Finally, A Use for Booze

If I haven't mentioned it before, I am a teetotaller -- that is, someone who drinks no alcohol, does no drugs, etc. I'm not "Straight Edge", whatever that means, because I think it involves bad haircuts. I just don't drink alcohol, smoke, or use the goofballs.

So beer and wine are low on my list of priorities when I go to the grocery store, right underneath tampons and axle grease.

However, yesterday whilst swinging through Ye Olde Grocerye Store, I spied out a display of wine bottles which sported this logo right here:

In that magical moment, my friends, I was struck as though by a bolt from the heavens. A notion entered my head -- nay, a task, a crusade, a Thing Which Must Be Done.

So I got my copy of the D&D RC.

Pyrurse
Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 6* (L)
Move: 120' (40')
Attacks: 2 claws/1 bite or breath weapon
Damage: 1d6/1d6/1d8 or see below
Breath Line: 60' x 5'
No. Appearing: 1 (1d2)
Save As: F2
Morale: 8
Treasure Type: U
Intelligence: 2
Alignment: Neutral
XP Value: 500

Monster Type: Animal (Rare).
The pyrurse can be easily mistaken for a black bear, until it attacks its foes with its fire-breath (3 times/day, damage equal to current hit points). Being fiercely territorial,the pyrurse does not hesitate to attack at the first sign of perceived danger.
Its first attack is always with the breath weapon; on subsequent turns, and until its breath weapon is exhausted, roll a d6; on a 1-3, it attacks with the breath weapon, and on a 4-6, it chooses its physical attacks instead. Like a normal bear, it causes an additional 1d8 damage if both its claws hit -- it has grappled its opponent and dealt a crushing hug.
It lairs in woods and hills, near caves. It is usually solitary, but sometimes mated.

Hah! Who knew booze would come in handy?

30 Years Ago, In A Galaxy Far, Far Away...

Today, May 25th 2007, is the 30th anniversary of the release of Star Wars.

No, not "Episode IV: A New Hope".

Star Wars.

I was only two and a half years old, almost three. My Mom took me to see it anyway. Why? Hell, I dunno. She says I liked the commercials.

I ended up watching it today, with my daughter, who is the same age now as I was then (we were born just under 30 years apart). She's already a fan, as I've mentioned before. She loves this stuff the way I loved this stuff. She has toy lightsabers, action figures by the boxful, and pretends to fight Stormtroopers in the hallway. Her face lights up when we talk about Star Wars.

My wife put the DVD in today and, because she was doing so quickly, put in the wrong one: the Special Edition. We were about 20 minutes in when I decided that I couldn't observe the anniversary of The Greatest Space Fantasy Of All Time by watching that, and quickly replaced it with the "Extras" DVD which contains the original, theatrical version.

That's the movie I fell in love with, warts and all. That movie is the reason there is tons of Star Wars junk in my house, the reason I wanted to be a filmmaker all my life, the reason I'm a gamer, the reason I never, ever, ever gave up my sense of wonder, no matter what I faced in my real life.

In my house, Han Shoots First. All day, every day.

Sitting there watching the trench run with my wife and daughter, a simple thought entered m mind and I quickly voiced it to my child:

"You know, Lily, when I was about your age, this movie was my WORLD." And I quickly added, "Kind of like it is yours."

It's silly, maybe, but that movie means so incredibly much in our home...it's hard to overstate its importance. It's not like we list our religion as "Jedi" on official documents or stuff like that; it's just so deep and so important and so natural a part of our lives. I cannot think of my childhood without thinking of the thrill and the constant joy that that movie gave me. It's not just a movie to me.

It's an icon of my life.

Happy Birthday, Star Wars.

This One Goes Out To The Ones I Love

Man, the computron here at work keeps borking Firefox. I'm having to write this post in Internet Explorer, and I feel dirty.

Anyway. Thanks for the kind words in response to the podcast; I'm working on another. It's taking me a bit because of time, health (damn cold just HANGS and HANGS) and...

...well, first few stabs at it were pretty sucky.

Other than that, uh...Phil & Erin came down from Muncie this weekend, and we got back to our D6 Fantasy game. My old high school buddy Simon was also in attendance, and he played the first-ever cleric of St Benatar. The faith's pretty vague right now, 'cept that it involves judicious use of compassion vs. whackass, lutes with axeheads and reciting song lyrics. "Invincible" casts Barkskin, did you know that?

Kyle and Tom were there, too, and of course my wife, and while we didn't get much done in the game...we had a great, great time. We ate vegetable lasagna (Phil & Erin being dirty commie vegetarians), had some cake, drank some tea and generally goofed off and said things like "My adventuring juices are a-flowin'!" as well as a unch of double-entendres which I would not repeat here if I remembered them.

Plus, they killed an arboreal squid.

It was great to see these people because they are my friends, and they're one of the biggest reasons I game.

Guys...you're great. Thank you.

PODCAST!

EDIT: No, it's good now! Click and enjoy!

Finally! Thanks to Blue Devil's The RPG Lounge, I Waste the Buddha With My Podcast has a home!

And, uh, you can download it!

Click here to listen, or right-click and "Save Link As..." to Save Link As... and then you can put it on those tiny Walkmans you kids use these days for your MTVs.

Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes

I almost gave this book away.

There used to be a comics shop in Downtown Bloomington, IN, called 25th Century Five & Dime. It was in the basement of the Allen building, and they sold comics, weird books, incense and games both used and new.

I spent a lot of time there.

MS&PE sat there for a long time, used price $13.95, and I looked at it and kept moving time and time again. Then, one day, I was down there with my (then) girlfriend, looking over the used stuff. She was into espionage, mysteries and so on, so I got got bold and bought the game at last. A couple of the old school gamers hanging out there at the time gave me the big ol' thumbs up for my choice, and I was starting to feel good about my impulsive choice.

When we got back to her place, though, I looked over it and was disappointed. I asked her if she wanted it, but she never said yes.

What'd I miss on the first read-through? Was I blind to its flexibility? Did I miss how simple it is? Was I so enthralled with shiny, new, more complex games at the time, that this game's trim, uncluttered design registered as a primitive bicycle and not a streamlined roadster?

10 years later, you cannot have my MS&PE. No, no, my brother -- you got to get your own.

Look, this game is not perfect. Skill point costs for starting characters are, in my estimation, a little stiff, but house rules will resolve that very, very quickly. The experience system (where your character gets XP and so do his skills) comes off as a lot of bookkeeping, but the clever GM and/or player will find shortcuts soon enough (1 checkmark next to the skill = 50 APs). And guns? Guns will mess you UP.

No matter. These are trifling issues, and if not dismissed can actually be embraced (hey, guns can mess you up!). And even these few flaws (if they are flaws at all) are vastly outweighed by the game's many merits.

Mike Stackpole built this game out of Tunnels & Trolls, which was recently described by The RPG Site regular Sosthenes with the phrase: "Roll some dice, add them, tell a story. Take that, you indy fiend!" It inherits most of the combat system, adds a simple system for guns, throws some in some twists for unarmed combat, inserts skills and gets down to business.

And what business! Character creation is swift if trim, and gameplay is only so involved as it needs to be, which means "roll 2d6, add appropriate attribute and skill levels, and try to beat a number." There are a few skips on the track here and there (Brawling skill modifies a Luck save against...what?), but again, it's nothing that the enterprising GM cannot clear up on his own.

I decided that the Brawling save is made against damage taken that round, for instance.

There are lots of guns, rules for car crashes, equipstuff to last you a while and a swell bibliography.

And then there are the essays.

Stackpole wrote a section each on how to build and run espionage, detective and merc scenarios. They are concise and meaty, and the advice is golden no matter who you are. Some of it you may already know, but -- do you have a sword that never needs sharpening?

Also, there's a section that talks about how law enforcement agencies work, two pages on using "live" clues, and the absolutely delightful chapter entitled "Tunnels & Thompsons":

The first testing of the MSPE firearms system that ever took place was a game session referred to jokingly as "Tunnels & Thompsons" because it took place inside a dungeon. This expedition was a group of second level Tunnels & Trolls characters armed with automatic weapons and thrust into a 5th to 10th level dungeon. The saying that "God made man, but Col. Colt made him equal" never seemed so true as on that adventure - the only casualty was a demon with a low DEX and a grenade launcher. After that a great archaeological expedition of mercs, preppies and the elite of spydom was launched into the Sumatran jungle to track down a lost Japanese regiment from WWII. In the ruins they discovered that, while a full clip from an AK-47 will not kill a vampire, it can sure slow one down.

Yes, that tingling you feel is your sense of adventure.

Now that you want this game real bad, go get one. Yes, it's still available. No, I'm not getting paid for this.

Ahh, sweet sweet impulse.

The Importance Of Being "Out"

A lot of gamers with whom I talk online are guarded, in their daily lives, about their hobby. "I never bring it up," they say. "I don't read my books in public."

I can sort of understand why they do that, but I do things a litt- okay, very differently.

Take today, for instance.

My company is training a bunch of new people for my department. I have already introduced myself to a few of them; today, I saw one of these guys, Alan, talking to a trainee whom I don't know.
Normal-looking dude, khaki dockers, close-cropped hair, glasses. just a normal dude, y'know? Oh, and he had a big ankh around his neck.

Now, that in itself means little. Maybe his family is Egyptian. Maybe he likes it. Maybe he's just flash. Maybe he's just weird.

So I say to Alan, "Hey, Alan, who's this guy?"

New Guy holds out his hand. "I'm Anthony," he says. I shake his hand and introduce myself.

"Now, Anthony," I say to him, "The ankh around your neck prompts me to wonder if you're one'a them dirty Vampire players." I'm not kidding; that's exactly what I said. (Well, maybe I didn't say 'prompt', but certainly I said 'dirty Vampire players'.) I said it freely and openly, as if I expected him to know what I meant. Like if I said "Cubs fan" or "Golf guy".

Anthony laughs and says, "No, I'm not a Vampire player. But I have friends who are."

"Good," I reply, "'Cause if you were I'd hafta stake ya." I'm thinking, Well, I could be weirding this guy out, but let's see. "That'd be rude, and there'd be a lot of this," I added, making rock-paper-scissors motions with my hands.

And Anthony kinda laughs and says, "I'm a hard-core D&D fan."

We-he-hell! Whadday know? "No kiddin'?"

"Nope," he replies.

"Don't go pullin' my leg, here," I say.

"Seriously."

Turns out Anthony is a big AD&D 2nd Edition fan, used to play Marvel Super Heroes until he memorized the chart, and got kicked out of high school once because he'd cut class to go to the library to play D&D with his buds. We talked for a few minutes on our way back to real actual work-related stuff, I gave him a tip on the FLGS, and on who in the office is a big gamer nerd (The other one is Derrick, aka Leaky Pete). Aces.

So. What came of my boldness, my openness, my sheer refusal to talk about gaming like it's some kinda goofy secret?

• I made a new friend.
• A newly-arrived gamer has a hookup in the local scene.
• Said newbie also has a new contact in the office.
• I have a cool story to post on my blog.

I dunno if what it takes is confidence or stupidity, but...dude, try it sometime. You are what you is and you is what you am, and you're not the only one out there knows what a d20 is.

Shift-X!

Stat And Deliver!

In looking again at FATE, and at how Aspects work, it occured to me that those could be used not just to define a character but also to describe a character. Not a big leap of understaning but a realization nonetheless.

I thought, "You know, if I had a Hyborian Age character with the Aspects 'Zingaran' and 'Duellist', that'd define him and be his stats. Cool," I mused. "Nice."

The very next thought I had, and I kid you not at all, my friends, was --

-- well, let's just do it visually.

THE DANDY HIGHWAYMAN

"The devil take your stereo and your record collection!"

00 DANDY (Good)
000 HIGHWAYMAN (Great)

SKILLS:

Wardrobe & Grooming - GREAT
Etiquette - AVG
Literacy - FAIR
Reparteé - FAIR
Riding - FAIR
Intimidation - AVG
Pistol - GOOD
Rapier - GOOD
Stealth - AVG
Appraisal - AVG

Weapons:
Twin flintlock pistols (+2)
Rapier (+2)

So sick of easy fashion, The Dandy Highwayman spends his cash on looking flash and grabbing your attention. But - what's the point of robbery when nothing is worth taking?

Ready to go for your next session of Harlots & Highwaymen, a game I'd totally play. So...run one and invite me.

AD&D 1st Ed. Real Actual True Play Report Summary

NOTE: Me no talk good English today. Also, cross-posted to The RPG Site.

Indeed, me hearties, I ran a bit of AD&D 1st Edition last night.

My wife brought some baggage into it, having had a bummer game in her past, but I like to think she had fun anyway; Kyle, however, just plays what's on the table. He rolled up a thief, she rolled up a fighter; they used the "roll lots of dice and keep the best three" rule from Unearthed Arcana, gave 'em 4 levels, rolled some magic items for 'em and off we went.

The scenario was a simple one. "Bonny" Stefan and Maava of the High Hill had just escorted a merchant named Twitshell (pronounced TWIGHT-shel) to Bloomingvale, a town known for its beauty and gardens, on the occasion of its annual Honeysuckle Festival. This year's fest was to be a special one, because the local Lady's daughter had just come of marrying age and was going to be "presented" during the festival.

The PCs acquired legs of mutton and fresh honeyed bread, and settled in to watch the young girls dance, and the young noblemen coming to pitch their woo. With her Comliness of 19 (yes, I was using it.), Maava turned many a head, but the young nobles did their best not to let their minds wander from the lady's daughter.

Along the way, Kyle made some funny remark which won him a treat: a so-called "Automatic 20". At some point, he would be allowed to cash it in and get, well, an automatic result of '20' on 1 roll. (His brother, Erik, used to do this in his game. Steal from the best!)

Maava noticed among these young bravos an unusual suitor: he came with no tent and no squire, naught but a night-black mare. He wore grey-green leather armor and his hair seemed...damp, like he'd just come out of the water. She tried her best to keep an eye on him, but he eluded her gaze and lost himself in the crowd.

Soon enough, Lucinda (the sexy young daughter) came down from the castle, and the boys were all over her. She, naturally, was all over Bonny Stefan, because he was a PC and the other dudes weren't. Stick it, NPCs! She coquettishly revealed she was more interested in an adventurer's life than a noble's life - or, at least, she'd rather earn a title than just have one handed to her. (Her mother, Linnea, was a former adventuress herself - an 11th level illusionist, actually.)

After a while, she was called away to watch the jousting matches, where the noble guys were hoping to impress her with their manliness or whatever crap. Naturally, that's when the army of toad-men attacked.

The PCs quickly went to work hacking up toad-men. Maava got much use out of that swell 1st ed. rule which allows a fighter in combat with creatures having less than 1 Hit Die to attack as many times as his level, while taking no damage herself on account of her AC being a 0; meanwhile, Bonny Stefan took a few spear-and-trident jazz whilst beating the crap out of monsters.

About 6 or 7 rounds in, they heard a wet, splatty noise -- giant lilypads appeared in midair, and began to fall on the soldiers and populace! Maava blew a saving throw vs. paralyzation and got pinned under a lily pad, and from beneath its slimy embrace she watched as the mysterious, green-clad knight escaped on horseback, with Lucinda his prisoner! The frogs began setting things on fire to cover his escape. Bonny Stefan whipped out his crossbow of speed and fired at the escaping knight; I wrote up some quick, cockamamie stats for the toad lord and let Kyle roll. His first shot missed, but the second one hit square - he used his Auto 20.

Then he rolled a '1' for damage, so Kyle sucks.

In the aftermath, Linnea approached Bonny Stefan and tasked him with rescuing her hot daughter, promising a reward for certain. Then it was midnight and time to go to bed.

I found AD&D 1st remarkably easy to deal with. For skills, I simply let the players have a broad proficiency ("Entertainer" for Stefan, "Hunter" for Maava) and allowed that having said proficiency meant they could do that stuff when they needed to. Skill rolls were fudged expertly using Animalball's free Stories System, and it worked fine bolted on as it was.

My wife still thinks the AD&D 1st. rules are clunky, but I think that if she plays more, she'll see how freewheeling it really can be. Then again, I really have dug down to the simplest features of the system, and everything else be damned.

I'll totally run it again.

I Must be Getting Serious; I Just Joined Dragonsfoot.

Every now and then, I haul out my AD&D 1st Edition stuff. I always said I'd never run it, but...

...that "every now and then" keeps getting more and more frequent.

Oddly, I'm finding it more and more enticing than d20.

I keep looking at it all and thinking, "Holy Cow, this game is so simple. So rich. So easy to fudge." One day, a basic realization penetrated even my dense and resistant mind: with the charts readily available on the DM's screen, players character sheets need contain little more than name, stats, class-relevant modifiers, AC, HP and names of weapons. I, sitting behind the screen, could easily run everything else for them.

And I'm really, really itching to run it.

I have more than enough to do so. Dungeon Master's Guide, Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, Monster Manual II, Unearthed Arcana, Greyhawk Adventures, Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, Legends & Lore and Unearthed Arcana. I have a couple of modules (White Plume Moutain, Tomb of Horrors, the Against The Giants series). As mentioned before, I have the old Forgotten Realms boxed set. I have the DM's Screen.

I haven't paid a dime for any of it; I've inherited it all, piecemeal.

Hmm. Maybe tonight...

FUDGE PIRATES!

NOTE: Here's a little something I've been working on, here lately, what with Fudge having re-captured my attention.

I. WHAT IT BE?
Ahoy! Fudge Pirates* be a role-playing game of piratical action upon the bounty waves! Ye plays a member of a freebooter crew, aboard a pirate ship, in searh of booty, plunder, adventure and such as that! Savvy? Aye, and it be not one o' them namby-pamby landlubber "historical" games with attention to detail and realism and all that bilge, no! This be a man's game, and it be cinematic and fair unrealistic as such things go. Well, lasses can play, too, of course, it's not just for gentlemen. Although, truly, a real pirate crew wouldn't have -- although, there was Anne Bonny, so that'd be accu- Damnation! To hell with nitpickery! This game be japery anyhow!

Yarr!

Oh. And it uses the Fudge system. Read it smartly, else confused and kinda stupid ye'll be. 'Tis an easy and free RPG system-toolkit-engine-thing, and it can be had for free, ye dirty skin-flint.

II. CREWING UP
Okay, enough pirate talk. It was fun, but it's gotta stop. Let's build a crew member -- in other words, a character.

You get that this is a role-playing game, right...?

Attributes
In this particular iteration of Fudge, as in many others, attributes are not linked directly to skills but rather act as a broad kind of handle on the character's innate abilities. They can be used as a broad substitute for skills, or to do something not expressly covered by a skill. Use them wisely -- in other words, more for color than for mechanics.

And the attributes are:

• STOMACH - General health, stamina, constitution, and ability to put away grog**.
• BRAWN - Muscle power, strength, etc. You know.
• SAVVY - How clever (but not educated) your pirate be, or not be.
• SEA-LEGS - Agility 'n' stuff. Foot-work, balance, etc. Can be used on land, but why would you?
• FINGERS - Hand/eye coordination.
• COURAGE - Spitting in the Devil's eye!

You get 3 free levels; Attributes default to Fair.

Skills
Has your sea-dog learned the finer points of piracy? Spend 30 free levels on the skills below (defaulting to Poor) and find out!

• Acrobatics
• Sailing
• Rope-tying (finally, a game where it's useful!)
• Rowing
• Command
• Melee
• Guns
• Navigation
• Cartography
• Medicine
• World Knowledge
• Bald-Faced Lying
• Brawling
• Speak Language (specify)
• Sweet-Talking
• Swimming
• Cooking
• Notice (covers all senses)
  
• Gambling
• Climbing
• Survival (specify 'land' or 'sea')
  

Skills not appearing on this list might be approved by your GM. If it's something really ridiculous and cheeky (Knitting, Illumination, Tantric Yoga), the GM is encouarged to believe that you deserve to have it and must put 4 levels in it, you smartass. There, now your pirate is a Great Equestrian, Chuckles.

Gifts and Faults
Look, an exhaustive list of Gifts and Faults is kind of beyond the point, and more typing than I'm iterested in doing on my lunch break. So, really, just come up with two of each that seem appropriate. Anything that seems like it'd fit in (First Mate, Good Looking, Danger Sense; The Black Spot, Peg Leg, No Tongue) is OK to go; anything that doesn't (Heat Vision, Supersonic Flight, Neural Jacks), just simply isn't, and you have to get the GM a drink for wasting his or her time with your dumb ideas. In fact, while you're thinking of silly non-piratey Gifts and Faults (and getting the GM a redpop), why don't you make some notes for a game of your own and run it for your friends, huh? Its only fair, and plus it looks like you're into it. GMs want to play, too.

Rounding Out Your Character
Now's a good time to come up with a name, appearance and personality for your character. You are encouraged to keep the personality broad, the appearance interesting and the name foul and suggestive, incorporating diseases, mutilations, deformities or just plain embarassing stuff whenever possible, but you can be boring and do something else, I don't care. Leaky Pete, Gangrene Sally, Pinkeyed Jack, Clubfooted Ralph...that's what I'd do, but you do what you want.

III. PILLAGE, PLUNDER, SAILING AND STUFF
Once again, this isn't a game of historical accuracy and Osprey book detail. It's about wielding cutlasses, swining from the rigging, getting drunk at port and killing fools for their stuff. Go watch Pirates of the Caribbean, The Sea Hawk, Sinbad: Legend of the 7 Seas or Cutthroat Island (YES, I said "Cutthroat Island". Don't make that face at me.) if you need inspiration and framework. Dude, my wife got a copy of Yellowbeard at the grocery store for 10 bucks, it's got a scene with Madeline Khan and David Bowie. It's not that great but it's kinda fun.

In other words, follow your gut. Be as serious as you wish but fear not to delight in pulp and camp. Aztecs, sharks, evil Spaniards, captive noblewomen, captive noblemen, treasure, caves, sea-monsters, The Royal Navy, natives, voodoo, storms, foreigners, cannonballs...cut loose and get your pirate on.

Want a real easy campaign framework? Okay. You're all the crew of a pirate ship named The Crimson Eviscerator (or whatever, but make it punchy so it plays in Peoria). After you're done fighting over who gets to be the captain (or after someone says, "Fine, I'll use BOTH Gifts to be the Skipper"), set sail in the Caribbean. You know that a rival pirate, Captain Betrand Blood, holds a map to buried Aztec treasure. The Spaniards are after him, but you are, too. Go get 'em, sea-tiger.

Lunch over.

*Stop laughing.
** Drinking is stupid. Don't do it.

Nazis At Grand Central Station

"So," I said to my wife as we stepped out of the house to take a walk with our daughter, "what do you want to do tonight?"

"I dunno," she chirped, "I hadn't thought of it."

"We could take Hollow Earth Expedition for a test-drive," I suggested, even though I've been sick and I didn't know if I'd have the energy.

"We could," she agreed, and we kept walking.

We purchased Exile Game Studios' Hollow Earth Expedition (HEX) last year at GenCon, for a number of reasons: it's nicely produced, the rules are elegant, the art is gorgeous, the author was tirelessly enthusiastic (it was Sunday afternoon after all, and he was still jazzed about his game), and we love pulp.

Plus: Nazis and dinosaurs. Sold!

But owing to ferret-like attention spans, it wasn't until just last night that we sat down to play; we'd made characters before, but never sat down to run the thing. She made a brand-new character, whom she hastily described as a scholarly-type with a thirst for adventure (and looking like Rachel Weisz because that was the first thing that came to mind) while I thought up some cockamamie scene which would lead to combat.

Combat with Nazis.

I gotta tell ya, HEX runs pretty smooth. There was lots of stopping to look stuff up, because we're newbies, but she didn't mind because we do this a lot. Still, the answers to our rules questions were, for the most part, simple ones; I couldn't find any chase rules and didn't feel like making any up (sick, remember?) and she felt like she needed more skill points to build with. Other than that, though...s'pretty easy. I daresay there's nothing really revolutionary about this game's design, but it has energy and direction, and that counts for a lot.

After our brief session, I took my questions to the publisher's fora -- and I had answers by the next morning. Good fan community. That's appealing.

I think my cockamamie thing about an Old Kentucky General's notes on the fate of the Maya may turn into a short campaign for our group.

PODCAST NEWS: Closer. Much closer.

¡Los Reinos Olvidados!

Ya know...I bought this boxed set back in...I dunno, 1991, '92. I never really used it.

I've bought other FR stuff since, notably a lot of the 3rd Edition stuff (good stuff, too). My wife and I have played some of the computer games, like and Baldur's Gate, Dark Alliance and Neverwinter Nights, to differing degrees of completion (the PS2 ones we beat together, twice). I've never dug into the fiction, really, nor have I been a real fan - just kind of a passive, occasional visitor.

All of a sudden, I'm lookin' at that old boxed set like it's sliced bread.

Look - this boxed set contains a lot of info on a fantasy RPG setting, but it's far from being choked with detail. It gives you good, solid thumbnails of certain people, places and things - but they're thumbnails, providing more a general sense of the subject that an encyclopedic, exhaustive...I dunno, a textbook?

This boxed set, and its contents, feel more like a tool for playing in the Realms. It even makes me want to play AD&D 1st Ed. with it, if only I could talk my wife into it. (She actually likes the Realms quite a bit as a setting, because, as she says, "So many people have done so much work in it, that it feels like it's full of life.")

We've been using it for that D6 Fantasy game I keep mentioning, and I'm really, finally, enjoying the Realms.

Oddly, I'm enjoying it as my setting.

Yup. I can put Pat Benatar in there.

ADDENDUM: ANOTHER ROTWANG!-CENTRIC CAMPAIGN DETAIL

Let's call this an entry for PROJECT: MURLYND.

Somewhere along the line, my wife and I developed an inside joke about explosive donkeys. I think we saw a donkey fall off a cliff and explode on an episode of Family Guy, and the notion was so funny to us that it just kind of spiraled out from there.

Last night, while watching The Musketeer, she spotted a donkey in one of the shots, and made a joke about it being potentially explosive. In that moment, I made a decision, and spoke it out loud:

"That's it. In my fantasy game world, donkeys have a 25% chance of being explosive." This was further adjusted to "50% if attached to a cart" and "75% chance if near a cliff".

Yes, it's dumb, but it's also kinda funny. Plus, it's my game, and I think it's cool. Therefore -- IN IT GOES.

Oh, yeah. Furthering the concept, 100% of in-game burros are made of corn.

Gee, I Guess I'd Better Mention The Game I've Been Running For 10 Weeks Now.

I don't know why I haven't posted about my bi-weekly D6 Space game.

It's not like the game's not fun; to the contrary, it's a bucket of fun. In fact, it's the place where I'm putting to use a lot of the stuff I've been talking about here, what with all the transcendant, GM-as-conduit-for-whatever-he-does RPG action that this blog is about.

So let me talk about it.

It's the game I mention on this thread at The RPG Site; it's also the one I talked about doing at my Friendly Local Games Store in this post from 2 Nov. 2006, only using D6 instead of d20. By all accounts it's been successful (i.e. the players are having fun), I've been having a blast with it, and one of the dudes has decided to run a D6 Fantasy game, he likesthe system so well. Aces.

I really am doing very little prep for it, and I really am stealing liberally from other sources. Just last night, I named a star system "Wiedlin" after Jane Wiedlin from The Go-Go's; there's an NPC named Nik Kershaw who is the captain of a ship called the Human Racing; The PCs' ship is named "Clear Air Turbulence", after the ship in Iain M. Banks' novel Consider Phlebas (the ship apparently is named after a jazz-fusion album, so it has a larcenous pedigree already); I have a plan to name a ship, somewhere, after a Missing Persons album.

I have turned a pair of hastily-described, inconsequential NPCs into major parts of the narrative, suddenly, and in the middle of play (Mary and Celeste Anglota, sexy twin starship thieves). I have spontaneously described the contents of a star system, thrown game stats together out of thin air, stuck in subtle clues to other adventures based on ideas long since conceived but never used, cribbed names from a list, rolled up NPC personailities on the spot...

...it's amazing how much solid, fun gaming we've done based on almost no preparation at all.

The key: vibe. I have an idea of what kind of game, setting, mood, feel, etc I want. I watch my players interact with it, and in some cases just improvise based on my backlog of influences and concepts.

Apart from having a simple goal for each session, a few notions of obstacles and a notebook in which to write down the crap I come up with...that's it.

That's how I run my game. And I forget to bring the same notebook most of the time.

It's a creative joy. I'm making stuff up, they're making stuff up, we meet in the middle and asses get kicked. Robots, Imperial Space Centurions, neon-lit space stations, a luxury liner defended by a colony of giant bugs and the pheromone that makes them angry, sanitary nanobots used as a weapon...

...my D6 Space game ROCKS.

Hey, mhensley!

Back on April 12th, I wasn't paying attention when mhensley said...

"I would love to read more about what you think of the D6 system. I'm currently digging into D6 Fantasy (again) and its starting to click for me as well."

Glad to answer, my good Hensley. Er. M. Yes.

Right. I'm having a great time with it, frankly. There's not much for ready-to-roll-out magic in there, but it rarely gets used in my games for whatever reason so I have had no issues; combat is pretty smooth and painless (well, except for the characters who are fighting...); the system is pretty easy to adapt to a classic D&D feel, f'r'ex, which is what I'm doing; and also the critical successes and critical failures are, I find, very inspirational.

Last night, f'r'ex, my wife rolled a '1' on her Wild Die while listening at a door. That '1' can have three results:

1. It can remove itself, and the highest-rolling die, from the total;
2. It can indicate that something bad is going to happen; or
3. It can just be added in, too bad so sad.

I opted for the second option, but I was thinking, How can something go horribly bad when you're just listening at a DOOR?! I guess she could've misinterpreted a sound as something different; hear a draft but find, I dunno, a giant winged monster.

Instead I put a poisonous mold on the door, which, when the door was opened, puffed out its spores and WHAMMO! Cough-hack-damage!

Lunch is up. Gotta go. Good times!

Success or Failure?

In the comments for my last post, Jeff R. from Illionis writes to us,

Dear I Wate The Buddha With My Crossbow:

I never thought the stories I read in your blog were true, until the day I met Theatrix.

I was hanging out at my local the other day when I spott--

No, wait, that's -- Hang on.

In the comments for my last post, Jeff R. wrote,

Q: Do you feel like you have anough material from the last week to run some fantasy adventures? If so, I'm of the opinion you can count the exercise as a success.

Well, that' s a good question. I have a starting point for some fantasy adventures, but...not a whole lot. More than anything, and this ocurred to me last night as I wrapped up a game with my wife, I feel like I have a good amount of stuff with which to customize another plain vanilla setting -- like, say, Los Forgotten Realms.

I mean, why not? I can drop in the Knights of the Ring Argent next to the Harpers and the Purple Dragons of Cormyr and whatever else, right? I can have Torm appear as Abe Vigoda, maybe Sune's avatar looks like Pat Benatar sometimes, and there are some Mongolian-esque dudes out East, got a big hunk'a meteor that's drivin' 'em nuts, can't figure what to do with it.

I mean, who cares? Is Ed Greenwood gonna come to my house and uncork some Elminster on my sorry, Realms-bendin' ass?

No. He has better things to do.

BUT. I don't have my own setting. Well, I have some but I don't like them anymore, for some reason; that'd be interesting, to find out why that is.

Most importantly...I set out to focus on a task, and blew it.

Out of steam already?

Man, what a bummer. I shoulda said a week.

My lack of updates is partly because I have, you know, family stuff going on, plus work, plus gaming. Actually I've been playing D6 Fantasy with my wife, using the Forgotten Realms as our setting...but using only the 1st Ed. boxed set, Faiths & Avatars for some details I didn't feel like making up, the 1st Ed. DMG for its NPC-creating powers and the 1st Ed. Monster Manual for descriptions of monsters and quick, dirty conversion.

I find that this fulfills my FRPG needs very nicely at the moment.

Also...I'm going to produce a podcast. As I mentioned in the comments for last post, I have some VERY BASIC equipstuff, and Mike From Work has agreed to write a short bit of music for it. Maybe I can talk him into a 3- or 5-second bumper to separate segments, too, if he's willing, and I'll pay him back by drawing him a picture of a Chuckle Boat Full Of DSRs (don't ask, I dunno either). Anyway, I intend to have fun with it and hopefully amuse some folks with my crazy audio antics. You know that "mad Money" guy who throws junk around on TV? I'm not like him.

More as it develops.

PROJECT: MURLYND - Day 7

Today's addition is another "found" item: The Knights of the Ring Argent.

Pretty easy to find since I wrote it up. Ha-ha!

Of course I want these guys in my game. They encapsulate what I love most about RPGs: the wild adventure of discovery, the raw energy of going out and getting an adventure. They're all about the excitement of adventure, wherever it may be.

Why Ring Argent? Why did they select a silver ring as their symbol? I dunno...I thought of it some years ago, on the spur of the moment, and didn't really intend to think it through any more than that. It sounds good, it's an easy image to conjure up ("...and she has a silver ring on her shield."), and that's probably enough. If I happen to think of something really good, I'll pencil it in, but I won't have thought of it because I tried. I'll have thought of it because it ocurred to me.

I'm tempted to write up a D6 Fantasy template for them, but...naaaah. I mean, I probably use will use D6 Fantasy as my rules set, but I don't wanna go marrying up to anything just yet.

Rings notwithstanding.

PROJECT: MURLYND - Day 6

And what kind of day shall it be...? A-ha! It shall be

...for nothing says "FRPG" with quite the same tone and timbre as "You can play elves and dwarves and hobbits."

These races are mainstays of FRPG tradition; somehow, when you start adding in cat-people and haf-deva-half-fiend dragon-cat-people and stuff it starts feeling sort of...I dunno, too much, in my estimation.

A better way to say this is: To me, elves/dwarves/halflings are cool. Cat-people are not. Therefore...In They Go.

So. A few notes on the races of The Realm:

HUMANS
...are the predominant race, partly because their numbers multiply so quickly and partly because they're more expansionistic than the other races. [NOTE: I'm not sure that's really a word.] They are not unlike the humans that you and I know, with their ups and downs and spectrum of experiences and motivations.

ELVES
...are effectively the bog-standard elves of most FRPG settings (Like the Forgotten Realms, say), but they have a unique cultural identity. Their race is old, and their works are great, and over time these factors have had an effect on the elves as a people: they are over-achievers, with an almost neurotic need to excel and do great things. They are all compulsive perfectionists to some degree, and although individuals do of course have their own identities, drives, etc., that inner elf worries at them all. This is made worse by the fact that, long ago, the elves built a splendid city of wonders and great beauty...and they lost it. No no, not "it was destroyed in the War of the Blah-Blah". More like, "We built this place behind a magical portal, hid the portal, and now...uh..." Everybody wants to find this fabled city, because if the legends are true, it's the most astonishing thing ever built. The elves want to find it because, in their minds, losing it makes them look bad.

[Those of you thinking, "Hey, he's just gonna shove in Myth Drannor, isn't he?" can have a Gold Star. Oh, and stop rolling your eyes.]

DWARVES
...in The Realm are the bearded, axewielding underground craftsmen we all know and love, but with an interesting addendum. Dwarven culture is centered not so much on craft and achievement and family honor as it is on respect and politeness. To a dwarf, the phrase "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" isn't just a truism -- it's a way of life. It's very simple, to them: folks who show respect, say 'please' and 'thank you', don't hassle other folks overmuch and generally act civil don't get their freaking blocks knocked off. This doesn't mean that they bake each other pies and smile and put up Mary Engelbreit postcards all over thir forges, it just means that they understand (and have fully assimilated) the value of showing respect for others. They assume that every other race understands this, so they try their best to be polite (if not always pleased with) everyone else. Disappointments in this cause a certain amount of displeasure in dwarves, which leads nearly immediately to punches.

GNOMES
...don't live around here.

NELWYNS
...are from Willow, and I'm using them. They're like Hobbits, only cooler; can you picture Merry and Pippin taking up pike and spear and pokin' a Death Dog to, um, death for bustin' up a hoedown? Well, yeah, but it's a stretch. Nelwyns fill the "pastoral little folk" role quite nicely, have wizards (Aldwins etc.), keep standing men-at-arms ("Vohnkaaaaar!") and don't seem to get any FRPG love. I bought the Willow Sourcebook (writen by Allen Varney) back in 1988 and by gum I'm gonna use it.

[In the aforementioned book, by the way, it's stated that, in his youth, Vohnkar totally went apenuts one night and killed his dad for being a dirty damned abusive drunk who had it coming. It has featured fiction on all of the major players and many of the minor ones, too. It's a great read and I recommend it.]

MORE WILLOW LOVE: Click here and here to see some pre-production art. And if you can't see the image abve, clicketty-click-click.

There you go. The major playable races of The Realm, which I guess is what I'm calling it for now. QUIT ROLLING YOUR EYES I SAID!

UPDATE!

Thanks to Ronin!



Incidentally, Ronin is my cat's name.

PROJECT: MURLYND - Day 5

Vikings.

My game world wants vikings.

It does not want real-world vikings; oh no. It wants fantasy vikings. It begs for horn-helmeted, axe-waving, braid-bearded troll-hunting giant-sea-lion-fighting polar-bear-riding badass turbo vikings, like that girl in that ad for that booze whose name evades me but which I have printed out at home.

Those vikings.

Thor. Valkyries. Giant sun-swallowing wolves and the crazy hermits that worship them. Longboats. Giants. Those three-headed witches that Jeff Rients was talking about. Hairy trolls on icy mountaintops. These things and more are to be found in Frodesland, the frost-bitten savage land north of The Realm! Here, hearty, bearded men and inexplicably under-dressed women brave the everlasting winter with axe and courage, taming the frozen wilderness and ruling a kingdom of ice and blood!

And...stuff.

This idea is only kind of half-formed, but it's definitely exciting and evocative. It's a little over-the-top, but I think it's cool. And that's one of my key notions: if it's cool, in it goes.

Last night we watched The Brothers Grimm with Heath Ledger and Matt Damon. I won't spoil anything for ye who've not seen it but suffice to say that there's a cool magical axe in it, and it, combined with the spontaneous viking-esque chick I drew this morning, are spurring me on. Plus, I've been looking for a place to drop in that polar-bear-riding lass from the aforementioned hooch advert, and now's as good a time as any.

Now that I think of it, I have some loose notes about a sorceress named Invirana, The Ice-Queen. They include FUDGE stats, so conversion will be a snap.

BY THE WAY, WHAT RULES AM I WRITING FOR?
I'm not. My primary choices for fantasy gaming are HERO 5th, D6 and Tunnels & Trolls, but in my heart (where it's damp and icky) I favor D6, it being the halfway point in terms of simplicity and spontaneity-readiness. At the moment, though, I'm not creating anything with any rules in mind, on purpose.

Here's a little something for my cuate The Evil DM:


Happy Tuesday. I'm calling her Gunnhild Madsdottir. TO THE FRAY!

PROJECT : MURLYND - Day 4

Man, this bidness is hard to do when you got a life. Yestrday was Easter, which means it was Fambly Time, and last night after The Kid went to bed, my wife and I threw down a nice, enjoyable game of D6 Fantasy. It rocked and you should be happy for me.

Okay! Last time, an anonymous poster by the name of Pete (Spahn? I hope so) suggested that I was on the right track what with the sweeping generalities slowly sharpened into manageable specifics. So today, let's play with one of the ideas I threw down one Day 1: The Horse Tribes. Specifically, this one right here...

THE RIDERS OF MOGROL
A nomadic tribe, strong in numbers (about 10,000 people) who ride the plains and steppes of The Realm. Formerly they were raiders, but a nasty run-in with a much stronger power gave them cause to be peaceful and non-invasive. They have a tightly-knit community and a culture based greatly on tradition and honor. They raise and herd gamms (creatures which look, and taste, like cattle but are only about 3' at the shoulder), goats and chickens. They don't farm a whole lot, being that they move around so much.

Leadership is taken (not given -- taken) by those who can command the greatest respct; among the Mogrols, respect is due to he who rides best, can shoot best from horseback, provides best for the tribe and writes the best ancestor-songs (a kind of melodic, poetic oral history). There are a dozen chiefs and they all hold equal rank, but some of them feel they ought to outrank the others. Tradition hands them the notion that internal strife is bad -- it splits up the tribe and a house divided eventually falls. Thus, unity and concord are of utmost important to them, and to their culture.

Lately, that unity has come under duress. At their last campground, the Mogrols witnessed a falling star, which fell with a great explosion upon the benighted plain. Fearful for their herds they went to survey the damages, and found that the star itself still lay in the ground.

The Mogrols ahve never seen this happen before, but some of the scouts have brought back tales of Nagrol (non-Mogrol) craftsmen who fashion star-metal into swords and plows of immense, almost magical, properties. A genuine rift has developed amongst the Mogrol, trying to decide just what to do with the thing. Some say that it is a sign (or just an opportunity) to change forge weapons and begin rading again, as they did once before in more savage days; others say it was intended as punishment for certain chiefs' leaninfs toward re-instating the raids. Others see it as a call to stay in one place and stop wandering, while others are convinced that one of thoe gods wants them dead.

A few just shrug and say, "A rock fell from the sky one night. So what?"

What decision will the chiefs reach? Will they agree? Will it tear the tribe apart? Will they begin their deadly raids anew?

Is a god really trying to kill them?

The Coolest Game You're Not Playing

Mr Chris Engle, of Hereabouts, IN, is the author of The Coolest Game You're Not Playing. It is called Engle Matrix and it has nothing at all to do with those movies that Ted "Theodore" Logan was in unless of course you like it that way.

Engle Matrix games are widely varied and ridiculously simple. They bridge the gap between role-playing-, board- and strategy games, and I reviewed them once upon a time right here on this webpage. Interestingly enough, as I post this, I do have my mouth full of tasty sammich goodness, so obviously it's an omen and it was meant to be.

Why are you still reading this?! Go, click, go! Life's too short! Alternately, look for him at Gencon, and buy some puppets, too. Oh, and his wife's a good cook and neither one of them is a dirty cannibal.

PROJECT: MURLYND - Day 3

Since I gave myself the OK to use "found ideas", i.e. stuff I already have lying around, I'm gonna do just that. Here's some stuff that I'm going to pop in there because I said so:

• Keep on the Borderlands. Classic module, and totally rad. way open-ended and just what this campaign needs.
  
• The Barony of Serovan, which I mentioned earlier. I have maps of the city and of the surrounding area, so using it will be a cinch. I even have some NPCs and a little local plot: Baron Auldrec Autumnis is kind of a meathead jerkwad who has taken over for the old, beloved baron, and he's charging ridiculous and exorbitant taxes on everything. He has, at his disposal, many loyal soldiers -- he's a war hero, an athlete, a Man's Man. He thinks he's a great leader and that he knows how to run a barony, but, uh...he's a motard and he doesn't.
  
• Castle Foxmoor, stronghold of the paladin Lord Obregon. Mostly a nice guy, except quite zealous here in his old age -- he's starting to feel like he's losing his edge, so he's decided to start a little crusade of his own and Clean The Place Up. He has the allegiance of a couple of local lords, and he intends to rid his lands of undesirables. Now, if only I knew who these undesirables are...*
• Another "Castle & Lands" idea: a small system of strongholds held by an illusionist and her former adventuring cronies (a ranger, a fighter and a lady cavalier). I have no idea what's going on in there, except that the cavalier's keep is at the edge of some dry, barren hills that have a bit of a purple worm problem. I have some NPC notes, some castle notes and a map somewhere.
  
• Ewoks. No, wait, that's a crappy idea.
• The Great Wizard and his lizardman guards, stolen di-rectly from the pages of Sergio Aragones' Groo.
• Kira, Goddess of Youth and The Arts, whose avatar looks a whole lot like Olivia Newton-John in Xanadu.
  

What? Stop looking at me like that. It's my game, damnit. It means something to me.

*Mike, from work, might say that this would be a great place to stick those Furries he was talking about. I wonder if he is not on to something.

PROJECT: MURLYND - Day 2

NOTE: Yesterday's update was delayed by 3 factors -- Daddy/Daughter time in the morning, a D6 Space game in the evening, and a much, much needed nap in between.

As stated before, I don't want this setting to depend too much on political boundaries. I've done that before and become bored with it -- I don't know why, but I tend to lock myself into a creative straightjacket when I do that, and that's Not The Point.

That said, there's a need for cultures and societies. To work around it, I'm going to create a few kingdoms, baronies, etc., and rather than pack them all together and draw borders between them, I'm going to cast them out like islands of organized society in a sea of wilderness.

F'r'ex, let's say that you're adventuring in the Barony of Serovan, which is a pretty vanilla FRPG kingdom with a main capital city overseen by Baron Auldrec Autumnis. You're running around in the feudal area, between orchards and towns and the city of Serovan proper and so on. Well, Serovan's "borders" only stretch so far out, so when you go off to do something in the neighboring Kindom of Maur, you're gonna have to pass through a few score miles of wild, untamed land full of monsters and mysteries and crazy dangerous stuff. Their borders do not abut.

Believe it or not, this common-sense approach to world-building is something I've never really done before.

Why?

Hat over my eyes.

I don't like to lock myself in to things, so rather than say, "Okay, I'm going to detail x kingdoms and they are named A, B, C, etc.", I'm going to make a list of possible socities and choose a few good ideas out of the mix. Brainstoming, y'see, writing stuff down as it occurs to me.

Okay! Here it goes...

• Elven nation built on the ruins of the human nation they conquered 1000 years ago
• Greco-roman kingdom by the sea, decaying as political infighting erodes the nation's purpose and focus
• The Troll Lands, a big chunk of wilderness dominated (if not actually "ruled") by trolls, orcs, goblins etc.
• A landmass to the south which is populated by dinosaurs and megalithic mammals, separated from the rest of the continent by a wide chasm.
• Vanilla-FRPG feudal kingdom of chivalry and sorcery -- basically, medieval European stuff as painted by Clyde Caldwell, Larry Elmore, Jeff Easly and Keith Parkinson
• The Horse Tribes, nomads who wander the steppes and wear those cool Mongol helmets
• A barbarian tribe in the north -- Conan meets vikings, worshipping a frost giant
• A kingdom expanding its borders towards an arid land full of savages -- basically the American Old West, with forts and homesteads, but swords instead of rifles and real savages instead of, you know, Indians*
• The Dells, where the halflings live, eat, sleep, garden and are basically dull
• The Plains of Mak-Nar, name which I stole from a locally-produced one-act play, and which has all your blasted wastelands and your umpassable mountains and your howling orc tribes and your undead, black-armored, fire-shooting-from-the-eyeslits-of-his-helmet guy with a bigass sword and stuff

LUNCH OVER! BACK TO WORK!

PROJECT: MURLYND - Day 1

NOTE: As it happens, the previous post wasn't actually published until yesterday (4 April) because it was on "Draft" status until then. This, today's is the first PROJECT: MURLYND post.

Where to start, where to start...? There's a good question. When you're free-forming like this, where do you begin? Do you pick a place and go from there? Should you follow something of a pattern, just to get your thoughts organized and make sure you don't skip something important? Do you go with your gut and blaze a trail?

Hell, I don't know. It's my idea and I don't know. I could start with the campaign setting's name, its shape, a few basic assumptions...Whoa! There it is, compadre! Let's start with

A FEW BASIC ASSUMPTIONS

• This world has a commonly-used name, but it's not a proper name like Toril or Krynn or Faern or what-have-you; instead it's something general, like "The World" or "The Land" or "Troll World" or "The Realm". Kind of like the world of the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon was called "The Realm".
  
• There is a pantheon of deities, and they each have sway over certain aspects of the world and the people in it. They govern abstractions (Love, War, Peace, Justice, Luck, etc.) and there aren't that many of them because I don't want to get bogged down with gods for every little thing. People worship them openly and sometmes they appear amongst the people-- avatars, as it were. Their patron is Abe Vigoda.
  
• Despite the above, this isn't a silly campaign. It ain't straight-laced and super, super serious, either, but it's not a cartoon. The infamous Wand of Castle-Killing is welcome here (and probably exists in some dungeon somewhere), but Transmute Flesh To Cheeseburger is too fourth wall and therefore not happenin'.
• The word has one sun and three moons (again, inspired by the D&D cartoon). No, I'm not making up charts to track the moons' orbits, phases, moods and shopping habits. Screw that.
• Types of cultures, societies and governmentts range from total anarchy to feudalism, as the needs of the story require.

Damn. Lunchtime's over. Maybe I'll add on tonight at home.

• 
  

PROJECT: MURLYND

I had an idea today. It came in part from reading an old Dragon, in part from looking at Tunnels & Trolls 7th Edition and in part from the weather (warm, breezy weather acts like a creative battery for me; science has not yet determined the process by which this occurs). I've got a lot to say about it, but I'll cut to the chase.

PROJECT: MURLYND (its working title) is a 30-day attempt at creating a FRPG campaign setting. The idea is to sketch out a campaign setting in broad strokes, and to add some bit of work (whatever it is) every day for a month. Therefore, it's as much about creativity as it is about dedication.

I'm easily distractible and lazy, so the idea of giving myself a 30-day project like this is scary and exciting at the same time. I want to get myself used to, you know, working on something consistently, so PROJECT: MURLYND is a way to do that.

Some of you old school guys and gals out there might remember Dragon #71, which featured an article entitled "Greyhawk's World" by Gary Gygax himself. The article detailed a quartet of "quasi-deities" from the author's campaign, and one of them was this guy:


Yup. That's Clint Eastwood all right. Well, it's Murlynd, and he was into the American Old West, despite being an AD&D character. He had a pair of pistols and a horse and a dancing broadsword.

In an AD&D game.

Obviously, his player, and Gygax, liked this crazy notion enough to not only allow it in the game but to publish it in Dragon as Greyhawk material. In other words, they thought it was cool so they went with it.

That my friends, is where I'm taking my major inspiration: if it's cool, put it in the campaign setting. To hell with over-thinking; nuts to fiddly-bits. Just come up with a wide framework, like girders in a building. Fill in the details later.

And add something every day, for 30 days.

It will start off with the really broad stuff -- how many kingdoms or areas, their names and general (very general) flavors, gods worshipped, and so on. Then it'll move on to some somewhat more specific things like a few notes on this Mongolian-esque nomad tribe or that hidden city. It'll end with a map, which won't even be all that detailed, because when I try to do it the other way I get frustrated for some reason.

Taking a page from Peter Spahn's Chronicles of Amherth, it'll include a series of drag-and-drop ideas not associated with any location or culture -- kind of a grab-bag of adventure fodder.

The project has a few rules:

1. Keep it broad!
Every entry just needs enough info in it to inspire detal later on, NOT to dictate it. Population distribution and stuff like that is cool, but it's cooler to know that the South Plains are inhabited by megalithic monsters and prehistoric mammals the size of SUVs.

2. Add something every day!
This is about focus more than anything. It's about actually doing it and having something to show at the end.

3. Use of found elements is allowed!
In other words: license to steal. As long as I put my own spin on it, or use it to shape something else, or at least think it's cool...then it's cool. Got a copy of Keep on the Borderlands? Put that mofo in there. Cool picture on Jeff Rients' blog? Snatch. Want Abe Vigoda and Pat Benatar to be deities? Yea, baby, you're making gravy without the lumps!

4. Don't get obsessed!
Seriously. It's just a gameworld. C'mon, it's got Pat Benatar in it!

Well...let's see how this works.

A Bit About That Traveller Radio Play

The author put a lot of work into it, and I feel bad saying that it was awful.

There.

I, Pod

I've always liked listening to the radio at night. Don't know why.

I also don't know why it took me about 6 months or so to figure out that I could slap the occasional, say, radio drama or SF/gaming podcast on my wife's iPod Nano and listen to it in bed. It's very likely that I delayed in thinking of it because I am immesurably dense.

We live in a golden age for this stuff, really, because podcasts are as common as the cold. So I'm looking around for science fiction shows, gaming shows, genre dramas, etc. I've only just begun, really, but already I've found a couple of stand-out.

Unfortunately, they stand out for the wrong reasons.

I love Traveller, so I was thrilled to find out that there's a Traveller radio play. It's in 4 chapters, and I downloaded them all and burned those mofos onto a CD last year and I put it in my truck and I drove to the games shop one day and I listened to the whole show and my brain melted. I'll be as polite as I can be and simply say that it's ill-produced, confusing and uninteresting. The protagonist, Ted D. Flask, is an unbelieveable (I mean "I Don't Believe In Him") character, and long stretches of voice-modulated, pretentiously-voiced narration are hammered in whereaction and dialogue would've been more interesting.

The shame is this: It's Traveller, and Traveller, to me, means "potential". The plot, by and large, isn't so bad, but it's allowed to meander with little sense of pacing. Plus, Ted's a prick. Sadly, I listened to the entire production as a kind of nerd-macho endurance test, and ultimately labelled it the worst SF audio drama I'd ever heard.

Granted, at that point, I ain't heard nothin. Last night, I heard Chapter 3 of "Mission of Gravity".

From my dear 1985 comes this...umn...

...

...okay. Here's the thing. There's a SF radio program called "Destinies - The Voice Of Science Fiction". It's at least 22 years old and frankly it's awesome. I've heard 3 episodes of it so far, featuring book reviews, interviews (I've heard Mark Leonard, George Takei, John Buscema and Larry Niven) and some radio drama. I heard a pretty good Star Trek: TOS adventure, part of a so-so Conan adventure, and the thing I heard last night.

"Mission of Gravity".

The plot:

Who knows?

Ostensibly it's these two spacers who are tracing a shipment of illegal drugs. Okay, cool. Only this is what I heard:

Two guys mumbling, one of the guys mumbling while a dude with his head inside a bucket made grunting alien noises, the two guys mumbling, a bunch of noises which were explained as a bar fight, some exposition about climbing a tower to get to acomputer, more of the two guys mumbling, a gun fight with no rhyme or reason, the guys mumbling again, and then the sweet, merciful release of the segement's end.

I am not even kidding, folks, I literally exhaled with relief when it was over. I need to impress upon you that the mumbled dialogue, by the way, appeared to be unscripted, awkward exchanges consisting of, oh, about 3-8 words apiece. "Yeah. Climb that. Take off your jacket, why don't you? Go to the computer. Yeah. No, wait. Uh-huh? Tell me more info. Uh-huh."

I don't know if it was meant as a joke, back in my dearest 1985, but...holy god, it was SO. VERY. BAD.

The rest of Destinies? Good stuff. "Mission of Gravity"? Crap.

Anyway, I just found this website and I plan to mine it fr all it's got, once, uh, once I get my broadband problem fixed at home.

Both of these horrid little audio dramas really, really make me wish I had audio production facilities. I mean, really wish it.

But I don't.

I Am An Idiot, And Forgot A Couple.

Ah, yes. My absolute favorite game-city of all freaking time.

It's danged near perfect for a tabletop campaign. Already stocked with NPCs, adventure ideas, locations, an interactive map and tons of mood and feel. Plus, players are likely to be familiar with the setting, and additional info is readily available.

C'mon. Tommy Vercetti can't keep the town forever.

Of course, I also have a copy of Vice Squad: Miami Nights, which not only wraps up feel and flavor into a delicious package, it has one of my favorite elements in a setting book. There's a section called "Never A Dull Moment", which is nothing more or less than an array of little flavor-setting incidents to spring on your players. Everything from getting your car tagged to chance run-ins with important NPCs, every one of them adds flavor and life to the setting.

Aces.

You know, I do prefer warmer climes...

Ludometrophilia

I didn't take Latin in high school but I think the above means "Love of game-cities". If not, I welcome correction.

Yesterday we went to Greenwood and hit up the Half-Price Books. I passed on the $20.00 copy of Ex Machina and went for something a little older:

R. Talsorian's Night City sourcebook for Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. Although it's good stuff for sure, CP 2020 isn't really my best choice for cyberpunk gaming. However, I couldn't pass up this little nugget of joy for five bucks and change, especially since it still had the color poster-map. Snag!

I've only skimmed it so far, but I find it pleasant and probably really useful (what I will henceforth term "The Thomas Factor"). It details hundreds of locations in Night City, gives an overview of how the city works, groups locations by type on a recurring map and gives a random encounter chart and interesting NPCs for each section of the city. Neat! The tone is chatty and informal, and it has a lot of flavor without being drenched in it.

Looking at it on the drive home got me to thinking about the other city-themed gamebooks that I own, and especially about how much I like that sort of thing: visitor's guides to places that don't exist.

The Edge is another one of those favorites. Much of Over The Edge, Jonathan Tweet's charmingly surreal 1992 game, is given over to describing the city and its people. It's a bizarre, cosmopolitan town on a semi-secret mediterranean island called Al Amarja, and it has everything from ex-CIA guys and mad scientists to mutants, aliens and zombies. It paints a colorful picture of a weird and multi-cultural society, and it does it by breaking the city down into manageable chunks. This book, too, gives random encounter charts for each "barrio" or neighborhood, although OTE's charts are more clever than Night City's. Reading it truly gives the sense of a balmy, weird metropolis on an island somewere. Strangely, I have never run this game.


San Angelo: City of Heroes, by the way, ROCKED. Do you like comics? Here, I'll let this guy say it for me:

"I keep getting requests for an Astro City RPG; we're not planning to do one - but I think any Astro City fans who want such a game should at least try out San Angelo. It's an intricate, involving, well-realized gaming world, and the emphasis on the reality of the surroundings and the humanity of the characters may make it just what they're looking for."

-- Kurt Busiek, creator of Astro City

Busiek nailed it -- this city feels real. It feels alive. It has a history, it has a future. You can really, truly tell that people live there, and furthermore, that your PCs can show up and make a difference. It needs a bigger map, but it's still aces.

I.C.E.'s Cyberspace was my cyberpunk game of choice Back In The Day, and while the default setting was ostensibly San Francisco, this little gem was published as an alternate stomping ground. It focuses not on Chicago itself but on the New Edison corp.'s Chicago Arcology, a self-contained city-within-a-city built around a shopping mall. It has its own gangs, its own neightborhoods (kind of), its own mass transit, its own secrets. Night City has one of these, too, but Chicago Arcology is all about its own microcosm.

Plus, it every few pages or so, the book gives you little news-fax headlines to peruse -- they range from the factual and serious to the satirical and ridiculous, capturing that "MediaBreak" feel that RoboCop made so tasty.

White Wolf's The Chaos Factor supplement for Mage: The Ascension attempted to detail Mexico City as a game setting and bored me.

Were I enterprising, I'd write one of these of my own -- maybe a city guide to Ranseur City, chief metropolis of my Traveller subsector's capital, with its corporate starship construction offices and media production facilities and robot-controlled air/raft taxis and its extensive computer networks and neat antigrav restaurants.

But I'm not an enterprising sort.

Plus, who besides me would use it?