I Been Witched!

Okay. You know that Encounter Critical didn't come out in1979. I know know that Encounter Critical didn't come out in1979. Everybody knows that Encounter Critical didn't come out in1979.

I manage, however, not to truly believe it.

In other words, the notion of Encounter Critical being written, and played, in 1979 is so very real to me, that the truth is...I dunno...less interesting? Less believable?

It's witchcraft! I been magicked!

The Coming Of The Psi-Knights!

Just for crazy, I rolled up an Encounter Critical character last night. I rolled his race at random (human), and his stats made him a prime choice for the Psi-Witches. I decided he'd be one of the "galactic order" that's mostly men, and called it "The Galactic Order of the Psi-Knights". I decided he'd be a mutant, too, because the tables are there.

His mutated psi-lobe caused his two of his stats to change to 7 and 11, so I found therein his name: Svendar Elenev.

Nice. He's from the planet Norussia, I guess. Cold place, lots of fishing and onion domes.

Further he is allergic to phasic- and laser-damage; ergo, I decided he shuns weapons of those types, although the phasic sword is totally the weapon of a Psi-Knight. And his missile attack is better than his melee attack, so I went a little weird on his weapon choices:

A great flail and a .45 Auto.

High Leadership (LEA) makes him charismatic, butI think I'll make him a little stern, too. It'll be interesting, he'll be a kind of a "tough love" Jed- uh, Psi-Knight. I'll give him brown robes and feathered hair, because it's 1979 when you play Encounter Critical.

All he needs is a motivation, and a reason to be on Vanth; then I can do a one-line concept slug. Here's my idea:

A stern but likeable Galatic Psi-Knight wants to Defeat Darth Viraxis.

With a stick on a chain, and a .45.

Encounter Critical, folks. Let's give it a hand.

NEXT: Developing my idea for an EC module, "Island of the Robodroids"!

Into The Blue Again

Well -- How did I get here?

I mentioned in a previous post that lots of little things came together to shake me out of my gaming doldrums, things that came 'round in bits and intervals to re-energize me. The things that inspired me to

NOT THINK SO DAMNED HARD
ALL THE TIME.

I think they deserve mention. And mention them I will, but in no discernible order, cause I'm freeformin' to-nite!

PIG GAMES. If you're not familiar with the wondermousness that is Politically Incorrect Games, I encourage you to click upon that link you just looked at and see for yourself. Brett Bernstein's game designs are so devilishly and entrancingly simple that it's hard not to love them. His systems get down to the heart of play -- they provide a nudge or two of structure and encouurage you go go nuts and add stuff at whim. I started looking at this stuff and thinking, "So...I can just make stuff up, right? I don't hafta worry about points 'n' stuff?" It made me want to come up with crazy stuff again...and I did.

ENCOUNTER CRITICAL. You want a game with rich subtext? Game design and presentation as art? Faux-pretentiousness as a statement of gaming history? Cybernetic Wookiee hookers? Check, check, check, check and a fifth check for whatever you think of next, because I bet it's in there. Transcendentally ridiculous, Encounter Critical points straight into the heart of seat-of-your-pants gaming: crazy misadventures at varying degrees of sophistication and seriousness, all fuelled by the love of the crazy stuff itself. Why does this game feature Vulkins, Planetary Apes, Hoblings and Robodroids on a planet where magic works and sexy bee girls can kill you? Because that's what gamer dreams are made of. Anything goes in EC, and it only makes as much sense as it needs to. No more.

WUSHU. Dan Bayn's wonderful game could've been called Roll Dice And Kick Ass. Its mechanics not only encourage visualization and creativity but really demand them, and gives you free-wheeling action and description at the expense of point-based game balance and bean-counting. Look...I love games like HERO and GURPS, but those became kind of a honeyed trap for me; I'd fall to the obsession to Do It Right, to figure out the Advantages and the Powers and the Points and the Effects and the -- the everything. In Wushu, you succeed by being interesting. I felt so refreshed...

"GO PLAY". Ya know, I caught some flak from bits of the online community for not being murderously opposed to this internet meme, but that episode helped me get to this blog, so nyaaahhh. If you're not familiar, "Go Play" is...umn...well, everyone has a different explanation, and frankly I don't care what it is or whose avatar is the nicest, but suffice to say that it's intended as a gamer slogan. I took the whole thing to mean, Dude, gaming is fun. Get off your butt and go do it. Cut loose, man, get down and do what you love because you love it, not because you must excel at it .It's kind of what my wife had been telling me for years, but of course it wasn't getting through my skull.

DRAGON MAGAZINE #145. It was the article on random castles that did it -- th the one that expanded upon the charts given in the 1st Ed. DMG. One day while my daughter was napping and my wife was at work, I was paging through this issue and hit that article. I wanna mess with this, I said to myself; 30 minutes later, I was getting some hex paper to map out the campaign area I'd suddenly begun to develop. Coupled with the NPC tables in the DMG, I had 5 strongholds with their lords, a political situation, and lots of ideas on how they interacted and how to bring players into it. It was a real creative rush, man, all this stuff just coming to me, falling out of the dice, a kind of half-randomized creative storm.

WATCHING MY DAUGHTER PLAY IN A PUDDLE. Her very first puddle, in the parking lot in front of our house. Little pink rainboots, purple raincoat, hood up. She didn't care about anything but that puddle. It was fascinating to her, just something to splash in with abandon. With no cares. No rules. Her first one, and full of wonder. She just went up to it and figured out what you were supposed to do: mess with it. That moment was truly once in a lifetime, and I knew I'd never again feel what she was feeling -- that pure, unabashed joy, that wonder, that lack of concern. But if I could only allow myself that lack of concern...my daughter was teaching me. For once, I listened.

'Cause time isnt holding us; time isn't after us.

Once More, I Am Mighty!

Well, folks...I just played Encounter Critical.

Kyle and John, my two best friends from high school, came over and rolled up some characters. Neither one could resist the lure of the mutations chart, so we ended up with Routh, a human psi witch with lowered luck and a Barnabus, a blind, cursed robodroid warrior. After priming some minis for John to paint as we played, I ran "The Curse Of Count Obonos", an excellent module by Jeff Rients.

Oh, man.

I started things off with some embellishments of my own. I placed a wrecked damnation van in the center of town, and right away they decided they wanted it. They went into the tavern to ask if anyone claimed ownership to it, but none of the locals could say it was theirs.

Then Kildar walked in.

Kildar was a character played by a high school friend of ours, back in the day. Arrogant, lascivious, annoying as hell and a 50th-level demigod paladin or...something...I dunno. we all hated Kildar. We all wanted to bump off Kildar. We never got to bump off Kildar.

Until today. Sure, on Vanth he was just a 2nd-level Planetary Ape warrior, but it felt good to include him as a purely juvenile gesture. He ended up getting robo-kicked in the monkeynuts, after which a Lesser Feat roll was made to snap his neck.

Off to a good start.

Pretty soon Lady Bella showed up, offering the quest as detailed in the module. The player accepted the quest for 1000 GC and repairs for the robodroid (Kildar actually put some hurt on him). They then dawdled around playing in the van, wherein they found three skeletons: one an elf in chainmail and the others human, one in a jumpsuit and the other in a leopardskin bikini. No wounds were apparent on the skeletons, but further examination of the van gave a clue as to the cause of their deaths when Kyle's character opened a door and found a four-eyed, needle-toothed skull which began to wail horribly, eye sockets blinking rapidly and causing 2d6 damage to him. Yikes! I made that up on the spot. They were taking too long with the van so Bella told them that if they'd just get going, she'd have the van fixed up, too.

They left so fast...

The trip to the wreck was uneventful because I wanted to get them to the adventure site. Plus, the notion of a dungeon crawl through a crashed spaceship really seemed to tickle them, so I headed straight for the action.

John declared that Barnabus, his PC, would try to hack the disabled lock on the airlock at location F. He rolled a 01 on his Machine Friend roll, so I ruled that he was able to reprogram every door on the ship. Not only did that reward him for good thinking and good luck, but it eliminated a lot of futzing later on.

They actually made fairly quick work inside the ship, hitting up and getting the goodies from rooms 10, 12, 13 and 14. Luck was with them in the Prismatic Crocagator fight; I painstakingly sought 4d8 from my pile, rolled them for the monster's hit points...

...and got a total of 6. One mighty strike from Barnabus (using a bastard sword claimed from Kildar) slew the beast, and it also allowed the robodroid to level up. ZING!

They found the idol soon after, and a bad LUC roll caused Routh to mistakenly grab Volutina's representation upon the generous Impervium funbag; he'd made a good Seduce roll ahead of time, to explain to the idol what they were doing, though, so he escaped becoming a jackaltoad. When asked if they should haed back or keep exploring, John simply said, "Mission accomplished" and they got the hell out.

I threw in a quick encounter with some bandits, really just as an excuse for Kyle's character to level up, which he did. They got some GCs and Lynrd Skynrd 8-tracks, as well as some ammo for their new rocket pistol. Then my mission was accomplished, and they got back to the castle.

I didn't linger long on the epilogue. Suffice to say that they accepted the hands of the other two daughters, and soon found out about their tendencies, so they snuck off to get their van and get lost. First, though, Routh talked Lady Bella into joining them, which she did. The End, For Now.

THAT FELT SO GOOD.

In fact, what with the casual miniatures painting, the delightfuly warm weather, the invite for the sexy female NPC to join up and the occasional boob jokes...

...I felt young again.

I Made A Radical ENCOUNTER CRITICAL Webring Image

...buuuuuuuuuut it's too big.

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

"Update Your Blog!"

...Sez Mike.

So I say to him, "Okay. I'm gonna post about Xanadu."

He shakes his head no.

But I don't care.


I love this movie, right in its face, unabashedly, unconditionally and unyieldingly. I saw it when I was 6 and it captured me for a Summer; I've see it again as an adult and I can tell how bad it is but that doesn't matter, at all. Why? because Xanadu is as freaking feel-good as you can get, it's stuffed to the gills with early New Wave costumes, there's miles and miles of leg and tons of random stuff lights up FOR NO DAMN GOOD REASON.

Furthermore, it doesn't care what you think, either. Sure, it ruined Michael Beck's career, barely broke even at the box office (mostly it sold records) and was nominated for a bunch of Razzies the very first time anyone nominated anything for a Razzie, but -- there it is, doin' its thing, with the legs and the lights and the Don Bluth animated sequence and the cult following and a song by The Tubes and the Broadway musical and stuff lighting up, including people.

For the sheer, pantsless joy of it.

The fact of the matter is, if you sit down to watch this movie and you don't feel just a little bit better after it's over, you are a Commie. Or perhaps you are dead, so get off my couch.

Xanadu -- The Encounter Critical Of Musicals.

Insatiamable!

Dag nabbit! Gol' darnit! Dad balst it!

*sigh* I'm running a fun one-on-one Castles & Crusades game with my wife, and we have an open Fudge space opera game we come back to now and again, too. I've kicked off a D6 Star Wars game as well.

You'd think I'd be satisfied.

This would be a misconception.

I'm sure this happens to a lot of people, but that doesn't make it any easier: I want to run and play more games than my free time allows. At any given time I'm likely to get enthused about, oh...three, four, who knows HOW many games at the same time. For instance, at this given moment alone, I get giddy just thinking about the following:

1. A game of Savage Worlds set in an alternate Victorian/Edwardian reality, kind of a mix of Castle Falkenstein and Sky Captain;
2. A Buck Rogers XXVc game, probably with a different rules set;
3. A game of modern action, waaaaay over the top, full of ridiculous situations and Benny Lava -- Werewolf Hunter and nuns with MAC-10s;
4. Spelljammer D6;
5. Tunnels & Trolls with the gonzo cranked up; and
6. Encounter Critical, the best game EVER that I have yet to play.

What's wrong with me? ADD? (That's "ADD" as in "Attention Deficit Disorder", not "AD&D". )

Hang on, I'll think of more, just you wait three days or so.

Durnit!

¡Quince Juegos!

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.

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

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

Gamer's Lament

...a Classic Traveller game where the PCs are a mixed group of Ex-Scouts on detached duty and their friends, tooling around in a Scout/Courier, doing odd jobs for the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service.

...S John Ross's Warp Space, run with TLG's StarSIEGE rules.

...a Knights of Torque & Recoil/The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai-inspired contemporary pulp adventure game, using D6 Adventure.

...For that matter, a series of Indiana Jones-esque 1930s archaeological pulp adventures, also using D6 or HEX (testimony of the bullwhip!).

...that cyberpunk game that I keep thinking about, which is slowly but surely solidifying in my mind.

...a C&C/D&D RC/LL/&c. mash-up Bog Standard Fantasy Role-Playing sandbox.

...Mutant Future.

...Encounter Critical, with heavy doses of Heavy Metal and cheap, sleazy 1970s SF cinema.

...Over The Edge, which I purchased in 1993 and STILL haven't run.

...that Savage Worlds Art Nouveau Spelljammer game that I started back in January, and which hasn't been run more than once.

TEN GAMES ON MY MIND! AN 11.5-HOUR WORKDAY, INCLUDING PREP- AND DRIVE TIME, FIVE DAYS A WEEK, PLUS 45.5 HOURS A WEEK SO I DON'T GO CLINICALLY INSANE! PLUS, I HAFTA STOP AND EAT FROM TIME TO TIME!

HOW, I ASK YOU? HOW CAN I MAKE IT HAPPEN?!

I Wish I Were Playing Encounter Critical.

It's a simple statement; to say anything else would only complicate the issue.

Asteroid 1618

It's huge (as an asteroid should be), but download it anyway.

Oh, you want to know what it is? It's an Encounter Critical module, written by Jeff Rients. I drew some pictures for it but that's not the point; the point is, this thing rocks. It'll take me forever to read it but it mentions Remulak so you know it's gold.

Hurl yourself!

....So.

What the hell, right?

Well, here it is. I 'm kind of honked off about gaming right now, actually; specifically, about my lack of it. I just don't get to game. From 1 January 2009 to 17 March 2009, I have engaged in no more than 3 short gaming sessions, totalling about 15 hours of time. Hey, kids -- let's do some math!

The year is 76 days old. Let's divide that by 7 and call it 10.85...okay, 11 weeks. Let's assume that I work 5 days a week, so that's 76 days minus 55 = 21 days off. 21 days equals 504 hours. Let's assume that I sleep for 7 of those hours each day, leaving me with about 17 hours a day. 17 hours times 21 days is 357 hours not spent at work. Of those 357 hours, 15 of them have been spent in the enjoyment of the hobby that I love the most in the whole goddamn world.

15/357 = 0.0420168067.

Percentage of free time this year spent enjoying the hobby that I love the most in the whole goddamn world: 4%.

Okay, now -- why? What else am I doing? Not having players show up, for one. Not having time to host a game, is another. There are ways around it, but in practice that's pretty dang hard to achieve. I work Saturdays, now, so I really only have Sundays available for gaming, and I like to include my wife in such stuff. She works 3 Sundays a month.

I cannot tell you how much this pisses me off. Not that she has to work -- but rather, how little time I can devote to playing, and how little of it can actually get bloody USED.

The worst part is when I see all the other gaming blogs out there, people talking about how they played this and they got together with the friends and played that. And I'm sitting here like a fucking chump with my dice bags and my notes and my rulebooks and my eternal enthusiasm and I can't help but stop all of a sudden and feel like Robespierre shopping the Stetson catalog.

Let's make it even more pathetic, shall we? Consider this: I'm still really, really, REALLY enthused about the hobby. I take a gamebook with me to work every day; I brush up on rules. I even make occasional stabs at adventure notes. But that's slowly stopping, because I start working on something and then I think, "What's the point?! Ain't gonna happen."

Julia Roberts is really unattractive.

I've really wanted to run Fading Suns lately. I'd love to do something with Savage Worlds. Now and then I think about a Star Wars game and my leg starts jiggling like a happy puppy's. And then I think...

"...oh, yeah."

THAT'S why you haven't heard from me. That's why there hasn't been a blog entry, that's why there haven't been any posts on The RPG Site, that's why there haven't been any comments on my homies' blogs. I'm a pissed-off gamer, all dressed up and nowhere to fucking go.

Tomorrow I have the day off. Two of my high school buddies are supposed to come over and play Encounter Critical. We'll see if that pans out.

Thanks to jake and Jason, who posted comments on my last entry. jake, you nailed it when you said " just curious about how much you roll compared to thinking wishing hoping blogging hahaha" -- got it right on the nose.

Oh, *I* Know What He'd Do.

Which Encounter Critical character are you?

YOU ARE THRAZAR!!! In the annals of the mighty land of Vanth, none is mightier nor possessed of better fashion sense!
Take this quiz!








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Like Some New Romantic Looking For The TV Sound

It's Duranmas Duranmas! On this day in 1982, Duran Duran's Rio was released and blah-blah-blah. Like I said. It's 80's Day.

Like I also said, pretty much every day is 80's Day for me, so I guess today I just have, um, an excuse. It doesn't matter, though, I don't really need one.

Anyway! I 'celebrated' early this week by doing something I hadn't done in a while: I watched The Running Man. You know -- Arnold Schwarzenegger vs. Reality TV, Electric American Gladiators style? It's gleefully and unapologetically 1980s, plus it has fight scenes and TWO, count 'em, TWO state governors in it. Frankly the movie's not that great (it's nowhere as good as its spiritual cousin, the far-superior RoboCop), it has plenty of logical holes and I never have made up my mind on whether Maria Conchita Alonso is cute or not (I'm leaning toward 'only when her hair is down, but then only sorta'), but the flick is a fun one and you get to see a fat guy dressed up as an LED legionnaire.



Then, later, when he dies, his pants are down. Aces.

Anyway, I'll get back to posting stuff about gaming and so on pretty soon. I have some old Encounter Critical notes to put out. Meanwhile -- it's 80's Day!

It's A Good Thing Jeff Rients Hasn't Jumped Off A Cliff

I drew this cartoon a few weeks ago. Last night I started cleaning it up and pimping it out in Photoshop, but I got halfway through and went "AAARGH!" 'Cause it's hard.

I asked my wife if it was good enough to post as-is and she replied, "Ye-EAH...!" and made 'duh' face at me, so...

...

...check it. Traveller fans will hopefully dig.


I really enjoyed doing it, and might go loco and do another one. This time I'll plan better, and be more careful.

It might also be an Encounter Critical strip. We'll see.

"Use 'Comic Book Creator'", you say? I don't have it. I also hafta pay off a brand-new furnace.