar, I would be idly browsing the DVD selection on the Monroe County Public Library's Bookmobile and that there, in orange and yellow, those words would stare back at me, plastic monolith of mystery revealed.

Troy doesn't read this blog. But if he did, I'd say to him: "HA, HA HA HA HA -- LOOK AT WHAT I FOUND!"

Almost Perfect

2011-12-19T23:08:00.001-05:00

It's missing the header and footer images, and the NPC illustration was usually a cameo inside the frame, but I think it came out pretty OK. Illustration totally swiped from the Star Wars Artists' Guild website, and modified a bit by me. No offense, Blooburd.

ATTENTION ALL INTERNET

2011-12-06T23:36:00.001-05:00

FREE CHARACTERS

2011-11-27T21:35:00.001-05:00

Here are the PCs from of one of our (my wife's and my) Annual Halloween Games. This particular one was inspired by those awful SyFy Original Pictures that we never watch, and it was about college students in the Australian Outback who met up with a lycanthropy victim who turned into a native wild dog.

The game was titled "Mandingo".

It was diceless, and the characters were described like this:

THE CHEERLEADER

"Oh-my-GOD. This is like so- totally-lame. I want my money back from the manager of Australia."

You are better thaneveryone else -- either they can't tell because they're so stupid or they won'tadmit it because...because they're so stupid. You drive a Hummer, for chrissakes. With an MP3 player and OnStar. This folklore class is just a damn electivethat stands between you and your MRS degree, and you're only here in theOutback or whatever because you're keeping your eye on The Smart Jock. God, couldn't the damn class just go study,like, beach anthropology? Or something?

GOOD AT

î Cheering

î Acrobatics

î "Acting"

BAD AT

î Noticingobvious things

î Takingdirections

î Doinganything more complex than your hair

THE SMART JOCK

" 'A roseby any other name would still smell as sweet'. Kind of like when the Colts traded Edgerrin James to the Cardinals andhe rushed for 94 yards and one touchdown."

Dude, you've totallygotta ace this class or Coach will boot your ass off the team. But no sweat, though, no sweat -- you totallyget how, like, anthropology is distinguished from other social-sciencedisciplines by its emphasis on cultural relativity, in-depth examination ofcontext, and cross-cultural comparisons. Plus, after this trip, you can say you've been to Australia, andyou might get to lay some transatlantic pipe with The Cheerleader while you'rehere. Also, it'd be good to collect yourown notes on Aboriginal oral traditions related to Dreamtime, and you might getto meet Crocodile Dundee.

GOOD AT

î Athletics

î Playing drumson things that aren't really drums

î Knowing,like, folklore shit

BAD AT

î Shutting upat the appropriate moment

î Keeping yourcool when things go bad

î Forminginterpersonal relationships which do not involve slapping somebody's ass

THE PROFESSOR

"Remember,people, just because these folks don't have a Starbucks doesn't mean they'resavages; it just means they pay less for coffee."

The Peoples of the Earth-- that's your passion. Knowing,learning and sharing your knowledge of the varied cultures of the world is thenoblest goal you could ever set for yourself. Well, that, and Department Chair. The research you gather on this trip will prove invaluable for yourthesis, and these students will help you get it while they gain valuablereal-world experience. It'swin/win! You might even list them in afootnote.

GOOD AT

î Soulless,ivory-tower Academia

î Persuasion

î Being thecenter of attention

BAD AT

î Violence(barbaric!)

î Respectingsomeone else's opinion

î Understandingthe Jock's sports references

THE OBSESSIVEOVER-ACHIEVER

"This mightjust be another class trip for you, but for me, it's another opportunity forachievement. That's really good, Ishould write that down."

You know...you don't reallyhate the other students. No, it'snothing like that. You're just -- they'rejust not in the same place as you, really -- that's what it is. They're here to pass the class but you'rehere to make a mark, to improve, to expand, to exceed. They mistake your studiousness and focus forstandoffishness and alienation; plus, they don't share your love of TheCure. Therefore, you're willing tosacrifice social mingling for excellence. And anyway, it's not like you have anything really in common withthe Jock, and frankly, nothing you say to The Cheerleader is going to get herpants off.

GOOD AT

î HavingBrilliant Ideas (given enough time to agonize over options)

î Taking notes

î Retreating inorder to consider all avenues of -- okay, okay, hiding

BAD AT

î Makingfriends with people your age

î Breakingconcentration long enough to, you know, eat and sleep

î Mackin' onthe ladies

THEPISTOL-PACKIN' GUIDE

"Out here,mate, ya got yer monitor lizards, yer saltwater crocs, yer dingoes and yerkookaburras. 'And I got a 30-06 Browning 1922 to cark 'em all like a piece ofpiss."

[Personality? Motivation? Goals? Whatever. You're Crocodile Dundee meets EugeneTackleberry from the Police Academy movies. That's all you get and, frankly, that's allyou really need.]

GOOD AT

î Survival(Outback)

î AreaKnowledge (Outback)

î Killing Stuff(Outback)

BAD AT

î Complexconcepts

î Shutting upwhen you really ought to

î Anythingremotely girly (like, say, not killing)

Facepalm²

2011-11-24T17:32:00.001-05:00

First -- NaNoWriMo. No go. That's the fact, and I don't wanna talk about it.

Okay! Now! That outta the way, let me tell you about how FUCK CHANGELING.

Roll back to '95, '96 or so, and you'll find me and my cronies playing the hell out of Changeling. It was tons of fun, and I have lots of fond memories of such. In fact, I still think that the greater premise of the game (half-human/half-faeries walk the narrow line between both literal worlds) is totally awesome and I would totally dig a game with that theme.

So the other night, my daughter and I were reading a book about Irish folklore. Fairies, you know; the sidhe, and like that. So I pulled the old Changeling rulebook off the shelf and started showing it to her, reminiscing. Good times. Mostly we were looking at the art because, even though my first-grader reads at a second-grade level, we were just chatting about the game and not reading it.

Today, however, I pulled the book down again and began to read at random, and got a face-full of White Wolf's notorious (but, to me, largely overlooked) anti-scientific screed.

He's got 5 Dots in "Murdering Wonder".

I can't stomach this stuff anymore. It's ridiculous, patently ridiculous. The assertion that scientific discovery creates "a banal world with no mysteries or wonder" in which "all the questions have been answered" and people have "forgotten how to dream..."

...oh, give me a fucking break.

Look -- no, no, no. I know, I know. The World Of Darkness, and all that. Melodrama, hyperbole, it's a fantasy, it's essentially a horror setting. But it really bugs the hell out of me when I see these arguments about science sucking the magic out life and so on, mostly because it's so grossly antithetical to what science and discovery are all about.

I don't know about you, but when I look up and see the Sun, I don't think it's a giant mysterious lamp in the sky, or a distant inscrutable god or an unknowable cipher of mystery and flame--I see a massive nuclear furnace that is constantly exploding, a star whose energy bathes us with light and heat, a giant roiling inferno that gives life. And the fact that I don't have to guess at that but rather know that it is demonstrably true is so, so, SO much amazing to me than "It's a bonfire...we think".

The more we seek, the more we learn, and the more we learn, the more we realize that our universe is, literally, awesome.

By the way, if you haven't seen this yet...

This is Red Five. I'm going in.

2011-10-31T22:45:00.000-04:00

You know...I've put this off far too long.

I've known about NaNoWriMo for a few years now. I even have the book, "No Plot? No Problem!". I know that I can write, and should do so more often.

I also know that I am a perfectionist, and that I try too hard and shoot too high most of the time.

I need to stop doing that, and this blog has always been about that. I need to step it up, though--I need to give myself that deadline, that freedom, that push.

I just learned to type a few months ago. You know, home-row touch-typing? Since our first family computer in 1989 and up until this Summer, I had always been a (very very fast) hunt-and-peck typist. It was fun and it was funny, but touch-typing is a hell of a lot cooler.

I'm putting it to use.

I don't have a plot, but I have a theme. Well, something like it, anyway; what I have is a loose concept, kind of a feel, kind of a...vibe. I thought of it the other day, driving home from work. I like it. It's comfortable. It makes little sense and that's how I like it.

I'm gonna write something funny, weird, bitter-sweet and rambunctious. I'm going to play absurd fantasy games with my late childhood, the end of my teens; I will be following the same path that Walter Hill followed when writing Streets of Fire, as told to us by Wikipedia:

According to Hill, the film's origins came out of a desire to make what he thought was a perfect film when he was a teenager and put in all of the things that he thought were "great then and which I still have great affection for[.]"

In other words, I'm going to write my late teens the way they should have been, with robots and alien gods and ridiculous misadventures and all the crazy stuff that never really happened, couldn't happen and would probably break the cosmos in some way or another if it did happen.

Done rambling. See ya in 30.

Dear Shatterzone,

2011-10-23T21:37:00.001-04:00

What the hell is wrong with you?!

Seriously, dude. Seriously.

So...you're talking about the card system, and how you determine initiative with said cards, and that, for such purposes, "S" stands for "Standard Scene" and "D" stands for "Dramatic Scene". Okay, so what's that mean? Well, you also say that Chapter 3 of the Rule Book explains the difference...but then Chapter 3 of the Rule Book plainly states that it's only going to concern itself with Rounds.

Wha.....?

Look...dude. I'm not stupid. I can suss things out, okay? I sort of do that kind of thing for fun. So I'm kind of up to the challenge of, you know, trying to figure you out, but then I look at how damage gets listed like "3 Wounds 7K" and --

--

-- I really don't feel like it's worth the effort.

I'll keep your cards; I can use those with D6 if I want to. The rest of you?


Dr Rotwang! is very disappointed with you, Shatterzone.

The Cross and the Character Sheet: More on Religion and D&D

2011-10-19T18:41:00.001-04:00

I considered that this kind of discussion really belongs on my other blog, but interested parties are likelier to be aware of this one and not that one, so for the nonce, here it stays.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment on yesterday's post. Allow me to address some of them.

Ryan Shelton sez...

Sorry Doc, I honestly don't get what you don't get ;-)
Christianity, or any religious faith for that matter, is not the same as belonging to a fraternal club. Yeah, we both both rites and funny hats and codes of behavior, but religious faith is a way of life (or ought to be) not just getting together on Sunday for singing and fried chicken.

Right away, dude? Thanks for having a sense of humor about this biz. And I agree with you, in a way -- any day is good for singing and fried chicken.

When I do something I ought to be examining whether or not that fits within my way of life. If my way of life is one informed by Christianity, then why wouldn't I examine the activity to see if it fits?

Okay; I get that. What I don't get is what's in D&D--or any RPG, for that matter--that might conflict with that way of life. Why wouldn't it fit? I ask this not rhetorically, but because I really don't know.

After making these statements, Ryan was aked by Kelvin Green,

Out of interest, would you also examine paddling a canoe or drawing a picture -- to use the Doctor's examples -- in the same way? That's the bit that I find most interesting; why is D&D singled out for scrutiny when it's just another hobby? Is it just a holdover from the Satanic Panic of the 80's?

Ryan replied,

Yes, of course. Perhaps I would not consider paddling a canoe with quite the same scrutiny, because it involves no real moral dimension, but yes.

Aha! A moral dimension. This helps things make a little more sense.

So if it's a morality thing, how is it a morality thing? Is there moral dimension to pretending to be a...a space-dude, or a fighter, or an elf or whatever? I'd consider it immoral--or at least unethical and, frankly, dickish--to break into someone's house and steal their stuff, but is it immoral to participate in an imaginary version of same? If so, how?

Then along comes Stuart Robertson, apparently with a blue donut on his face, to express the following:

Most people want the option (although they might not always take it) of playing a character in an RPG that is "like them" but with a Fantasy / Sci-Fi paint job. It's why female gamers want to see strong female characters, non-white gamers want to see non-white characters, gay/lesbian gamers or players with physical disabilities want to see etc. etc. etc. I think it's the same thing for someone for whom religion is a more central part of their life. They want to see that the game includes characters like them.

OKAY. THIS I can grok. But then I gotta wonder, is it the game designers' responsibility to put that into the game?

You could say that, yes indeed, it is. Or at least, they'll be more successful if there's room for all those characters. Better yet if they never give a reason why not to include those characters.

I loved Mage: The Ascension, even though I was sometimes annoyed by its SCIENCE BAD stance. But even then the designers threw me a bone--even though some of the villains (indeed, the major ones) evilbadwrong science dudes, there was not only room for good guy science dudes. More than room, there were established good-science-guy groups.

But even without them, I was able to enjoy the game; most of the time I played a Hermetic mage, in fact. The SCIENCE BAD nonsense was annoying but not an impediment; and anyway, when I was playing, it was MY GAME, and I made it into what I WANTED. Again, that was sort of the point of gaming, for me.

So if you're a muslim or a christian or whatever and you want to play D&D, why not just say, "My dude's Jewish, so he doesn't eat the pork the merchant offers us. But he'll eat the beef! I bought him two plates."

I mean, after all, we're just pretending, for fun.

Apparently Oddyssey AKA Natalie Bennet is of the same mind as I (in this matter at least), as she chimes in:

I think some of the issue here is, "Is D&D compatible with Christianity" is a totally legitimate question, but the stuff that people look at when they're deciding is kind of nuts. Like I think there are some legitimate questions from a Christian perspective (caveat being that I am not a Christian myself. Mostly. I dunno what I am right now.) as to -- The big one being, Is this something that doing it is going to take me away from God and the people around me?

If a game can take you away form your god, is your god that powerful after all? It seems like a snarky question, but it arises at this point. As for the people around you, do you mean will they judge you? I thought only God could judge.

There's also, I think, some legitimate questions to be asked and considered about the way the game generates and handles moral content. Do I need to always run my character according to Christian ethics in order to be a good Christian? Or is it better to use the game to explore other ethical systems (or the lack thereof), or at least to mess around with them however I want because it's a game and it's for relaxation and the moral content isn't a big deal because it's not real people? Those are maybe questions with fairly obvious answers, but they're also, I think, questions that deserve asking if you're a person who has a strong moral/ethical worldview and wants to make sure that all your actions, every day, are in line with that moral/ethical worldview.

Fair enough. I agree, the answers are obvious ones. As for the matter of the ethical worldview, well...I get that, I really do. I just think that, when the point of the game is to do whatever you want with it, then the question is far less important than "Do we have enough Mountain Dew for everybody?"

Lastly I will address rsteve76's comment, and I leave it for last because -- really, dude?

You were born an atheist? Really? If anything, you were born an agnostic. Atheism literally means "no God," vs. Agnosticism, which means "no knowledge." Unless your first words were "there is no God," I'm guessing you were an agnostic, if that.

Semantics. You wanna argue semantics. I accept -- I am a fan of trying hard to say what I mean.

I maintain that I was born an atheist because I was born not believing in any gods. Sure, I had no knowledge of any, either; in fact I had knowledge of very little at all, except for "HUNGRY" and "MUST WAIT A FEW YEARS FOR NEW WAVE MUSIC".

Okay so not that last one.

"Atheism" means "without a god". Atheists are called that because they've arrived at the conclusion that there probably isn't a god, because the lace of strong evidence makes it a strong likelihood. "Agnostic" means "without knowledge", and I argue that all atheists are also agnostic by strict definition because, hey -- we don't know.

But you don't have to be an expert in invisible textiles to clue in that the emperor is naked.

Both now and throughout recorded history, the majority of people have had some sort of religious belief. Inact, finds of prehistoric man suggest they had some form of belief in the supernatural and possibly an afterlife.

Just as we have long exhibited tendencies toward aggression, tribalism, artistic expression, curiosity, critical thinking, gluttony, genius, mob mentality, bad taste in clothes, prejudice, creativity...

"True atheism," as we know it today, is actually a relatively recent phenomenon. So all of the evidence suggests that mankind, by nature, is a religious creature, and that for one to be a true atheist, he must have it taught out of him.

Please provide that "all the" evidence.

So your assertion that atheism is the natural human state is a fantasy that goes against all of the evidence. But then, that's atheism for ya. ;^)

Nice. That's -- that's brilliant, man. Smack-talk. Good one.

I really hope you're being sarcastic.

Religion, D&D and Crash Helmets for Snails

2011-10-18T22:12:00.001-04:00

Over at Blood of Prokopius, fellow gamer nerd, blogger and human being FrDave wrote a post entitled "Is Christianity Compatible With D&D??

Therein, he muses about whether, you know, Christianity is compatible with D&D. It's an interesting post to be sure, and one that provokes thought.

In me, it provoked a thought as follows:

"Uh...why...does it have to?"

Seriously. It makes no sense to me. I...I just don't get that.

If I, as a teenager, had read that bit in Greyhawk/Supplement 1 and/or Holmes that says--

All vampires, regardless of religious background, are affected by the cross which is sovereign against them.

--I would have been very put off by it. I would have bristled at it, resented it, been outright angry about it. It would not have wanted that intrusion of real-world faith and religion in my fantasy world; that's what gaming was sort of about. Not a retreat from reality, you understand, but a place where I could exercise my creativity, where I could arrange the furniture to taste, so to speak. I already had enough of Christians pushing into me in everyday life¹; why did they follow me into my hobby?

These days I wouldn't react as strongly, mostly because I can look at it and say, "Yeah, not in my game" and move on. But even that's not the point.

The point is that I simply cannot fathom why it needs to be worried about in the first place. What does one have to do with the other? Gaming, as an activity, is that -- an activity. It's like paddling a canoe or drawing a picture or doing something else that brings you joy. It's not life-or-death, damnation-or-salvation (it may be fun-or-boredom, though). Why does a snail have to get fitted for a racing helmet?

Maybe I just don't understand the religious mind. I get that some religious folks (and I'm not singling out FrDave here, 'cause I don't roll that way; if I had beef with him, which I most unquestionably do not, I'd take it to him personally, privately and in the spirit of convivial discussion) have to check everything they do against their religious beliefs. "Is it OK for me, as a Jew/Christian/Muslim/Zoroastrian/Etc., to undertake action x?", where x may be reading a given book, eating a given food, going to a given place or what-have-you.

But I do not get WHY. And I especially don't get why gaming has to go before the review board.

Look -- I understand that the "Satanic Panic" was a very real thing, and that some people really believed that D&D and other RPGs were somehow evil, or gateways to devil-worship, or whatever type of woo. I saw a bit of it first-hand. Once, in high school, a very pretty girl who was actually talking to me on a regular basis and who had me crushing on her totally torpedoed the whole thing by warning me not to play D&D because, in her words, if I cast a spell in the game then my spirit was actually casting the spell and thus defying God. I...still don't get that.

On another occasion, when a Christian schoolmate was attempting to make a point about D&D's evils, I invited him to examine my 2nd Ed. PHB. He was welcome to show me what he thought was evil about it. He shrank back away from the book, as though I were holding up a dead rat. I asked him, "What's the matter?"

His reply: "I don't want to touch it."

"Why?"

"Because I'm afraid I'd get involved with it."

Man...I knew where my fantasy life ended, but these guys...?

So, yeah, it was a thing. I guess it still is. But I suppose that, because I am an atheist (which, incidentally, is how I was born, in much the same way as I was born a human male), this stuff will never make sense to me.

It's a game; you play it. It's a hobby; you indulge your fancy through it. It's an interest; you read about it. You can say the same for chess, for scrapbooking, for the history of the American Civil War. Does Christianity have to be compatible with those, too?

I...man. It just-- huh?!

Seriously. I am bamboozled.

1 I will listen to opposite points of view up until it's clear that the speaker or content is a) full of baloney; or b) being pushy. When I get an earful of both, I get cranky.^↩

The Wizard is Undeterred!

2011-09-20T19:42:00.004-04:00

You saw this, right?

NO?!

SEE IT NOW!

This Is What A 1-Mile Hex Has In It

2011-09-06T00:13:00.001-04:00

...whew.

Over at The Hydra's Grotto, Steamtunnel (dude who writes the blog) asked, "How Much Adventure In One 6 Mile Hex?" He remarks upon how large a 6-mile hex really is, and wondered about the utility of a 1-mile hex for purposes of sandboxery. I subsequently commented upon how mind-bogglingly bad bad bad bad BAD I am at judging distances.

So.

After a few hours (I think) of GIMP, Inkscape, Google Maps and learning some basic math (!), I can show you this image:

Click for 5.24MB of way too much time on my hands.

This is a 1-mile hex (from side to side) drawn around my house.

You don/t have to live in this area to see what all is there, but I'll clue you up: There's part of a marina, a load of condos, couple ponds, a goodly chunk of a 10,750 acre lake (biggest in the state, as it turns out), some tennis c- no, a lot of tennis courts, bunches a'trees and some undeveloped land.

Just outside of that hex are an elementary school, a house secluded amongst trees and more lake.

So.

How much adventure can you fit inside of a one-mile hex? Well...assuming that your PCs are tennis aficionados, I'd say "plenty".

So I Hear There's An Arthurian RPG

2011-09-05T12:16:00.003-04:00

I never really felt any heat for Pendragon. It's not that I disparaged it, or had a low opinion of it -- I just didn't, you know, want some. Just like sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.

I just finished reading Lyonesse, and have Madouc and The Green Pearl coming on the Bookmobile tomorrow. So my Pendragon temperature is changing.

I don't have the game, but I have BRP and I have GKP's The Book Of Knights. So I can probably get into some Pendragon-y trouble if so I desire. Plus, nothing stops me from running some C&C in an Elder Isles-inspired setting, upon which I have already decided.

Hmmm...

...hmm.

Thinkin' Trekkie Thoughts: Who Plays the Captain?

2011-09-04T10:59:00.001-04:00

If you didn't know that Fenway5 aka C. R. Brandon, author of Rogue Space and other games, has released the beta of Far Trek, then you should know that Fenway5 aka C. R. Brandon, author of Rogue Space and other games, has released the beta of Far Trek.

I'm reading it right now 'cause I finished Lyonesse (which was THE BUSINESS by the way), and I'm pretty happy with it. I was thinking related thoughts as I took my coffee mug to the sink just now and had this idea (which may not be knew and in fact may have been published before, but it's on my mind at the moment):

Q: Who gets to play the Captain?
A: Everybody.

'Fact, the Captain is not only played by everyone but CREATED by everyone, together. All the players collaborate on creating the Captain's personality and so on. That way everyone has a handle on him or her, which is good because of this next paragraph.

During play, control of the Captain, and all the decisions that he or she makes, is shared by the players. It can either be communal, such that whoever wants to be the Captain can do so at any time, or it can be by turns. Everyone gets to speak for their Commanding Officer, and so on.

Okay, back to reading.

This Was Fun To Make!

2011-09-03T20:59:00.002-04:00

I dunno what it'll ever get used for (probably nothing, 'cause I'm so @#*&% lazy), but it looks cool, huh?


Yeah, I ripped off exactly what you think I ripped off.

Double-You. Oh. Arr, Dee. Up.

2011-08-26T12:36:00.002-04:00

You need this today. You need it.

See?

I told you.

I'm Reading Lyonesse and --

2011-08-24T22:44:00.001-04:00

It's all, like -- DAAAAAAMN...!

-- it is BAD. ASS.

Not in a...you know, like a Leon/The Professional kind of way, or in a "The Golden Age of Wireless" kind of way. No, no. The best way I can parse it out it is thus:

It's bad-ass in a "Bob Ross Totally Schools That Canvas With Some Phthalo Blue" kind of way.

Look -- the plot is dense, but so engaging as to be astonishingly navigable. The characters are interesting and compelling. The setting is misted with a sense of history, permeated with substance and depth. And even though (or perhaps, because) there's no real action in the, you know, KA-BOOOOSH! sense of kinetic action, the plot unravels with a genuinely seductive pace.

It's all in the pacing.

The plot develops at a pace that seems slow...until you realize that you've been reading non-stop, and watching the world and its people and its details and its travails and its history and its everything being peeeeeeeeeeled open and revealed to you in --

-- Bob Ross. All mellow, he'd take his trowel and kinda drag it over the canvas, and BAMMO HAPPY LITTLE TREES?

Just.

Like.

That.

I just want to keep reading so I can find out what happens next. In fact, why the hell am I sitting here typing this when I could be reading the next cha--

Dr Rotwang! Presents THE FINAL WORD ON HOW TO BE A BETTERER GM GOT-DANGIT

2011-08-21T20:52:00.001-04:00

Take off your pants and run in the opposite direction, 'cause that way lies madness.

One Cool Thing From The 1990s

2011-08-16T00:07:00.001-04:00

Look, don't get me wrong -- I like FATE 3.0 juuuuuust fine. It's a great use of FUDGE, and some might say an improvement upon its progenitor.

I will not argue, because I agree, really.

But still...

FUDGE, in its most basic form (like it was when I downloaded it from ftp.soda.berkeley.edu on that late Spring afternoon in 1994, on a NeXT computer at the IU Student Union) is --

-- look. There's something to be said about a game that gives you a fully-playable character with no more effort and paperwork than this:

Name:		Sequinus Bwappfelshire
Occupation:		Wizard	FATE POINTS:		5
SKILLS
Conjuring		Good				+1
Knowledge (Planes)		Good				+1
Abjuration		Fair				0
Research		Fair				0
Tailoring		Fair				0
GIFTS & FAULTS
+	Wizardry			Can cast spells
+	Amulet of Planes-walking			User can cross planar thresholds 2 times per day
-	Perfectionist			Has a hard time accepting when a task is done, and keeps fiddling with it; Good (+1) or better Willpower roll to move on

Honest, man, it took me longer to figure out how to make OpenOffice Writer do the cool split-cells thing than it did for me to write this character up.

He's ready to get into trouble now -- thanks to FUDGE!

What Does A 0-Point GURPS Character Look Like?

2011-08-14T22:13:00.002-04:00

In all the time that I played GURPS, which I did with considerable intensity, I never once wondered what a 0-point character would look like. (And if I ever did, I must not have spent a long time wondering.)

Tonight, I was looking through GURPS IOU and came upon the section that discusses appropriate point levels for characters in that milieu. Local Citizenry, the book states, would rate 0-100 points. I began to wonder...then, I popped open GURPS Character Builder and started, uh, buildin'.

So! Meet Jerry Raymond:
Jerry Raymond
Jerry Raymond
(0 Points)
Age 22; 5'8", 145 lbs; Dude's so average-looking, he may as well be invisible.

ST: 9 [-10]	IQ: 11 [10]	Speed: 5.00
DX: 10 [0]	HT: 10 [0]	Move: 5
Dodge: 5

Advantages

Charisma +2 [10] (Reaction: +2); Common Sense [10]; Voice [10] (Reaction: +2).

Disadvantages

Chummy [-5]; Struggling [-10] (Starting Wealth: $7,500); Duty (Minimum Wage Job at a grocery store) (9 or less) [-5]; Weirdness Magnet [-15].

Quirks

Never wears turtlenecks; Chess player; Quiet; Likes redheads; Sleepy Drinker. [-5]

Skills

Musical Instrument (Keyboard)-10 [2]; Carousing-9 [1]; Driving/TL7-10 [2]; Detect Lies-10 [2]; Chess-11 [1]; Writing-11 [2].

Description

Jerry's an average guy. He likes sports, he's kind of quiet, he's a bit of an artist and likes to hang out with his friends.

But the talking broccoli in his fridge, the time that a Martian princess rear-ended him at the grocery store, and the regular wrong-number calls from Steven Hawking and Eleanor Roosevelt's ghost? THOSE things are obviously NOT normal, and they WEREN'T his idea, and he kinda wishes they wouldn't happen.

But they do.

So...he deals with it...just like everyone else.

So I guess he lives in whatever town IOU is in, and maybe his life and the University intersect a lot.

Hmmm.

How D&D Sounds To Me

2011-08-10T23:45:00.003-04:00

kuh-ZAPP! WHOA! It's 1989. Summer. Hot. You're Young Doc Rotwang!, aged not-yet-fifteen. Girls don't seem to like you, and you don't expect that to change, ever. You've been a gamer for a year but you've not yet played D&D.

On your way to spend the Summer with your Dad in Kansas City, your old family friend Jason Gucinski gives you his own old copy of the D&D Red Box. Yours, now.

This is it. You've been in the room a while but you came in from the side. Now, you have THE KEY THAT OPENS THE FRONT DOOR.

It's Summer 1989! You're 14! You got D&D! WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO? HEAVY METAL, LIKE ALL THE OTHER D&D GUYS, RIGHT?!

WRONG.

Nossir -- you're Doc Rotwang! (except you haven't seen Metropolis yet and have no idea who that is, and won't be called that for another 10 years, but there are anyway), and you're not on the same wavelength as your peers. No! Not at all, man, you are outside, for better or for worse.

You're on your own.

You're not very socially adept; your Inner Fonz lies deep inside, under layers of culture shock and (probably) second-hand PTSD from the whole Mexico thing. You're working on it, though, but you're doing so from within your idiosyncratic bubble filled with fantasies of hope and lack thereof, your dreams of being a storyteller on a literally cinematic scale, the forlorn expanses of your loneliness --

-- amplified by the rush of hormones common to all your age.

So...maybe you're not that different, after all, here in 1989, with D&D Red Box in your hand...?

...naw, screw that. The hell you aren't.

Phasic Knights of the Blade and Blaster

2011-08-03T23:28:00.002-04:00

Our motto: "To Have Adventures!"

...because it was time.

"Halfling Stew" After-Dinner Mint

2011-08-01T08:56:00.002-04:00

Renault, Smartest and Wisest Halfling, got a knife which (functioned as a crappy shortsword), killed a bug, fell in 3" of water, put out a fire at the worst time possible, and then got eaten 'cause I had to take a shower and go to work.

Next time I do some Google Hangouts gaming, I'm hooking up my camcorder to function as a web cam. That was some stuff, I tell ya.

This Is My Character for Jeff's "Halfling Stew" Game

2011-07-31T21:20:00.004-04:00

Hohn-hohn-HO! Bon Temps, mes amis! Jay-Sweeze Mee-sewer Renault Poisson-Fromage le Coq-Petit, from Cul d'un Chien! I like, eh, how-you-say, to be smart-air than you -- non? Wee-wee!

I have l'strongth du 8, l'dex-stair-ee-tee du twell-ve (12), Cohn-stee-too-shown l'9, Intelli-SHAWNCE l'15, oh-hohn-hohn! Et Widdome du 16, et l' char-EEESM-uh d'8! Obviously.

Ah have-uh les deux hit p-waaaints. Aaaaaaaaand everyone hates me already.

How I Spent My Saturday Afternoon

2011-07-30T16:59:00.007-04:00

With a hex grid, a copy of TSR's World Builder's Guidebook, a portable drawing board, Troll Lord Games' Book of Extraordinary Names, a set of Prismacolor pens, an Ames lettering guide, a T-square, some dice, a drafting triangle, pencils and some masking tape. Oh, and five hours.

All of which I used to make this:

Of course I'm not satisfied with it!!

Respite via Microscope

2011-07-21T19:14:00.004-04:00

To you, O brethren and cistern, who came to me with words of commiseration and hope in my day of pain -- thank you one and all, you princes and princessesses of the blogomosphere. You guys rock.

So last Tuesday (last week) my buddy Art brought over Microscope again, along with his 7-year-old daughter. We unleashed his kid and my kid unto the wilderlands of her bedroom; while those two played, Art, my wife, Art's buddy Russel and I set about an exercise I've long yearned to do:

Re-writing the Star Wars prequel-era history, and cleaning up George's mess.

So how'd we do? You tell me. I tried typing up a summary but screw that, here are the notes.

Click for jaw-dropping abreaction.

Man, this was some fun. It was cathartic in a variety of ways -- it gave me the gamer interaction that I craved, it let me mix it up creatively, and I got to slap the prequels right in their ugly mouth and say, "THIS is how you do it, ya dumb bastards!"

...

...

...aaaaahh. MORE GAME!!!!!!!!

Rotwang! Is An Angry, Embittered Man (WARNING: INCLUDES PATHOS)

2011-07-09T20:00:00.004-04:00

Yesterday while washing dishes, I listened to an episode of The D6 Generation Podcast (which is not about the D6 System, as it turns out). It was interesting enough, and kind of informative too.

Mostly, I found it depressing.

It's not because of anything that's wrong about the podcast itself, but rather because of what I heard in it -- and the questions it made me ask myself.

I heard these guys talking about all the games they've been playing --tabletop RPGs, minis games, board games...talkin' about the minis they're painting, the games going on at their FLGS, the cons they've been to or are going to, the terrain they're building...

...and first, I thought: Where do they find the time? Don't they have jobs, families? Of COURSE they have jobs and families. So where do they find the time?!

That was not what bugged me. What bugged me was the very next thought that followed it:

Why don't I have that?! Why can't I have that luxury?

Yes, a luxury. To me, such a thing is a luxury. I don't have a fancy car; I don't care. I don't have a huge paycheck every week; I'd like it if it were bigger, so I could pay off some bills and have some walking-around money, but I'm doing OK. I don't have a yacht, a mistress, a race horse, a big HDTV, a...freaking...I dunno, a solid gold burro. I don't want those things. Those aren't things that would make me happy (not even the mistress OR the burro). I actually want very little in life -- I'm remarkably easy to keep happy, and at that, with very few and comparatively small things.

I can't find the time or opportunity for gaming. Oh, I have some friends coming over on Tuesday to play Microscope, but that's a rarity. It's hard to get my friends together for gaming, what with people's schedules and such. I'm about 15 minutes away from the games store, but I don't feel comfortable there -- and gas is expensive. I live in a fairly populous area; I'm not in the middle of nowhere, in fact I live in a golf resort/condominium kind of place, with about 33,600 people living in it -- but I'll be damned if I have any way of finding any gamers in the place. Life is commute, work, commute, come home.

If I get to game for more than a few hours every two months or so, it's a bonanza.

I try to vent this stuff by making it kinda funny, like this. But the truth is that it's seriously dragging down my quality of life.

Is this adulthood? Really?

I Got A New Scanner Today.

2011-07-06T20:11:00.001-04:00

Actually it's a printer/scanner/copier. I installed it and started checking it out -- you know, how do ya load paper for printing a double-sided character sheet, like that.

Then, of course, I had to check its scanner interface, so I grabbed something to scan. Dig it:

They're eating her shirt.

I don't think I've ever read this comic. I'm not even sure how I got it! Anyway, there ya go. Bit o' history.

Dungeon as Diagram

2011-06-28T13:07:00.002-04:00

Hats off to Flynn, who wrote this and got me thinking about doing stuff like this:

CLICK FOR BIG

Have fun!

Adventure Diagram, Yaay!

2011-06-27T12:59:00.001-04:00

I like this idea of mapping out an adventure as a diagram. Each of your major scenes goes in a box, and connecting lines lead from scene to scene based on decisions and success or failure, with notes along the way.

So I made this one with OpenOffice Draw, 'cause it's set right the zip up for such stuff. This plot here is fairly linear, and it requires a few more notes (which one would append maybe as a second sheet), but it's enough to get you through.

CLICK IT

I have no idea how it ends, though...

I Made Some Paper Minis.

2011-06-21T22:15:00.000-04:00

They're tiny but you can have 'em. Used Junior General's masters as a start. Fun. You can too.

Mongoose Traveller + Prime Directive = Sorry About Your Dog

2011-06-19T23:59:00.001-04:00

Earmuffs? For the dog, maybe, I mean? 'Cause I just found out that Mongoose and Amarillo Design Bureau are collaborating on a Traveller-based Prime Directive game, and I SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Sorry; sorry, that's -- this, uh...this is just cool. To me. It's -- I like it. It sounds good.

It's unusual for me, these days, to be excited about a new game release. I haven't been for a very long time now -- not since StarSIEGE, really, and that was -- whoa, three years ago? Wow, yeah. That's crazy.

Anyway. Trav rules feel like a good fit for Shirtless-Kirk-Era Treknanigans, especially with the career tables and all ("Okay, so...Security branch. First term served. Survival throw: 14-plus. Wait,what the f--?!"), plus the --

PICTURED: Proper use of Carousing-1.

-- I'm just diggin' it.

Revisting Tri-Stat dX

2011-06-19T12:01:00.000-04:00

This'll be a brief post 'cause I gotta go take a shower and go out for chinese for Father's Day here pretty soon, but -- hey, remember this guy?

Pinched from the Retrospective Caveman blog, but saved locally.

I pulled it off the shelf last night and made a character this morning. It ain't half bad!

The whole Magnum Opus thing kinda didn't fly...too bad, really. 'Least I still have a copy or three.

Okay, shower. Can't take me to Golden China if I'm all stinky!

Wherein I Pass Judgement Upon "Microscope"

2011-06-16T22:00:00.000-04:00

A buddy of mine, who is a World-Famous Comic-Book Artist, brought over his copy, and some other dudes came over, and my kid busied herself playing on the Monster High website, and we had a go at it.

My impression:

Microscope : Aria - Canticle of the Monomyth :: Aspirin : Trepanation

OSR Emperor, you say...?

2011-06-13T18:25:00.002-04:00

Over at The Grand Tapestry, Timeshadows asks:

When Will the OSR Emperor Arise, Bringing Peace to the Warring Provences?

To my dear and esteemed fellow blogger, and to all others who have functional circulatory systems, I offer this answer:

I am he, here I am, and YOU KIDS KNOCK IT OFF AND JUST PLAY HOWEVER YOU'RE GONNA PLAY GODDAMMIT!

Once again, Dr Rotwang! strides in, valiant of purpose and tired of your bitching, and brings peace and prosperity with the edge of his shrill, annoying voice.

StarSIEGE: An Unnamed Campaign Setting (That Still Needs Work)

2011-06-11T20:05:00.000-04:00

Following the 9-Minute Campaign Design notes from The Mule Abides, I managed to stretch this out into a...uh...4? 5? -hour long project.

Man, I'm gettin' old.

CLICK YOU SOME JUMP!

What is the Look & Feel of your campaign?

This game is a high-spirited, light-hearted space opera. It's not a comedy game, but it is a little bit satirical. It's about fighting the bad guys who make everyday life difficult for good guys and regular folks everywhere, but it happens at a grand scale.

The setting is a highly-urbanized future Earth with high (and, more often than not, weird) technology. There is life on other planets, both native and colonial, but Earth is home. It's an increasingly strange place to call home...but it's home.

Inspirations include: The Fifth Element, Robocop, "Futurama", The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez and a little bit of the 1979 "Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century" TV series – but only a little bit so.

What’s the high concept of your campaign?

In the year 2263, the Earth is the hub of an interstellar society and a melting pot of cultures both native and alien. Technology routinely makes possible all manner of wonderful things (even if said technology is not available to everybody), interstellar travel is commonplace and humans and non-humans share glitzy megacities, arcologies and slums alike.

Of course, there's also a never-ending supply of unethical corporations, flamboyant nobles, interplanetary warlords, alien invaders, extremist malcontents and bad guys of all stripes who just can't stop trying to have their way at someone else's expense...and someone has to stop them. Someone skilled, talented, brave and clever...and who didn't sign up for the job.

Who is this game about -- what's the Core Story?

The heroes own and operate a freelance general contract company called "Freelance General Contractors". They hire out as consultants, couriers, mercenaries, researchers, private detectives or whatever someone needs done and can pay for. Invariably, they end up crossing paths with bad guys of various types and taking it upon themselves to save the day.
Characters can be human, or one of a few races that I'll determine later. Android PCs are allowed.

What rules will you be using in your campaign?

The game uses StarSIEGE: Event Horizon from Troll Lord Games. The "I Make This Look Good", "Leaving...20 For Me", "Shoot The Hostage!" and "Taste My Paired Blasters of Doom!" rules are in effect. Characters are built per the Field Guide, but receive 15 XP instead of 10.

Cyber Score is 2. Galactic Standard Tech Score is 7, but with contragravity and FTL. Galactic Standard Psi Score is a measly 1, which makes psi powers possible but very rare. Taint Score starts at 0. PCs receive 3 additional Nova Points at time of creation.

What are the big-scale social institutions or groups in the campaign?

Here's a brief overview of a few of these, just to get started and to establish the mood:

HolistiCorp: A megacorporation with wide-ranging interests, covering everything from security and construction to consumer electronics and fast food. Its level of ethical behavior ranges pretty widely, too...
The Solar Constortium: The governing body for Earth and its colonies. Efficient but largely powerless as corporations gain -and maintain- greater influence.

The Monastic Order of the Latent Divinity: A popular but very exclusive quasi-religion which proposes that there is a spark of divinity in every intelligent being, which needs to be nurtured and developed. They are not prosyletic, prophetic or in any other way jerkwads.
The Isorat Combine: An alliance of interstellar corporations dedicated to mutual protection of business interests. Kind of like the mob.
Baron Montague von Capulet: An industry unto himself, the most popular industrialist/athlete/noble/playboy/entertainer/celebrity/author/movie star/insufferable prig in the known galaxy. He probably has some skeletons in the closet.
The Radical Automaton Liberation Front: A pro-robot rights organization infamous for their extreme tactics and obnoxious publicity stunts. Although most androids are not sentient, the RALF think that they all should be, and fight the "good fight" -- sometimes quite literally.
The Vundra-Qu'urtund Empire: An interplanetary autocracy controlled by the alien Qu'urtund race. They are expansionist and militarized, and have a tenuous peace accord with the Solar Consortium, enforced (on their side) only by fear of the Vashloo.
The Vashloo: Ancient race of galactic peacekeepers with Clarke's Law technology and a far-reaching power to back up their stern but laissez-faire warnings to other races not to goof up.

Who are the major supporting cast?

There are plenty of good guys, bad guys, OK guys and real weirdos with whom to interact. Here are some notables:

Baron Montague von Capulet: Good guy? Bad guy? OK guy? Weirdo? Being immensely wealthy, egotistical and probably close to insane, he's likely to be one or all of those at any given time.
Claudio Killebrew, The Spectre of Titan: The most notrious space pirate in the Sol system. He captains a spaceship called The Void Princess, and maintains a secret base somewhere in the Jovians.
"Razz" Berie Barret: The owner of a spacer bar in New York City, and a reliable source of information and connections. Definitely a 'good guy', which has made her some enemies.
Dr. Nelok Irdelemmtor: Tyvorian professor of Xenoarchaeology at Ausonia University on Mars and a regular patron of FGC. A founding member of the Astroexploration Society, age has curtailed the swashbuckling adventures of his youth.
Kallendra Spartano: Known RALF member, key agitator and general pest.
Lhater Mtashk: Qu'urtund diplomatic envoy to the Solar Consortium. He brought a retinue and a starship that's supposed to be unarmed. The Qu'urtund are not known for their diplomacy and Mtashk is careful not to sully their reputation.

What are the major threats in the campaign?

Lhater Mtashk is probably up to no good. Did he bring some troops? Can he bring some into the system without anyone noticing? Would he condone an attack on Earth? Yes, yes, and yes.
Baron Montague von Capulet. 'Nuff said.
Piracy is a problem -- Claudio Killebrew is the most _notorious_ pirate, not the only pirate.
HolistiCorp is usually running some ethically-dubious project or other, somewhere.

Draw a map of the campaign setting.

Not right now.

Draft up your first adventure.

"Make sure to get immersed in your Core Story right away, and try to introduce your major threats, major supporting cast, and socio-cultural stuff early on, and in easily digestible pieces" is good advice. I'll follow it in a little while.

Wherein I Reply To Lord Blacksteel

2011-06-10T19:52:00.000-04:00

Dude. You weren't kidding.

It Serves You Right For Picking That Pocket

2011-06-09T00:15:00.001-04:00

You got that player who likes to pick NPCs' pockets at random past the point where it ceases to be funny? Yeah, you know the one. Next time he gets on your nerves, let him pick a pocket, then roll a d20 and tell him that he finds --

1	A dead, stinky mouse. Who keeps a dead, stinky mouse in his pocket? Probably a wizard...or a necromancer. Right?
2	A half-eaten chicken leg.
3	A half-eaten raw chicken leg.
4	A small scrap of paper with the words "Red door on Bath Street – 'Ullmo'". Bath Street is somewhere in the city, and there is indeed on that street a house with a red door. If the PC goes there and knocks, he will be asked for the password (Ullmo). Upon giving it, the PC is allowed entry to the house...which hosts a halfling quilting circle. The PC will be expected to participate.
5	A dirty handkerchief. Save vs. Poison at a -4 penalty or contract a nasty flu (½ HP and -2 to-hit for 1d4+1 days).
6	A human finger, freshly severed. But whose? And why was it in somebody's pocket?
7	3 gold coins struck with an unusual symbol. No merchant will take them, and all are nervous when the coins are presented to them. The coins are "shadow coin" – they are used exclusively by a criminal network, and having them makes you noteworthy in all the worst ways.
8	A walnut. It can be eaten, but it's not very tasty.
9	The mark's pocket suddenly (and magically) constricts, trapping the pick-pocket's hand – no save! Needless to say, the owner notices...
10	A small, unsheathed razor blade. 1d4 damage and saving throw vs. Spells to avoid crying out in surprise.
11	3 silver pieces and a small ruby. Exciting! Closer inspection reveals them to be 3 pewter pieces and a chunk of glass.
12	A small pouch containing about 5 grams of a dark, pungent tobacco. It is of value (3d6 sp) only to a tobacconist who recognizes it as Matarkian Blackshank – and that is a rare tobacconist indeed! Who dares smoke it soon has his mouth taste like he just stuffed it with ashes and sauerkraut and lit the whole thing with a burning cow turd.
13	A key, grubby and blackened with age. It opens a chest in the basement of a tavern called The Shackled Priestess. The chest contains a soul jar within which is imprisoned the tavern's eponymous priestess, placed there sixty years ago by a jealous lover (the owner of the tavern). Finding and releasing her spirit, and matching it back to her body (turned to stone and hidden as a statue in a local temple) would be a great adventure with a great reward...if the pickpocket can only figure out where to start.
14	A finger-length wooden carving of a mastiff. 1d4 rounds after it is taken from the mark's pocket, it transforms into a real mastiff -- which, finding itself before someone other than its master, attacks.
15	A sticky wad of pine tar. It's hard to remove, and leaves the pickpocket with a strong, noticeable aroma for a day or two, making it hard not to draw attention.
16	The mark's coin purse will not budge – it is as though it weighed hundreds of pounds, yet its owner carries it with ease! It is obviously magical, but – how to acquire it...?
17	A scrap of paper listing five names. Four are crossed out. The fifth is that of the pickpocket. 75% chance that it is but a trick to fool would-be pickpockets; 10% that it's someone else with the same name. Otherwise, the mark is an assassin with the PC's name on his list.
18	3d12 live caterpillars.
19	3d12 dead caterpillars.
20	The exact contents of the thief's own pocket, taken from his own pocket and pulled through the aetherial plane and onto his mark's pocket.

Redemption Zombies

2011-04-24T18:39:00.001-04:00

It's a nice Sunday. Enjoy it, won't you?

THIS IS A THING TO DO

2011-04-16T21:56:00.002-04:00

GO DO IT NOW!

Wherein I Am Banned From RPG.Net

2011-04-15T22:51:00.001-04:00

Dig this RPG Site post, where Sgt. Space Wizard has some nice words to say about me after Kyle Aaron reports that I was told don't come around RPG.Net no more.


HA HA HA HA GET IT?!

News to me. I tried to log into The Big Purple and did so successfully.

So, no, I have not been banned from RPG.Net. I did stop posting there, but that's because I got tired of the place.

Record's straight.

FOUND IT!

2011-04-04T18:21:00.001-04:00

Okay. It's cool.

"WTF" Is For "Has Anyone Seen My Copy Of The D&D World Builder's Guidebook?!"

2011-04-03T15:08:00.000-04:00

Dammit! I can't find it !

I know it's around my house somewhere -- I had it just the other day. My house is small! It's not like it could've gone far! WHERE THE FROG IS MY FREAKING WORLD BUILDER'S GUIDEBOOK?!

Don't be OCD and disorganized, kids.

As If I Needed Another Reason To Be Excited About RC D&D

2011-03-30T23:15:00.000-04:00

...I have come across ken-do-nim's House Rules & Clarifications for Rules Cyclopedia Dungeons & Dragons.

Yessir! It's amazinatin' what you might find if you spend a little while goofin' around on Dragonsfoot.org now and then. You find stuff like this! S'got some house rules, errata and clarifications (like it says on the tin) and some cool new sub-classes, some tweaked combat sequencing, revised weapon mastery charts for the rapier (culled from Voyage of the Princss Ark), plus also there is stuff like this which I love very much:

Go download it already. I SAID GO DO THAT THING I JUST SAID TO DO.

Inkscape Is Hard!

2011-03-30T13:09:00.000-04:00

...if you're a chump, which I is. Work for an hour and what's a chump get?

...man, I gotta get better at this.

Inspiration. It...Strikes.

2011-03-27T18:43:00.000-04:00

I'm in the habit of making a little PocketMod booklet and keeping it in my shirt pocket. Why? So I can write stuff on it when it occurs to me, you silly-head!

It's a good idea, too. You should do it. Then you, too, can come up with crazy fun dumb stupid stuff like this:

RRRRAAAAAAARRRRRGGHHH!!!!

2011-03-25T12:45:00.001-04:00

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGHH!!!

I'VE HAD A ROUGH WEEK!

I REALLY NEED TO GAME THIS WEEKEND!

ONLY IT PROBABLY WON'T HAPPEN ON SUCH SHORT NOTICE!

FURY!!!!!

I Want My D&D Game To Look Like A Cross Between...

2011-03-24T20:19:00.001-04:00

...Fritz Lang's Siegfried and Ron Howard's Willow.

Oh, and plus also the stuff I posted yesterday. That can be Castle Zagyg, or Greyhawk, right?

EDITED Fascination/Frustration

2011-03-23T12:59:00.005-04:00

NOTE: I edited this post to include a word that was missing before. Can you guess which one?

Hmmmmmmm.

Got this new D&D campaign vibe in my head. It looks like this:

BUT I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START!

BONUS LADYHAWKE-NESS:

Throwin' The Horns For Goblinoid Games

2011-03-18T23:13:00.000-04:00

You read about how Goblinoid purchased the rights to Star Explorer? I did, which is why I'm bringing it up. Actually I'm bringing it up because I think that this is a hell of good idea. And I'd never even heard of the game!

But what's totally rad about it -and the fact that they purchased Starships & Spacemen as well- is that, thanks to Goblinoid, these old games with charm and merit can stay in print and find a whole new audience. I love this old stuff, and it tickles me that someone who has the capital to get 'em back on your table is getting 'em back on your table.

Rock on, Goblinoid Games.

I Have A Second Blog

2011-03-16T23:32:00.000-04:00

...because, sometimes, I want to talk about things that are important to me but maybe not to you, there's Dirty Damn Filthy Damn Atheist!.

That is all.

Wherein I Make Up A Whole Bunch Of Goofy Character Names

2011-03-15T19:17:00.000-04:00

I enjoy making up names for people, although truth be told, I never make up any really good ones. No nonono, wait, scratch that --

-- I never make up any good serious ones. I usually make up absurd names -- names like

Spad Falco
Baron Hotep Von Butane
Sally Trans-Farino
Miklos Bongaroo
Hap Lashborough
Zane O' The Tripeyard
Wilma Frankenboobs
Carmen del Burro
Zyklo Feromatt IV
Vaughn Likely
Skip Ballastro
Stansfield Stansfield
Sir Ender of Chickendale
Jean-Luc du Poisson-Petit
Hyster Calumika
Chi-Chi Zapatos
Lord Holten Greenswaddle
Cisnita Galcarminite
LaTorfa Snackwell
Boutros-Boutros Spiegelmann
Tarsupia Golcarpia
Chico San Dimas
Razz Pistolas
Slinko "The Reach" Roseburner
Squint Teakley
Lance Mannschaft
Cliebus Van Der Yotte
Fallopia Two-Dongs
Deke Lumbar
Xerxes O'Roone
Plitz Sparnaug
Inocencio Gritón
Paal Slapfield
Sergei Pantzaroff
Michiko Ypsilanti-Frapp
M'fwoobo Sakkasakkasakka III
Lloyd the Distractor, Prilosec of Lunesta
Brante Kleeg
Cash Hamflaps
Steg Humpfeller
Aibos Fregenderias
Helga Grossebruste
Calternia Daxx
Enrique Tres Pedos
Sgt. Gorp, of the Police
Linus Hybride
Altrex Fornibaar
Banjo Frampton
Albercus Wolfhorker
Tab Rasslins
Comanche Joe Kiloton
Reed Ruckus
Duke Rialto, Lord of Treeshiner, Senechal of the Seven Yaps
Pud Monkerby
Macanuda Chelascalientes
Fane Jonnda
Palermofilo Kiqsaz
Stangfark the Bombastic
Tinkles O'Bleary
Gorehack Rainbowpony
Someone Else's Mom

...which are of no real use. At all.

Re-Imagining the Invisible Stalker

2011-03-12T12:37:00.002-05:00

Eh? eh? NICE.

Not Cool.

2011-03-08T22:35:00.000-05:00

Look...nobody reads this blog, and anyone who might already knows this, but --

--Who the math is Lady Gaga, and why is she accused of ripping off Multinauts?


Rotwang! Approved.

Wait. I'll do a little Googling. Let's see...

What the fughwaaaAAAAAAA MY SAN POINTS!!!

WHAT! THE! FU--FGHWAAAAAAAAAAAGGHH!!!!

AAAAAAAH MUST CLEANSE BRAIN PALATE! GOOGLE IMAGES, SAVE MY BRANE!


Say! Am I CRUSHING?

...

...

...so, yeah. Spread the word.

NO, NOT ABOUT MY CRUSH ON G1GS. I'll spread that one myself.

Willikers.

2011-03-04T19:48:00.001-05:00

Set somethin' off, didn't I.

D&D Is Dead.

2011-02-25T13:47:00.000-05:00

You hear-uh, read me: D&D is dead.

Dead.

Dead dead dead dead dead.

How can I say such a thing? Am I out of my MIND?! Am I just trolling? Do I even know what I'm talking about?

Easy. No. Nope. Yes.

D&D as a brand name -and that's exactly what it is to the holder of that specific IP- is past its prime. I don't care what D&D Brand Fantasy Gaming Tomfoolery does, or doesn't do. The only reason it has any relevance anywhere is because of the brand-name recognition -- in other words, someone somewhere cares what D&D Brand Fantasy Gaming Tomfoolery does, or doesn't do.

I think it's time to stop.

D&D the game, the hobby, the influence, the legacy, the thing -- that mofo's immortal. People are playing it, people are cloning it, people are rolling their own. Your Favorite Edition may or may not still be in print, but print copies of it abound. You can buy 'em, you can even, uh, acquire 'em. You can choose from a bunch of clones like Labyrinth Lord or Castles & Crusades or Swords & Wizardry and about a ho-dozen others. There are tons of existing rules sets and variants and supplements and, thanks to the OGL and the efforts of like-minded dorks without number, there are new rules sets and variants and supplements all the damn time.

D&D as an activity is never, ever going away.

Why?

Because we support it. Not because some company does, or doesn't -- because you do. I do.

D&D, name brand, belongs to a company. That company is sticking the name on...I dunno what the fuck it is now. I don't care what it is now. Whatever. No longer relevant.

D&D, legacy, love, distraction, camaraderie, fandom, game, activity, synergy of millions of nerd-hours of gleeful goof-whackery or thoughtful immersion into setting and role or enthusiastic exercise in creativity and shared world-building or wanton imaginary destruction and looting --

-- that D&D will never die. It's bigger than its name. It cannot be killed.

Let D&D die, because D&D will forever live.

I Made A Radical ENCOUNTER CRITICAL Webring Image

2011-02-15T20:22:00.001-05:00

...buuuuuuuuuut it's too big.

EDIT: Well, maybe not! Blogger's Photo gadget shrinkerates it to 187 pixels max, so...huh. lookit that.

GAME REVIEW: Killer Thriller

2011-02-03T23:11:00.000-05:00

Spooky Gloowwwwwww!

Killer Thriller
By Tony Lee
Published by Time Out Diversions
PDF, 28 pages
Costs ya $3.00

Tell ya somethin' 'bout Tony Lee, B-movies and gaming: dude gets it.

See, anyone can "get" B-movies; they're not hard to figure out. It's not hard to count up the tropes, sprinkle 'em across a set of RPG rules and play. That's one thing. It's another thing to "get" B-movie rules, and to turn those into RPG rules. Either it's really hard to do right, or no one bothers trying, or both or something. Me, I blame the leprechauns.

But Tony Lee gets it. You can see it in 1997's Extreme Vengeance, a ridiculously fun paean to macho ass-kick movies. You can see it some more in 2010's Killer Thriller, a game of bloody schlock horror and, you know, that stuff.

For the new game, Lee brings back the gleeful genre emulation of EV, the sincere understanding (and love!) of the b-movie groove fused with solid mechanics, set to a loosey-goosey "let's have fun, ya bastards!" beat. Only trouble is, he brings back some bad habits as well.

Here, let me explain.

In its 28 pages, Killer Thriller (KT) presents to you a set of rules designed with one simple purpose: Get all your (multiple) characters, who have close to no chance at defeating the bad guy, killed off in gruesome manner -- that is, all your characters except for one, who will become a lone survivor who DOES have a chance at defeating the bad guy.

Yeah, I know it sounds weird. Multiple characters? Kill 'em all off?! What the Funyons, right? Dude, it's a horror movie. That's what they're about. The monster runs the show until there's just one person left -- and then the rules seem to change. Right?

ESPECIALLY if armed with a cat.

So it is in KT. Your characters are defined by negative traits -- not negative in ranking, but in purpose. In fact, they're called "Inabilities". Your characters don't have an intelligence score; they have an Unwise score, defined by the game as "the inherent stupidity of all b-move characters that compels them to follow a path of fresh entrails into a deserted mine shaft or some such". Your characters are Unlucky and they can come Undone. Rolls aren't made against these traits with success in mind; you're hoping for failure. Is Louie the Arrogant Breakdancer, who is fleeing a big damn monster, unlucky enough to slip on a pool of his late homey's blood? Roll and see; if you get less than his Unluck score, then...yeah. He's toast. Is Sheila the Virginal Babysitter too dumb to stay away from that pulsating door? Probably; to keep her from messing with it, you have to roll higher than her Unwise. These numbers are pretty high ones, by the way...

Characters also spend a while (that's a while) being Unharmed, until such time as they bite the big one. At that point Lee shows his cleverness: a dead character transfers his or her full amount of Unharm (aka "hit") points to another character, buffing up said recipient for The Final Showdown. Furthermore, the if the death is messy, there's a bonus amount of Unharm points to transfer -- and another such bonus for getting your characters killed without die rolls and so on. Here's where players are encouraged to endanger their characters and get them all pureéd so that one last holdout may live. It's in keeping with the genre, and it's aces -- mostly.

Oh, I'll come back to that.

Anyway. The game is dotted with beautiful, simple, elegant little rules like that. Guns, for instance, which would in a sane world work wonders against a psycho killer, in this jacked-up grindhouse reality work just fine...but their use penalizes further actions. Giving characters Stereotypes allows for an in-game bonus by playing to type. Your characters can even have creepy-cool powers -- for all the good it'll do 'em.

Yeah, no caption required.

The most brilliant rule, though, is the "Last Survivor" rule. See, all game long, the monsters don't make any rolls; they always succeed, and the characters are the ones who have to "save against" attacks and stuff. But when it's down to just monsters and Last Survivors, the rules flip over, and the monster has to save against stuff. It's beautiful, it's simple, it's elegant.

Okay, now here's the other shoe. Actually, there are multiple other shoes, but we're talking monsters here so, you know, having, like five feet isn't all that uncommon.

There's a big weak spot in KT and, sorrowfully, it branches from the very thing that drives the game: There's no incentive to keep characters alive. There is a famous horror movie axiom, credited to Joe Bob Briggs: "Anybody can die at any time". Who's next? When? In the movies KT seeks to emulate, it's a primary source of tension. Applied mechanically in the game, it's a convenience. This is, in my estimation, the game's deadliest mechanical weak spot. There's really nothing keeping players from having their characters stick their heads into wood chippers in the first scene or so, just to get buffs.

Or to create iconic images.

Well, the GM could stop them. But the GM section is more focused on establishing chaos than it is on capturing that b-movie feel. To a certain degree, that's expected; after all, b-movies aren't known for being character studies, or for having clever, immersive plots. But the GM section seems to encourage a "screw it, let the heads fly!" attitude a little too much. As I said before, Tony Lee gets this stuff. I'd love to know a little more about how he "gets" it.

You do, however, get to read a lot of his jokes. The tone of his writing is very informal, very friendly -- but sometimes it feels like Tony is just trying too hard, and it gets uncomfortable. What's worse is that it gets in the way of reading those swanky rules. Many times I found myself back-tracking over a passage to dig out the meat I'd missed before, and in some cases, I found basic, integral concepts explained to me after they'd been used, replacing a bunch of Huh?s with an Oh, NOW y'tell me. This tone was kind of a problem in Extreme Vengeance, and although I defended it there, here I will tut-tut and mention how many times I had to flip back through pages.

And speaking of pages: Page numbers are a little, tiny detail. No page numbers are kind of annoying.

Now...let me make a point very clear, here, as a reviewer. The only reason I'm railing on these details is because I see them as cringe-worthy flaws in an otherwise clever, outstanding and totally tubular game.

So. Is it worth your three bucks? Yeah, totally. Buy it, mess with it, play it. Have fun, damn it. Encourage Tony Lee and Time Out Diversions to keep on truckin'...

...and to keep sharpening the blade.

If you know what I mean.

Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes: Campaign Frames

2011-01-23T20:37:00.001-05:00

Kayso I took a notebook with me in the car today and I wrote down some --

-- no, my wife was driving. And anyway, I did this in the parking lot at JoAnn Fabrics. ANYWAY, I wrote down some ideas, as they came to me, for games I could run with MS&PE. I reproduce them here for your amusement:

Private eyes investigating a covert alien invasion in 1940s Hollywood

1980s high pulp -- Miami Vice meets Buckaroo Banzai

The A-Team -- crack squad of troubleshooters who get stuff done without the cops catching on

Delta Green

INTERPOL develops an enforcement division, and you're it

A privately-funded intelligence/counter-terrorist organization; PCs are agents

Meddling kids with a talking dog

Interplanetary P.I.s -- Blade Runner meets Northwest Smith

DG-esque: PCs are members of a secret society that battles the modern-day forces serving an ancient Aztec evil

STARGATE: 1941

P.I.s in a 1930s NYC with technology at 1990s capabilities (vacuum tube computers, early robots, etc.)

PS I'll get back to ya on the Jammin' Jim thing, but the short version is: Nothing much has happened yet.

I Hope Lead Is Tasty, 'Cause IT'S BULLET-BITIN' TIME

2011-01-13T11:40:00.002-05:00

Sittin' here at my desk, at work, right? Bein' a cool little Fonzie. Door from the tooling room opens and in steps Jim. "Okay," he says, "who in here has played Dungeos & Dragons?"

Wellllll... "Pwaaah, dude", I say. "I -- here." I open up a desk drawer and flash my work dice.

Jammin' Jim's in his early 50s, and he sculpts dies for a living. Dies, as in tooling dies -- here at work, we make stuff outta metal. I have no idea why Jim's gotta know what about D&D, but, hey -- I am an ambassador.


Hey, old buddy! How ya -- wait -- GET OFF MY LAWN!

"Okay," he says. "I was tryin' to play it with my grandson and one of his buddies, 'cause we got him the starter set, and I was flippin' through the books and I couldn't figure out how to get the second player in. It comes with two books..."

"Ah!" I say. "Red box, got the dude fighting a dragon?"

"Yeah, yeah," says Jim.

And I think, Damn. 'Cause he's teaching his grandson to play from a 4e product which I've never even seen and I don't know what advice I'll be able to give, that's why.

So anyway, Jim describes a bit more of his dilemma and I do my best to grok him. From what it sounds like, the intro scenario in the new red box is a programmed adventure for one player -- but it's probably not for one player, it's just that Jim's not sure how the paragraphs relate to a group and not just one player -- and when it would be another player's turn.

Okay. Okay. I'm gettin' Jim's problem, now. I try to explain the difference between such a programmed adventure and regular play, and about combat rounds and initiative and stuff. But then I say, "Look -- you wanna bring the game in tomorrow?"

"I can bring it in later today," he says, "if you wanna have a look at it and see what I'm doing wrong."

"It's a newer edition, and a lot of us grumpy old guys are real 'Nyarrr, raaaawrrr rawwwrrr!' [you know grumbly noises] about these new rules," I caution. "And I don't know a lot about the new edition. But let me have a look at it and I'll see what's goin' on."

And then -- then. Then, my spine stiffens, my jaw squares, my gut steels and dammit, I know What Must Be Done.

"You'd do it for Randolph Scott."

"Do the boys still wanna play?" I ask.

"Yeah," says Jim. "If I tell them I figured out what was wrong, they'll try it again."

"Say, Jim...why don't we get organized and I'll run a game for the three of you."

"Okay," he says. "Yeah, we should arrange that."

So today, my friends, today...I will be looking at the 4e rules.

'Course, I could just run S&W and say, "This is how you game", and let 'em play their own choice of rules...

If You Want My Body, And You Think I'm Sexy

2011-01-06T18:40:00.001-05:00

Thanks to all the readers who pointed me to The Wormworld Saga as the source of yesterday's image. It certainly looks worth my time to read the wh--

-- Rod Stewart songs. See? Lyrics from Rod Stewart songs.

Some Guys Have All The Luck

2011-01-05T14:44:00.000-05:00


Source unknown; my boss e-mailed this to me.

Man...I gotta play some FRPG. Not run; but play.

Huh.

2011-01-03T23:19:00.000-05:00

I'll be damned.

Chainmail -- INNNNNNN SPAAAAAAAAACE...!

2011-01-03T14:26:00.001-05:00

So I'm knockin' around the idea of a starship combat game inspired by Chainmail's troop-type battle system, and informed a bit by A Sky Full Of Ships. Dig:

	Fighter wing	Corvette	Destroyer	Battleship	Dreadnought
Fighter wing	1 die for each attacking	1 die for each 2 attacking	1 die for each 3 attacking	1 die for each 4 attacking	1 die for each 6 attacking
Corvette	1 die for each attacking; 5+	2 die for each attacking	3 dice for each attacking	2 dice for each attacking	1 die for each attacking
Destroyer	2 dice for each attacking; 5+	3 dice for each 1 attacking	2 dice for each attacking	1 dice for each attacking; 5+	1 die for each attacking
Battleship	2 dice for each attacking; 4+	4 dice for each 1 attacking	3 dice for each 1 attacking	2 dice for each attacking	1 die for each attacking
Dreadnought	2 dice for each attacking; 4+	5 dice for each 1 attacking	4 dice for each 1 attacking	3 dice for each 1 attacking	2 die for each attacking

TYPE OF SHIP	KILLS TO DESTROY
Fighter Wing	1
Corvette	2
Destroyer	4
Battleship	5
Dreadnougt	6

KILLS ARE ON A “6” UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED

Okay so basically: When your ship attacks my ship, cross-reference your ship with my ship and you roll so many dice. Each "6" (unless otherwise noted) is a "kill". After so many kills, a ship goes blooey.

Fighters are at a bit of an advantage -- they're small and hard to hit, but a a good barrage can wipe them all out. I dunno about Destroyers vs. Battleships, though. I just wanted each ship to be able to roll at least 1 die.

I'm not good at this.

EDIT: Those numbers are all jacked up. Fix later when not at work.

I Saw "Tangled" (And You Should Too)

2011-01-01T20:42:00.000-05:00

Like it says up there: I saw Tangled. Disney movie. Got a princess in it. Handsome dude. Horse. You know.

PICTURED: Not The Horse.

Like it also says, you should see it, too. Okay, maybe not should, 'cause it's not life-or-death, but definitely could do much worse than to see it, too. Reasons, you want? I got 'em.

THE LONG MADE SHORT: It's fun. Genuinely so, at that. It's a very entertaining film that breaks the Disney mold in places, and, to my mind, that needs to be rewarded. Vote with your wallets, folks. THIS COMES FROM SOMEONE WHO, TRADITIONALLY, GIVES DISNEY THE STINK-EYE. (More on that later.)

MORE INFO THAN THAT: Listen, did you hear about how Disney was going to title the film Rapunzel, but switched marketing tactics and tried aiming it more at boys and parents instead of just at girls? It's true; The Princess And The Frog pleased critics but wasn't a big box office performer, so someone at Disney said -- "Well, hell, cousin, let's make movies for girls AND boys! Get more butts inna seats!"

IT WORKED. The movie is fun even for a cranky-butt like me. Plus...it's making money.

Money, as you know, talks. In this case, the money that you spend going to see this movie (besides snagging you a better time at the movies than TRON: Legacy was), says something to Disney. It says, "Break that mold. Push a little bit. Cast the net wider. You can appeal to a wider audience if you take that risk."

It also says, "John Lasseter has the right damn job."

Oh, you know who John Lasseter is. Pixar, right? The dude whose Wikipedia entry says he is

[A]n American animator, director and the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is also currently the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering.

Chief creative officer. Calling the shots, in other words. Ever watch an interview with him? I have. Guy loves animation. He is an artist first, businessman second. He wants to take animation places, and bring you along for the ride.

American animation needs him.

I have bitched about the state of animation before. I have also looked down my nose at Disney's output for a long time -- perhaps unfairly, I generally equate "Disney" with "mediocre", if not in terms of technical ability but in terms of content. A few exceptions (Atlantis, Treasure Planet, The Black Cauldron, Fantasia) aside, their stuff makes me go ho-hum. Well, the dragon in Sleeping Beauty was pretty swank, but for every bad-ass black dragon and magic sword combo, you get about a dozen sappy song/cute animal friend salads. Maybe the movies are better than that, but they certainly haven't attracted me. But they've attracted a lot of other people, and, in a sense, contributed to this notion that animated movies are for kids or, worse, just for little girls. I have a little girl; I'm all for animation for little girls*. I'm not for the idea that animation is just for a given section of the population.


I am definitely pro-animation-for-girls-with-Melee-(Frying Pan)-5D.

So all of a sudden, here's Disney -- in my mind, the worst offender because of what they could but wouldn't -- suddenly switching gears, and casting the net a little wider.

Yesssss. Fingertips steepled, hunched over my desk. Yesssssssss...!

It's not Heavy Metal. It's not even Titan A.E. or Sinbad - Legend of the Seven Seas. But it is most people's synonym for animation, Disney, taking a chance. Taking a chance and succeeding, by making a movie that truly has stuff for the whole family -- I don't just mean that it's family-friendly, in that there is nothing objectionable (which there isn't), but rather by making a movie with something everyone in a family can enjoy. A movie with a heroine that'll inspire little girls without being sappy, a hero young boys will want to pretend to be, a pair of villains you'll want as NPCs in your D&D game...

The Stabbington Twins, voiced by Ron Perlman: Fighting-Men, lvl. 4. You're welcome.

...a movie with gorgeous art direction, smooth animation and truly beautiful lighting; a movie where some of the best comedy business is delivered by a perpetually-drunken dwarf in a diaper.

Yes. You read that right. Dwarf. Drunk. Diaper.

In a Disney movie.

Animated.

"For kids".

Go see it. Tell that damn mouse to keep up the good work.

*(My little girl prefers Batman Beyond and Rocky & Bullwinkle, though.)

CKG UPDATE

2010-12-29T09:37:00.001-05:00

From the Troll Lord forums (fora?):

Here is where we stand on the CKG:

As you know we own our own print shop and bindery. The bindery is a very new edition and not 100% operational for hardback books. That which we cannot do, we outsource to a company in Georgia. We did this for the M&T of Aihrde hardback and the Gods & Monsters. It proved to be a complete disaster, the time lag is huge, the aims not clear, and problems quickly mounted. So during the week before Christmas we invested in a further expansion of the bindery and have purchased the necessary equipment to bring this about...or rather in typical Troll fashion, we purchased the necessary components to make this happen, and we'll assemble it ourselves. I finalized the deal today (December 28, 2010) and the equipment is ready to ship...of course Europe (where it is manufactured) and the Northern part of the States (where it ships to first) is blanketed in a blizzard of epic proportions.

So, what does this mean? It means that the CKG hardcover, the one everyone has pre-ordered is still another week or two out. That's bad news for all those who want to see it, but good news for all those who have it and can locate any last minute editorial mistakes that our editors and myself may have missed.

Please put all editorial mistakes here in this thread. I will check daily and enter the texts into the original document so that when the final goes to press for the release, we can get it as close to perfect as possible.

Thank you for your continued patience.
Steve

post script: The digest version is available for sale, as are all the digest versions, in our online store.

So that's what.

THEM PIGS IS A-FLYIN'

2010-12-28T19:28:00.000-05:00

Kayso my buddy Jacob totally has a copy of the Castles & Crusades Castle Keeper's Guide, like, IN HIS HOUSE. And he wouldn't lie to me 'cause he knows it'd make me cry, and so who wants to see THAT?

In other words -- YES. THE CASTLE KEEPER'S GUIDE HAS BEEN PUBLISHED.

I got one coming to me via mail, I'm pretty sure...

I Inkscaped A Star Map.

2010-12-27T22:31:00.000-05:00

See, 'cause Daniel over at World Without Syn keeps making keen stuff with Inkscape. And I keep hammering on him about HEY DO SOME TUTORIALS DEMONSTRATING HOW YOU DO THAT THING. And finally he was all like *SIGH* FINE WHATEVER DOC GEEZ GET OFF MY LEG and he did one.

So I followed it, and -- VOI-LA!

Click to make way too damn big

New STAR WARS RPG On The Way

2010-12-25T21:43:00.000-05:00

WHOA-HO! What the -- ?! Robot Viking reports that the STAR WARS game license has been acquired by "mystery game company that has yet to make any kind of official announcement".

Hmm. Mystery game company.

It's known who doesn't hold the license:

Several companies this week announced that they were not successful in their pursuit of the valuable Star Wars license from Lucasarts, including Paizo, Mongoose, Margaret Weis Productions, Steve Jackson Games, and Green Ronin.

Through logical deduction, and accounting for the fact that the license covers RPG, trading card- and miniatures game rights, Robot Viking opines that the new license holder is probably Fantasy Flight Games.

The guess makes sense. The only FFG RPG products that I'm aware of are the Horizon d20 minigames, but I doubt that they'd go back to that well. Do they have a house system? Would they devise a new one? Only time will tell.


And me all starry eyed, you'd think that I would have known by now.

As it turns out, though, Robot Viking posits the possibility of another licensee -- one that I, frankly, would prefer over FFG, if only because I'm familiar (and pleased) with their RPG output:

Cubicle 7.

Look -- I dunno about you, but I think that FATE 3.0 would work just dandy fine for STAR WARS RPG shenanigans. In fact, I've used it for (short-lived PBEM) STAR WARS RPG shenanigans, and I liked it.

Granted that there's nothing preventing anyone else from doing same. Still and all, if it's gonna be in print, I'm totally down with STAR WARS FATE.

Then again -- there is a certain OGL system floating around which juuuuuust might fit the bill...

I Juana Weesh You A Mary Cree-Muss

2010-12-24T19:45:00.000-05:00

Okay, so...Merry Christmas, folks!

*gasp* WHAT?! "Merry Christmas"?! From Doc Rotwang!? But -- but-- ! Doc Rotwang! is a filthy damn baby-eating godless damn filthy A-T-H-E-I-S-T! Why would a filthy damn baby-eating godless damn filthy atheist wish anyone a Merry Christmas?

Why? Because I'm not a callous, heartless jerk. Being an atheist doesn't make you a callous, heartless jerk. Being a callous, heartless jerk makes you a callous, heartless jerk and I do my best not to be a callous, heartless jerk.

You know...look. I live in the United States. We got Christmas here, and it's not going away. Nor do I want it to go away, because I actually sort of enjoy it. So I've decided that I will enjoy it, and wish a Merry Christmas to everyone else, too, while I'm at it.

So why do I enjoy it? I certainly don't believe believe that it marks the birth of Christ; that is most likely to have happened in Summer or Fall to begin with, and it's pretty damned obvious that what we call 'Christmas' is an old pagan holiday marking the winter solstice, hijacked by guys with a book and some power. I won't go into all of that, because others have covered it already. So no need to recap.

What I like about Christmas is that very original identity as a pagan celebration. "Dammit! It's cold, dark and shitty outside. We need cheering up. So...let's build a fire, put lights on things that don't normally have lights, drink something hot and eat! Whoooo!"

THIS MAKES COMPLETE AND TOTAL SENSE TO ME BECAUSE FUCK WINTER.

Oh, and the gifts. Yeah, I like getting gifts. I like giving gifts. I like sharing. I like that there's a convenient excuse for everyone to try -at least- to focus on the compassion and camaraderie that makes us human. We are social animals; animals, yes, but capable of compassion. That's a big thing about what makes us human, and I like to celebrate it. It's a common theme at Christmas, and like I say -- Christmas ain't goin' anywhere, sooooo...

Actually, I like to celebrate human compassion all year long, because it's just that important. As far as I'm concerned, when it come up at Christmastime, that's just everyone else catching up to me.

I cannot, and would not, and should not and will not and don't want to speak for all atheists on anything but a few things. But for me, one of the cornerstones of my atheism is the love for life and the quality of it -- and not just my life. When I say "quality of life", I mean EVERYONE'S life, even the lives of people with whom I disagree, or who would see me harmed or censured because they disagree with me. I don't care about those things.

I care about life mattering, and being experienced, and being treasured and being lived like it's the only one we'll ever get, because it IS.

So.

Merry Christmas. If you celebrate it for secular reasons, great. If you celebrate it for religious reasons, great. If you celebrate it because you like eggnog and it's hard to find the rest of the year, great. If you call it -- whatever you call your holidays. Whatever. It's like this:

Enjoy it, damn you.

Hey, Everybody! It's Gamer Quiz Time, Yipee!

2010-12-22T09:02:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Badger for pointing me toward this thing. It's short and easy and fun. Plus -- BAR GRAPH!

http://quizfarm.com/quizzes/Fashion/ellydragon/laws-game-style/

NOTE: I was gonna post my results, buuuuuuut the HTML table was all funked up when I C&P'd it into El Bloggero. Whattaya gonna do.

Here's To Future Days!

2010-12-21T23:40:00.000-05:00

Slow dancing...anything I want.

So whatcha got right now is your Winter Solstice, see, and that means that we've seen the Sun at its lowest high point in the sky this year -- in other words, less daytime, more night-time. After that, right, is where things start to flip-flop: More daytime, less night-time.

Now, I know that night time is the right time for...well, lots of stuff, it's true, and not just the stuff in Sheena Easton songs. But "less daytime" equates to "less sunlight" and that equates to "colder" and SCREW COLD IN ITS FACE.

So! What have we learned (besides that Sheena Easton's song "9 To 5" was retitled "Morning Train" in the US, so as to avoid confusion with the Dolly Parton single)? Well, we can deduce a few things, namely:

Dr Rotwang! took Astronomy 101;
He has a funny way of explaining stuff about axial tilt;
From today on, the days'll get longer and the nights shorter -at least until the Summer Solstice, when the process reverses, but it's OK because it's warm out and things don't start to get cold and sucky until the Vernal Equinox- which will result in a gradual increase in temperature on the northern hemisphere, which is where Dr Rotwang! keeps all his stuff; and
SCREW COLD RIGHT IN ITS FACE.

So! Now! There. Dig it. It's science, dammit.

Great. You guys cogitate while I go outside and punch the crap outta some snow. DON'T DRINK ALL MY EGG NOG!

(Just Can't Resist) Showing Off

2010-12-18T12:36:00.001-05:00

Tonight, my extended family will engage in a tradition we call "Dirty Santa".

It's not a Zak Sabbath title, no.

No, what Dirty Santa is, is it is this: Everyone brings a wrapped gift of some sort. It doesn't matter what it is as long as someone there might like it. Then, everyone takes a turn picking a gift -- either an as-yet unidentified wrapped one from the pile, or an unwrapped one that someone else has. Eventually everyone's got something, and we all had fun yoinking stuff away from one another, ha ha ha.

I'm bringing a mix CD, and this is the insert for the jewel case:


Clickity-click. Yes, I misspelled "Hazard" on the cover.

But there's a trick to it -- it comes bundled with a sock. A single sock. YOU CANNOT HAVE THE CD AND NOT HAVE THE SOCK.

It's a brand-new sock, though.

Goodbye, Stargate Universe

2010-12-17T13:49:00.000-05:00

Goodbye, Stargate Universe. There is the door; you may use it.

Wherein I Betray The OSR (Well, Just A Little Bit)

2010-12-13T13:29:00.001-05:00

I work with this dude I'm gonna call "The Oatmeal Kid". The Oatmeal Kid used to play D&D with some of his homies -- a couple of whom I know. He still has some dice and stuff, and plenty of good memories.

The Kid also has a son. We'll call him Bonesy, because this is my blog dammit and I'm listening to Jean-Luc Ponty and so get outta my face and also that's what his dad calls him. Lad's 11 years old. Finds his dad's dice. "Hey, Dad, what's this, eh? Eh? Eh?" happens, and BOOM the kids wants to get his game on.

Swank times, sez I.

But I thought THIS.

So The Oatmeal Kid comes up to me and asks about the state of D&D, and how can he get Bonesy set up to game, and so on. Cheerful ambassador that I am, I hook The Kid (the Oatmeal one) up with links a-plenty to some retro-clones. I gave him some dice and stuff. Good to go, right?

Well, Bonesy musta dug it all because today The Oatmeal Kid told me that he and Mrs. Oatmeal want to buy the boy some D&D swag for Xmas. He asked me, "I was thinking of getting him the fourth edition. What do you think?"

Right then, my stomach twisted. I was -- well, remember that time you were on Corumna Alpha III and you had to nuke all the chromazebras to ensure that the atmosphere stayed mucus-free? It was just like that. 'Cause I knew what the boy had to have.

Reluctantly, I zapped The Kid a link to WotC's page for The Red Box That Isn't The Red Box No Matter What Color It Is. I tried to find him a freely-downloadable quick-start, but no go. So I wrote him this e-mail:

Most companies publish a free "Quick Start" product, usually downloadable, which teaches basic rules and gives you a taste so you can try before you buy. Not so Wizards of the Coast, sadly. I'd refer you to some other commercially-available games that do have such quick-starts, but here's the thing:

They're not D&D.

In other words, 4th Edition (4E) is The New Hotness. It's what's In Stores Now. It's The Brand Name. His homies are more likely to have heard of (or be playing) D&D in the form of 4E.

4E is not the D&D you played with Erko and your pals. That stuff (Erko ran 1st and 2nd Eds. of AD&D back then, I know for a fact) was born of the free-wheeling spirit of the late 70s and early 80s. 4E is much more guided by Magic: The Gathering and other card games, with more rigid rules, more pre-programed options and more...

...fuck, it makes me sad to talk about it.

But then, before I clicked SEND, I added the following:

Your choice. You know the kid. My suggestion? Give him the WotC Starter Set and a copy of the latest Castles & Crusades Quick Start, and tell him: "This red box is how they play it now, but this Castles & Crusades stuff is how the co-creator of D&D played his own damn game before he died".

I don't know how this is gonna play out, but there it is: I gave him the choices.

Dust-Up At The SE Corral

2010-12-09T22:03:00.000-05:00

Herein, cross-posted, my contribution to a thread at The RPG Stack Exchange which resulted from my previous comments about said site.

It's very easy, apparently, to take my blog post out of context. One of my cardinal rules, stated elsewhere in my blog, is that I don't talk smack unless it's really deserved.

You can't say "dust-up" and NOT think of this guy.

I'm not interested in, have not played, and cannot comment upon the 4th edition of D&D. Thus, upon seeing a proliferation of questions about said game, I find that I can't really help. I found myself plowing past piles and mounds of questions to which I can contribute nothing, in search of something with which I could help -- and I really didn't find much.

My point was: Everybody's talkin' 'bout stuff I can't talk about.

I feel powerless, unable to really help. That's just the way it is; no helping it.

I will admit that being voted down for presenting a possible answer that wasn't apparently welcome left a bad taste in my mouth, especially when I was sincerely trying to help by presenting a different light under which to look at AD&D and answering from experience, having once felt the same way about AD&D's supposed inadequacy for certain in-game activities. But that's the nature of the internet -- it's the nature of humanity, really. No helping that, either. That's why I said (in metaphor) that I could ignore that, but I was still left with all these 4.0 questions that I can't help with, and only a few other questions which I might be able to answer.
Filtering tags and so on helps -- to a point. I now see questions that I can address more quickly, but they are not great in number. Still, it's something, and I pitch in where I can.

The fact is that 4.0 is The New Hotness. I am still down with the Old-And-Busted.

*shrug* What can ya do?

ADD-1701

2010-12-03T20:27:00.001-05:00

...dangit!

Look, man -- I don't know why, but for the last few days I've been feeling an itch to play a Star Trek RPG.

It may have to do with the fact that I've never played a Star Trek game before -- that makes it enticing, interesting, seductive. A new experience.

I've picked out a set of the rules from the many, many, many available to me: The FASA game from the early 1980s.


"...to boldly go to, uh...art school."

I sincerely think that "Where No Man Has Gone Before", the MicroLite20 variant, is totally aces. I feel the same about Risus. But somethin' in my blood tells me that it's this one. Why? Hell, I dunno. All I know is that I want to run a Star Trek game in the TOS/TAS era, ignoring canon post-1978, and that the PCs would be the crew of an Antares-class ship -- in fact, the non-canonical Antares-class:

Armed with an OCR scan of the old rulebook, the Starfleet Technical Manual and LUG's Star Trek Narrator's Guide by some fulano name of J R Sauce or somethin' (WTF, right?) and my own...umn...let's just call it a "mania", I am ready to roll up some characters, put 'em on the above starship and start makin' stuff up.

My buddies would probably play; my wife, not so much.

Well, it's not like I'm playing anything at all these days...

Why I'm Blah About RPG Stack Exchange

2010-12-03T12:11:00.000-05:00

Hey!, I thought. A question-and-answer thing about RPGs! Nice! I'll try it.

So I registered and got started. Asked a question, two. Got some good answers. Gave a few. Got a little excited. Badges...Reputation...okay, that's cool. More excited.

But then...then.

I looked around to see if there were any questions I could help with. It went like this:

Okay! Ahhh...see here...D&D 4.0, D&D 4.0, D&D 4.0...Dogs in the Vin- no...D&D 4.0, D&D 4.0, D&D 4-- AHA! Call of Cthu-- no, that's got plenty of answers already. D&D 4.0, D&D--OOH! HEY! AD&D 1st Ed. question!

So I peek in on a guy looking for help turning a Thief into a Con Man. In other words -- where are AD&D's social interaction rules?

The first answer was one of those definitive "AD&D sucks for that, it can't do that, it's all about combat" things, which I hold to be untrue. I offered polite disagreement, and further added some ideas about how one could resolve these things with dice mechanics in the event that role-playing (as in "Role-Playing Game") were insufficient.

Cue blustery rebuttals, insistence that AD&D is all about what you can't do, and suggestions that if D&D doesn't say you can't do X, then why not just play "Candyland", since that doesn't say you can't do X either?

...Dude...whatever. But thanks for undoing my attempt to help on, like, the one thing I could.

Well. That bathwater's out the window, but all the baby seems to say is, "4.0, 4.0, 4.0."

So why am I blah about RPG Stack Exchange?

Because it's like an ass-kicking contest, and I only got half a leg.

Yay/Boo

2010-12-01T19:23:00.000-05:00

YAY: World Without Syn is back. The author listens to Synergy. How cool is that?

BOO: It snowed.

Flashing Japanese Dudes

2010-11-30T13:32:00.000-05:00

Nothing gaming-related on my mind right now -- well, not that I actually feel is worth your time. I think about gaming a lot, but most of the time it's random buzzing and snow.

Stuff that is most likely never going to be done.

It's kind of a problem.

So while I think of something that would actually be relevant to your interests and useful and amusing, here are brightly-colored early Japanese synthpop pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra performing their song "Key".

You'll Live If You Don't See This -- But Would You WANT To?

2010-11-29T20:32:00.001-05:00

DUDE. It's The People That Time Forgot!

Patrick Wayne, Doug McClure, Sarah Douglas and Dana Gillespie fight fake cavemen, fake samurai and fake dinosaurs on the fake lost island of Ca...uh...somewhere!

Jury's out.

The plot is pencil-thin, but you don't really watch this movie for its plot, no no. You watch it for the mountain castle shaped like a pile of skulls, and the green-skinned wrestler-sized bad guy who lives there. You watch it for the sword-, fist- and rubber dino-fights. You watch it to play Spot The That Guy.


Don't try to frighten him with your...uh...dangit!

But chiefly, you watch it for stuff you can rip off for your games. That big green-skinned dude's going into my next sword & sorcery game, and so is that skull-castle. Hell, steal the whole thing lock, stock and Dana Gillespie's barrels and there's your EC adventure for tonight. Or mix-and-match with the film that preceded it, The Land That Time Forgot (People is its sequel) , and put the whole thing in space.


My daughter says this tower is evil.

Look at that thing. Picture it on an asteroid.

YEAH.

HEY! What happened to World Without Syn?!

2010-11-27T11:21:00.001-05:00

No, really! What happened to it? "Hello World" my butt! This is the blog that finished selling Starblazer Adventures to my homie Jacob, who has been talked into running Star Wars with the system. Cool as that is, that's not "mission accomplished". I wanna read up on some of the author's stuff!

In The Middle Of a Big Tornado, On The Tip Of Everyone's Tongue

2010-11-25T11:25:00.000-05:00

Here in the United States, the last Thursday in the month of November has traditionally been set aside as a holiday that we've come to know as Shopping's Eve. NO! Wait, hold on.

Here in the United States, last thursday in November, holiday -- holiday we call Thanksgiving.

I'm not in the mood to ponder what it's always meant. I am in the mood to expound on what it means. To me. Right now.

THANKSGIVING - The expression of gratitude.

Every day of the year, someone deserves my thanks. Today will be an opportunity to list them.

I thank my parents, Joy and Dennis and Gonzalo and Margarita, for doing what they could how they could to guide me toward adulthood. Guys, you did the best you could.

I thank my wife, Amber, for being patient, understanding and interesting -- and for striving to be the best parent she can be to our daughter. I love you.

I thank my daughter, Lily, for being a good kid, working hard in school, and letting Mommy and Daddy steer her as she grows up. Lily, you are a very smart kid and I promise that we will do our best to help you become a strong, confident, rational, happy, kind and humanitarian person. I love you, Bumples!

I thank my extended family -- Aunts and Uncles Betty, Vernon, Bess, Paul, Herman, Jack, Nita, Jane and Vivian; cousins (by blood and marriage) Tina, Penny, Kevin, PJ, Jeff, Tony, Julie, Tod, Harold, Lisa, Gary, Brad, Ed, Doug, Eric, Laura and Jeff; second cousins Nick, Miranda, Rebecca, Bailey, Levi and Sarah for doing your best to understand me, for everything you do for my daughter and for generally just being you.

I thank my friends, of whom I am happy and proud to say I have many and to name but a few: Angie "Anjiko-Z" and Ben Bass, Kyle Mayes, Jacob Kipfer, John Buchanan, Derrick and Amanda Ziegler, Tony and Yaz Murphy, Allison "Yucky" Gross, Jennifer Opiat-Lane, Datha Hoffmeister, Jeremy Helms, Angie "Not Ugly" Snow, Reneé Harrell-Smith, Kimberly Robertson, Brian and Brandie Wendling-Roberts, Phil Parli-Horne, Kate Matthen, Kristin Matthen, Erin Armstrong and Madeline Clark -- all of whom make my life a brighter one. Life is to be enjoyed, and you guys do a LOT to help me enjoy it.

I thank all the RPG bloggers out there for sharing their love of, insights to and enthusiasm for our goofy damn hobby. You guys keep this stuff alive, man. You make games and give 'em away because you love this stuff that much. Also, you're great stuff to read during lunch.

I thank all the atheist bloggers and activists for standing up to be counted and working to defeat the stereotype that we're all baby-eating monsters. I know it's tough saying out loud who you are, but if they can, so can we. Numbers!

I thank all the scientists and researchers across the world , who strive EVERY DAY to better understand, in rational and logical manner, the universe in which we live -- and, in many cases, they do it in spite of the waves of superstition that rise and fall the world over.

I thank all the teachers. ALL of them.

I give special thanks to every science teacher in the U.S. who says, "No, I will teach evolution, and I will not not teach pseudo-science."

And I thank you, for reading this, and letting me tell you what means the world to me.

¡Quince Juegos!

2010-10-20T13:47:00.001-04:00

Yeah, the "15 games in 15 minutes" thing is happenin' here, too, since I haven't posted much and I'm shamefully stalled on the PBoM thing. I changed jobs, see.

Here, then is my li--

-- hang on. My Lean Cuisine might be done. Be right back.

Yeah, it's done.

--st of 15 GAMES IN 15 MINUTES! There will be few surprises.

Star Wars: The Role-Playing Game, West End Games
Ghostbusters, West End Games
The D6 System, West End Games
Risus, Cumberland Games
Castles & Crusades, Troll Lord Games
Tunnels & Trolls Eds. 5, 7 and 7.5, Flying Buffalo/Fiery Dragon
AD&D 2nd Edition, TSR
Dungeons Dragons Rules Cyclopedia, TSR
Fudge, by Steffan O'Sullivan, specifically the copy I ftp'd in '93
Traveller, Game Designers Workshop
Mage: The Ascension, 1st and 2nd editions, White Wolf Games
Starblazer Adventures, Cubicle 7
GURPS, 3rd Edition, Steve Jackson Games
HERO System 4th and 5th Eds., HERO Games
Encounter Critical, Battlestar Games

There's no real ranking here -- kind of stream-of-consciousness. This Lean Cuisine's pretty good. How you doin'?

FGU's "Gangster!"

2010-10-07T11:29:00.000-04:00

Yeah!

Hey, by the way, "I Waste The Buddha With My Crossbow" is, like...what? 4 years old today? Somethin' like that. I dunno. Three. I forget. OKAY SO "GANGSTER!".

Right! So! "Gangster!" was Fantasy Games Unlimited's "Game of crime and punishment" which was "For the period 1900 to the present", which was 1979 but could cover pretty much the whole 20th century. The front of the box, and the cover of the main rulebook, gave it a 1920s/1930s feel, though, as do the scant interior photos -- one of Al Capone, one of some rum runners driving over the frozen Detroit river in 1930 and a crime scene photo from the St. Valentine's Day Massacre (!!!) certainly suggest a setting. But essentially it's Cops & Robbers, and you can play both sides of the law.

I'm not going to review the game as a whole, because others have done it better already. However, I DO want to point out a couple of things about it that I think are totally aces -- chiefly, the skill system.

Oh, man. I like this.

So here's how it works: Anyone can attempt any skill, but your attributes give you expertise. Anyone can drive a car, for instance; you just roll 1d20 < Dexterity (attributes being generated on the classic 3d6 bell curve). However, if your Dexterity, Agility and Strength are all 10s, you get a -1 to that roll. If Dex, Agility and Strength are all 12s, take a -2; if the three are 14s, take a -4. Presumably, a guy with Dex 14, Agility 12 and Str 12 would get his -2 because his stats qualify him for it, even though his Dex leads the pack. Dig?

The onliest hitch is that you can only claim expertise in a certain number of skills, which is determined randomly. So you might qualify for bonuses in, say, 5 areas of expertise, but you can only get bonuses in a certain amount of 'em. You still get to pick which ones, though.

You know what I think of this? I think this is nice. It's pretty clean and low-maintenance, and it even kind of makes sense which is a bonus.

Ah, but I said I wanted to point out a COUPLE of things. A couple is two, and here's the second: The 16-page ancillary "BOOK 2 - PATROL GUIDE AND LAWS OF THE LAND", which is no less than a quick reference guide to doing cop stuff. F'r'ex, what do you logically do at the scene of a serious crime? When can a police officer leave his or her post? What priorities do cops on patrol have? How do search warrants work? What are the limits on wire taps? How do you set up a road block, and would you like to see a diagram? And what the hell is larceny?

Bing, bam, boom. All in there. Look, you can Google this stuff up now, but in 1979?

Pffff.

So it's a neat game. Old school in its approach to things (no setting, challenge the player moreso than the character, etc.). Plain-looking, but legible. A little disorganized but eventually easy to reference. Perfectly playable as-is, you ask me; you might need to kloodge together a few skills for modern-era gaming (computer use and the like), but otherwise totally serviceable.

Just shemp in a Lamborghini and add sunsets.

I got my copy for free as a gift from the legendary Chris Engle, and it included some sheets from his game. One of these days I'll scan 'em; there's a neat map drawn in blue ballpoint. Swank.

Hmm. Or cyberspace rules...

Got-Dang Bloggers, Git Outta Mah Haid!

2010-09-29T12:28:00.001-04:00

...*sigh*

Okay. THIS and THIS. First it's Jim Maliszewski talking about a SF game with as broad a definition of genre as D&D's definition of fantasy; then Trey wishes for a game "set in a retro-future along the lines of Leigh Brackett’s Eric John Stark stories or C.L. Moore’s tales of Northwest Smith." And, you know, those are good ideas. They're good, Anthony, they're real good.

"Get back in the cornfield!"

But, dammit, I'm supposed to be writing that PBOM document. And then I'm supposed to try my hand at a D6 cyberpunk game doc. I'm not supposed to get all distractified by shiny new things and run off after them like a fatboy in lead shoes.

Now.

I know about Christian Conkle's Lightspeed, which is a pretty good match for Jim's "SF Goulash" idea. Hell, there's even a D6 version of its precursor, Rangers, out there too. The work's already done, as any fool can plainly see.

But noooooooo. Doc Rotwang! is, apparently, an entirely different type of fool, who wants to make one of his damn own.

...

...the hell is wrong with me, anyway?

They Say The Point Demons Guard Is An Ocean Grave For All The Brave

2010-09-22T12:48:00.000-04:00

Y'know how the other day we were all talking about what we picture when we think of D&D? Here's somethin' I shoulda mentioned: Kansas' landmark 1977 album "Point Of Know Return".

Hello, 1977. Howya been?

I've had a copy of this album, or at least easy access to it, pretty much all of my life (well, except for the three or so years during which it did not yet exist), and in high school I listened to it a lot -- incidentally, around the time I picked up D&D.

Peanut butter and jelly, man.

Some of you already know why, because you know the album. The uninitiated will be unaware of the strong fantastic elements that run through this record along with everything else on it. Yes, it's the same album that had "Dust In The Wind" on it, but it also contained the stirring call to adventure that is the album's title track...

...as well as the totally bad-ass hymn to bad-assedness that is "Lightning's Hand":

...which, you will agree, would make ANYONE would totally think of a blue dragon.

That's not all that's there to feed your gamer brain, though; not by a mile. Take "Sparks of the Tempest", which describes an epic apocalypse (and whose lyrics "The dead are the living in the age of the gun" put "Mad Max" pictures in my head); consider "Nobody's Home", a majestically sad song about an interplanetary traveler mourning that he has made first contact with a dead civilization; dig on "Closet Chronicles", purportedly about Howard Hughes but easily suggestive of any kind of interesting person (read "NPC") whose history could fit into your campaign.

Now you know why everyone who knows the album was nodding at the beginning of this post.

Inspirational to the gamer, for sure, and to the geek certainly, but was any of it intentional? Did the band themselves set out to record something so full of fantasy imagery, or where they on to something else? It's hard to tell. I know that Kerry Livgren is really into Urantia (or was, anyway), and some of the band's other material (noticeably on the album preceding this one, "Leftoverture") reaches for spiritual themes ("Opus Insert", yo), and they touched a lot on Native American themes, too. As to what the hell "Magnum Opus" was all about, I have no clue at all -- but it's hard not to listen to the themes that bookend the piece and not think of Conan swaggering through a temple of Set and topless slavegirls swaying in time.


I googled "Cimmerian" and she came up. Mind you, I am NOT complaining.

'Course, when thinking about D&D, I sometimes also think of The Alan Parsons Project. That's because my brain is messed up, though.

The Greatest Three-Word Phrase You'll Read All Week

2010-09-20T20:18:00.000-04:00

PUMP-ACTION BROADSWORD

...but now what?

Wizards With Swords: ¿Sí o no?

2010-09-18T23:08:00.000-04:00

Over yonder Lawful Indifferent way, cousin N. Wright has a thing or two to say about wizards with swords.

I like his post because it highlights the game (in this case, D&D) as a toolkit for imagination (my words, mind you), and it also gets me thinking -- why shouldn't wizards get to have swords?

The general consensus is that wizards can't have swords because they already have spells. Okay; I can respect that. But then I think about this:

Wizards suck at fighting anyway.

So what's the harm?

ICDND

2010-09-18T13:00:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I'm on the bandwagon.

Jim Maliszewski Grognardia Imagining D&D you know what I'm talking about etc., right? Okay so here's my answer:

No one thing.

I can't picture just one image, or book cover, or anything else that says "Dungeons & Dragons" to me and I certainly CAN'T HEAR MYSELF THINK BECAUSE THE KNUCKLEDRAGGERS ARE WATCHING FREAKIN' "THE HANGOVER" IN HERE AND THEY'VE GOT IT TURNED UP SO GODDAMN LOUD LIKE THEY WERE FREAKING NINETY-YEAR-OLD WOMEN WITH HEARING AIDS, because when I think of D&D I think of a lot of stuff.

"Not at the WHAT, Carlos?!"

Oh, I think of a few Dragon covers, for sure. I think of the Red Box, because that was the first one I owned; I think of the AD&D 2nd Ed. PHB and DMG, because those were the first I used to play. I also picture forests, and stonework, and funny dice and everything goes with it.

Mostly, though, I picture being 15. I picture being 15 years old, on a Spring afternoon, on a Friday after school, and going to my buddy Kyle's house to hang out a few hours while we gathered up all the friends and got ready to play. I picture Little Caesar's pizza trays. I picture Larry Elmore art. I picture photocopied character sheets with a Comliness box added in in ballpoint. 2-liter bottles of Mountain Dew. Mechanical pencils.

I picture freedom.

"DAMMIT, I CAN'T HEAR MY VANGELIS!"

I know, I know. The point of Jim's question was to pick a piece of artwork, preferably to be found on the cover of something, which encapsulates D&D for you in one succinct stroke -- pictures being worth a thousand words, and all that. I guess what I'm saying is that I'd like to but I can't.

But this one comes close, because I first saw it in Kyle's basement. I've posted it before, so I guess that gets it as close to the distinction as anything ever will: "Saving The best For Last" by Daniel Horne.

Damnit -- now I wanna play.

Hmm.

That'll do. That'll do.

I Waste The Buddha With My Crossbow

Dukes of Biohazzard - Chapter 2, Part 1

CHAPTER 2

“BECAUSE THEY’RE COUSINS” -- Character Creation

What You Is?

Fixin’ To Get Ready

Skills

Perks

Dukes Of Biohazzard: Interstitial

The Dukes of Biohazzard: Chapter 0

Hail Eris! 23 Questions!

That Girl's Hair Doesn't Let The Light Pass Through

Type V Elephant In The Room

R E A D Y

I Don't Understand Why The Internet Is Not Vibrating Like A Vegas Motel Bed Over This Announcement

2+3=X (Solve For X)

EAT AT JOE'S: Irvania!

A Very Atheist Christmas

I Am About To Live One.

Almost Perfect

ATTENTION ALL INTERNET

FREE CHARACTERS

Facepalm²

This is Red Five. I'm going in.

Dear Shatterzone,

The Cross and the Character Sheet: More on Religion and D&D

Religion, D&D and Crash Helmets for Snails

The Wizard is Undeterred!

This Is What A 1-Mile Hex Has In It

So I Hear There's An Arthurian RPG

Thinkin' Trekkie Thoughts: Who Plays the Captain?

This Was Fun To Make!

Double-You. Oh. Arr, Dee. Up.

I'm Reading Lyonesse and --

Dr Rotwang! Presents THE FINAL WORD ON HOW TO BE A BETTERER GM GOT-DANGIT

One Cool Thing From The 1990s

What Does A 0-Point GURPS Character Look Like?

Advantages

Disadvantages

Quirks

Skills

Description

How D&D Sounds To Me

Phasic Knights of the Blade and Blaster

"Halfling Stew" After-Dinner Mint

This Is My Character for Jeff's "Halfling Stew" Game

How I Spent My Saturday Afternoon

Respite via Microscope

Rotwang! Is An Angry, Embittered Man (WARNING: INCLUDES PATHOS)

I Got A New Scanner Today.

Dungeon as Diagram

Adventure Diagram, Yaay!

I Made Some Paper Minis.

Mongoose Traveller + Prime Directive = Sorry About Your Dog

Revisting Tri-Stat dX

Wherein I Pass Judgement Upon "Microscope"

OSR Emperor, you say...?

StarSIEGE: An Unnamed Campaign Setting (That Still Needs Work)

Wherein I Reply To Lord Blacksteel

It Serves You Right For Picking That Pocket

Redemption Zombies

THIS IS A THING TO DO

Wherein I Am Banned From RPG.Net

FOUND IT!

"WTF" Is For "Has Anyone Seen My Copy Of The D&D World Builder's Guidebook?!"

As If I Needed Another Reason To Be Excited About RC D&D

Inkscape Is Hard!

Inspiration. It...Strikes.

RRRRAAAAAAARRRRRGGHHH!!!!

I Want My D&D Game To Look Like A Cross Between...

**EDITED** Fascination/Frustration

Throwin' The Horns For Goblinoid Games

I Have A Second Blog

Wherein I Make Up A Whole Bunch Of Goofy Character Names

Re-Imagining the Invisible Stalker

Not Cool.

Willikers.

D&D Is Dead.

I Made A Radical ENCOUNTER CRITICAL Webring Image

GAME REVIEW: Killer Thriller

EDITED Fascination/Frustration