Cha'alt: Gone Girl

 

I sold out without selling out...

Yes, all 2,000 of the initial print run is out the door.  The very last book got picked-up by the post office an hour ago.

There's still a couple hardcovers I'm holding for people getting their finances together and then, of course, all the books that need to go out to backers for the Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise kickstarter.  But other than that, the luxury Cha'alt hardcovers are finito.

Time will tell if I'll do another print run down the road.

Thanks to everyone who supported me in this long ass journey, made harder by covid-19 and certain elements of the hobby.

Eldritch, gonzo, science-fantasy, post-apocalyptic awesomeness made flesh!  Here's the PDF.  And if you want the follow-up, here's Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise (hardcover sales will be announced in a couple weeks).

By His loathsome tentacles,

VS

p.s. The wife and kids are planning on watching one of their Disney shows Friday nights for the next 3 months - that means I could start-up my weekly one-hour Roll20 Cha'alt campaign.  Check my blog for updates!

The Ultimate Megadungeon

I feel like I fought long and hard for this review...

Battled my inner demons, smoked a peace-pipe with that old serpent until we were both baked into a fever-dream cake with black rainbow frosting, risked my stack by going all-in against a lavender mo-hawked skeever who I knew was bluffing, and so forth!

Endzeitgeist's Cha'alt review!

I knew it wouldn't be easy, that he'd make me pay dearly for every bit of laziness or self-indulgence, every decision carefully considered and weighed as if standing before an exotic gold idol with a pouch full of sand, every creative choice mercilessly judged.

And yet, I came out unscathed... relatively speaking.  I just re-read the damn thing and I'm exhausted.  I don't have the time, energy, or even the inclination to refute his claims, except to say that I really wanted an all-caps GONZO fun-house megadungeon.  If blasters and sleep spells were commonplace, then really weird stuff would have to be way over-the-top.

Also, for a 90 minute online game or 3-hour face-to-face one-shot of D&D, Crimson Dragon Slayer D20 is just about perfect.  It also plays better than it reads.  ;)

Those brave enough to see for themselves are welcome to play in one of my Roll20 games or on January 11th in Madison, WI.

VS

p.s. Yep, still pimping the Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise kickstarter - only 5 days left to go!

It's The Adventures, Stupid

I've had this blog post on my mind for a while now...  It all started with a discussion on g+ about Labyrinth Lord.

How one of the first big retro-clones has been virtually eclipsed, why, and if it's possible for Labyrinth Lord to reclaim its former glory.

Well, what makes for a successful RPG?  I'm sure there are many factors that could and should be discussed by those interested in the answer.  But today, I'm going to focus on the primary reason: SUPPORT!!!

Support for that RPG keeps it going, makes it feel alive, engages players, and provides material for using that game now and in the future.  The ideal kind of support is adventures, the backbone of roleplaying.  Various supplements can't hurt, but a large number of scenarios is probably the best gauge for success when it comes to new RPGs.

Just look at your DCC, LotFP, and S&W.  They come out with adventures all the damn time.  If Labyrinth Lord wants to compete, it's got to have just as many high-profile scenarios coming out under the Labyrinth Lord name.  That's why it's so hard for the little guys to compete... any one-man shop is going to be hard-pressed to generate one adventure a month or more.  You need a team!

On that LL thread, I made the boastful statement that I could turn LL around if put on the payroll as brand manager, scenario connoisseur, or whatever to the tune of $50K a year.  Yeah, that seems like a lot, but the juice has to be worth the squeeze.

What's funny is that it's all compatible!  There's no earthly reason why you can't swap one system's adventure for another.  But perception matters with these kinds of things.  Brand awareness affects the market.  We're only human, after all.

I've tried to maintain a regular flow of adventures myself with the several RPGs for Kort'thalis Publishing, but in the end I only succeeded with Alpha Blue.  Crimson Dragon Slayer almost kept pace, but I think sci-fi more lenient than the over-saturated genre of fantasy.  Alas, I realized the full extent of this lesson too late.

Having said that, I'm going to make an announcement regarding Kort'thalis Publishing's RPG lines.  But first, I want to finish Alien Ass, Hydrogen Gas, or Cosmic Grass... No One Warps For Free!  It'll be released before the end of July.

I've already mentioned elsewhere that I'm taking a break from RPG publishing once this last adventure is completed.  There are juicier fruits out there that I have to find.

VS

Updated PDF: Player's Handbook Like A Fucking Boss

Some nice changes have been made to the PDF (both bloody parchment with evil red veins and the printer-friendly version), so wanted to blog about it!

A few of the previous illustrations weren't that well integrated into the layout, my fault on that.  And a new image was added, plus text from Draconic Magazine here.  So, the document is looking better than ever. 

If you've already purchased it, the updated PDFs are waiting for you (email notification should have automatically been sent out when the files were updated).  If you don't have it yet, I think it's well worth the price...

Aww Hell, let's put this motherfucker on sale!!!

VS

Player's Handbook like a Fucking Boss

Yes, I've been busy (again)!

Just a few moments ago, I completed the upload process for my latest fantasy roleplaying game aid.  It's called Player's Handbook like a Fucking Boss, a 32 page PDF that's got everything from the defining moment that forged you into an adventurer to badass names for your magic items.

This book is for all the various iterations of D&D, including retro-clones and 4th wave OSR weirdness like Crimson Dragon Slayer.  It's strong enough for a GM, but PH-balanced for all you struggling players out there who keep dying all the fucking time.  Aren't you a little sick and tired of not surviving the first level of the dungeon or a raucous tavern brawl?  Yeah, I thought so.

Do yourself a favor and check out Player's Handbook like a Fucking Boss!

As usual, lots of fantastic artwork and +MonkeyBlood Design (Glynn Seal) made it that much more awesome because of his mad layout skillz.

Venger As'Nas Satanis
High Priest of Kort'thalis Publishing

O5R Dwimmermount session #2

June is a busy month, so I lost two players from last session and gained a new player (with whom I've gamed a lot over the years).

The PCs:  Sir-Yut the human ranger (female), Iron Fist the dwarven fighter, George the human druid, and Bel-Vadren the elven magic-user.

So much stuff happened that I'm going to give the highlights (in no particular order)...

• Finally got to use The S'rulyan Vault map from last year's Kickstarter.  It really made the game come alive - without using a terrain map and miniatures that could disrupt our theater of the mind approach.
• Before returning to Dwimmermount, the party acquired a new hireling in town - a 1st level human thief named Barret.  He mostly keeps to himself, usually stays out of battle, and charges 5 gold pieces per day.
• I remembered to whip out the massive DCC tome in order to get the mercurial magic table for all spells cast.  There were a lot of interesting results!  The rat-like demons who crawl out of the wizard's sleeves to fight alongside him was possibly the best.
• The PCs discovered several steel cylinders containing azoth - a rare and potent sorcerous liquid that can be used to enhance magical properties.  Instead of black, as Dwimmermount describes it, I went with a luminous yellowish-green, like Predator blood... and Mountain Dew (seemed appropriate).
  
• I realize that more than ever, I should be rolling for the amount of noise being made in the next room, especially when characters are actively listening for it.  This is what I came up with.
• They fought gnolls, goblins, humanoids wearing dead spider parts, crab-men, a hollow-man from the DCC bestiary, and a gelatinous green troll based on a normal troll but given a little gin-sequoia via the Monster-Palooza random table in How to Game Master like a Fucking Boss. The only death was at the end with the green slime troll - Barret was hit, failed his save, and melted into a pool of slime.
• The PCs ransacked a forbidden library - all the books, save one, fell apart in their hands just like that scene in the original The Time Machine film.  The remaining book was magical and contained the spell Flaming Claw of the Demon!
• A wand was discovered hidden under a lip of some marble altar the crab-men were using to sacrifice one of the spider-worshiping dudes.  "Tastes like crab, talks like people."  Wands are interesting because they expend charges in order to make magic.  This particular wand had three spell-like abilities and each one used up a different amount of charges.  The wand was almost dry, but Bel-Vadren had the idea of soaking it in the azoth - turns out he was right!  The wand was fully charged again.
• One wooden door was carved with a triangle within a circle and that symbol had been glazed with azoth recently.  It was also trapped, as it happens.  Barret doesn't do so well with magical traps.  Luckily, George got in the habit of knocking on each door with his ten-foot pole after Barret's check.  It went from a ten-foot pole to a nine-foot and nine-inch pole as a sorcerous scythe swiped down and took three inches off it.
  
• I used a really old homebrew gemstone random table.  Wanted to use my translucent green Kort'thalis Publishing dice with the demon/dragon logo in pace of the "6."  First time I rolled the percentile dice, it came up "100," that made one of the found gemstones a star stone (aka sorcerer's crystal) which effectively doubled the potency of a wizard's spell once per day.
• Another time I rolled on the gem table one of the diamonds came up cursed.  To differentiate that diamond from the others, I had Harold roll on the color random table also from How to Game Master like a Fucking Boss.  The diamond had eggplant coloring with amethyst veins.  The cursed gem was simply bad luck.  Using the wand to remove its curse, the purple diamond became good luck, giving the owner a +1 to any roll he wished, once per day.
• They also picked up a magic weapon - a short sword +1, +3 vs. wizards; it detects the presence of undead with a sparkling black jewel in the hilt's crosspiece - it glows unnaturally when undead are within 30'.
• There was a dimly lit room where several robed cultists, chanting, sat around a feebly glowing shape set into a stone presentation area in the middle of the chamber.  It was faceted and semi-translucent, it's glow was faint because of all the caked-on dirt, grime, dust, and cobwebs covering it.  One of the cultists was about to pour a decanter of azoth upon the weird glass object.  The cultists were killed, with the pourer dying first.
• Bel-Vadren attempted the same trick as the cultist pouring azoth.  The azoth trickled upon an ordinary spider which turned it monstrously large and mutated.  It bit the magic-user's face which made him nauseous (with vomiting), but also gave him 4 arms.  After the spider was killed, George decided to smash one of the facets with his nine-foot and nine-inch pole.  I rolled a saving throw for the ancient vessel of magic and rolled a "1."  Bye bye, demon containment unit!  Luminous steam rose from the glass-like object and a malevolent presence entered George.  They now share possession of George's body and soul.
  
• In a circular chamber sat a large, hairy, corpulent demon upon a throne, attended by a variety of demonic humanoids.  There was wine and Iron Fist rolled a natural 20 to sneak up to the cask of wine and drink himself silly.  In exchange for a piece of jade found earlier, he let the adventurers pass through, after George negotiated with him in private, allowing them to head down the stairs to the next level of the dungeon, if they so wished (they did not).

If you're saying to yourself, "Hmm, this doesn't sound like the Dwimmermount I know," well... I've definitely made it my own.  There's a passing resemblance, but no other GM will mistake his Dwimmermount for mine.  It's been Vengerized!

We're all looking forward to next month's session #3.  Until then, I've got a bunch of exciting new content for this blog and Draconic Magazine.  Stay tuned.

VS

p.s.  Want your own (possibly) giant old school dungeon map?  The S'rulyan Vault II kickstarter is still happening.

Dungeon Crawl like it's 1983!

Last night, whilst coming up with more random table fodder, Glynn Seal of +MonkeyBlood Design sent me some snapshots, or "oblique angle visuals" as he called them, to help promote The S'rulyan Vault.

Pretty damn cool, if I say so myself.  The blue and white old school look of this deluxe dungeon is classic.  Glynn is adding some of his personal touches like cracked tiles and a variety of little symbols for statues, altars, curtains, pools, stalagmites, fungi, tentacles, etc.  Plus, some of Glynn's custom icons for god-knows-what!  It's going to be a lot of fun to look at, let alone explore with your adventuring party.

Originally, the lighter parchment with black ink and darker parchment with black ink were going to be separate files.  I liked them both and asked Glynn if it was possible to do the lighter parchment for interior areas like rooms and corridors with the darker parchment hue for all exterior spaces.  Lo and behold, it's possible!

Also, the 5 - 7 (at minimum) page PDF will have a full color cover and interior black and white illustration by Kort'thalis Publishing's house artist Bojan Sucevic.  You can see a work-in-progress image of the cover on the right.

The PDF file will be updated periodically via DriveThruRPG when I come up with additional GM material for running a dungeon of this magnitude.  Who knows how extensive the final document will eventually become?

For those who haven't read the mega-dungeon's history, here it is.

Once The S'rulyan Vault kickstarter has reached its first stretch goal of $1,000, the parchment version of the mega-dungeon will be unlocked and available to all backers on June 1st.

That's it.  Have a great week!  Don't be shy about commenting, sharing, blogging, re-posting, and mentioning The S'rulyan Vault on social media.  That's how we'll get to 1K and beyond.  ;)

VS

The S'rulyan Vault

Here is my latest Kickstarter campaign.

I want to create a huge, old school "blue" map like all those late 70's and early 80's modules I ran or played as a kid.  Big enough to dominate my gaming table, where all the players (and myself) can quickly and easily understand where the party is and what's going on.

It'll also include a slew of random tables for spontaneously appointing and populating your new mega-dungeon.  Basically, that's it.

Check out the stretch goals for bonus stuff I'd love to add.  Also, be sure to spread the word around.  The more funding this project gets, the bigger and better The S'rulyan Vault is for everyone!

Thanks,

VS

p.s.  The picture on the right is a sketch by Glynn Seal of +MonkeyBlood Design.

Post Gary Con Analysis (part 1 of 2)

There are pros and cons to almost everything.

Rarely do we ever experience a cloud without some kind of silver lining (no matter how hidden, it's usually lurking somewhere) or a silver lining without a cloud - human nature being what it is, I think the vast majority of us would readily agree with that.

The good think about living so close to Lake Geneva, home of the Gary Con roleplaying game convention and birthplace of TSR's Dungeons & Dragons, is that I can drive there in about 90 minutes.  The bad thing is that it was easier for me to justify only going for a day and a half.  But then, it's better to go for a short time than none at all.

Likewise, attending by myself was also a mixed bag.  I was unattached, unencumbered as it were, able to do what I wanted, when I wanted... however, it would have been nice to share the experience with a friend or two (even my wife).  Though, I did get a chance to talk with a few gaming buddies and acquaintances throughout the convention.  But +Tim Virnig better come with me next year!

For some reason, and I'm not entirely sure why, I opted to only run games instead of signing up ahead of time to both run and play them.  Maybe I wanted to focus on Game Mastering for my limited stay.  Perhaps I was hoping to GM an unscheduled session or two.  Possibly I figured there would be several unscheduled games I could drop into without having to decide months in advance.  Whatever the reasoning behind it, my destiny was to orchestrate the chaos.

It took me a little while to get my bearings.  I had almost two hours before running my first game.  So, I wandered the dealer's room.  Oddly, nothing jumped out at me that I had to have.  Exchanged pleasantries with someone manning the Black Blade Publishing booth who was interested in selling my books at the next con (probably Game Hole Con).  Also stopped by and said hi to +Jeff Talanian who created Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.

Just after locating the table where I'd be running both my scheduled games (Saturday's game was actually the table next to Friday's), I ran into +Jason Bossert and +Meredith Spearman.  They played in my Purple Islands game at last years's Game Hole Con.  Jason is too funny, and they're both really nice.

The first session I ran on Friday afternoon was "The Scarlet Sorcerer's Sanctuary," a one-page zine that I intended to flesh out into a full scenario months ago.  Well, Alpha Blue and Girls Gone Rogue got in the way of that.  So, I had half an adventure and my other RPG books to help me improvise the rest.

I think it went well.  There wasn't as much Crimson Dragon Slayer type 80's references and humor because that wasn't written into the zine and that stuff is harder to improvise.  So, it seemed less like the Crimson Dragon Slayer I know and more like a fast and furious old school D&D game... which was fine.  Still, it's obvious that I should have prepped more.

I believe this is also where I unequivocally decided that no damage should be left behind!

Some of the things I write are open to interpretation.  Instead of being chock-full of description, advice, and things going on, occasionally there are tunnels or "passage ways" that allow (or force, depending on your view) the GM to come up with his own ideas, answers, explanations, etc. on the fly.  Well, I've never written anything with the number of passages contained in "The Scarlet Sorcerer's Sanctuary".  It was indeed a challenge.

The following is an anecdote from that session I relayed to +Julian Bernick over breakfast Saturday morning.  Thanks again, hoss!  I can't wait to game with you and everyone else at Game Hole Con this fall.

Anyways, there was this secret room containing three statues.  All three resembled elves turning into demons.  That was it.  In fact, I made up the elf/demon thing on the spot.  All the zine had was a secret room and three statues.

The players tried to interact with the statues by moving them and looking for secret compartments.  They didn't find any.  One player said aloud, "This is the most boring secret room we've ever found."  He said it in-character to another PC, but I still felt like the shittiest GM in the world at that moment.  Because he was right.  It seemed boring, stupid, and pointless.

My mind was spinning, trying to conjure a way to salvage that weak ass encounter and/or the remaining adventure.  Then another player had an idea.  You see, the room before the secret chamber contained a pool of blessed water.  "I'm going to carry some of the holy water in my helmet and pour it on one of the statues," he said.

"The statue begins to melt," I replied.  Soon enough, all three demonic statues were puddles, revealing spiral staircases down into the darkness.  I felt much better about it then and things continued.

The scenario ended with the scarlet sorcerer's treasure room.  For saving him, the scarlet-robed gnome granted the PCs two-thirds of his treasure.  He showed them his vault of goodies - three pedestals, each holding a large, fist-sized sphere, like a pearl.  One black, one white, and the last scarlet in hue.

As the PCs talked amongst themselves about which ones they should grab, I wrote-up a super quick d6 table to handle the outcome(s)...

What Happens When They Touch A Sphere?

1. Death
2. Return to the real world
3. Summons a creature
4. Thrown into a weird dimension
5. Magic item (such as a ring of flying)
6. 10,000 gold pieces

The beauty of coming up with a table is that it didn't matter which of the three spheres they touched.  If they took the black pearl, it would be just as random and fair as if they handled the other two.  

I actually don't remember how it all played out, except I know that a character played by +David Bresson touched one of the spheres (I think it was black) and rolled a "1".  That was the only character death of that game and my entire gaming weekend.  At least, it happened in the closing minutes of the session, so he didn't have to sit there and watch the rest of the party play without him or scramble to make a new character from scratch.

David Bresson was a good sport about it.  He approached me as I entered the Grand Geneva resort (which was very impressive, by the way).  David recognized me (having backed all my Kickstarter projects) and we talked for awhile about this and that.  I'm glad he had been there to welcome me.  BTW, I chatted with +Forrest Aguirre shortly after.

I'll conclude part 1 by saying that Friday night's dinner was unbelievably awesome.  The convention center contained three restaurants: a really fancy steak house, a fairly fancy buffet, and a super fancy pizza and pasta restaurant.  

I finally decided on the middle one because it seemed the most casual.  I lost count, but think I had four plates of prime rib, shrimp with cocktail sauce, garlic butter mashed potatoes, and chicken along with a mountain dew.  It was fantastic!  Felt a bit weird eating this big meal all alone, but it was nice to chill out and collect my thoughts, too.  See?  Pros and cons everywhere.

Part 2 is here.  Thanks for reading!

VS

p.s.  Gary Gygax shall be remembered as the co-creator of the first fantasy roleplaying game way back in 1974.  This was a great way to honor his memory!

Game Hole Con III (part 2 of 2)

Ok, we're back!  This is part one.

Liberation of the Demon Slayer, I've found, makes for a good convention game.  There's an abrupt beginning that gets PCs where they need to go with a definite objective - retrieve the legendary demon-slaying sword Kalthalax or see your beloved homeland ripped apart by demons.

Because it's fairly deadly, the adventure is perfect for a funnel / meat-grinder type situation.  Pre-generated characters was the obvious way to go, but there were two things working against that idea.  One, my wife and children.  Two, players will form more of an attachment to their characters if created there at the table, by their own hands.

Since the adventure has several tables at the beginning for fleshing out backgrounds, we dived right in.  That morning I quickly scribbled out a quadrant character sheet so all four zero-level characters could be seen at a glance.  But, since this was a convention game, I wanted every character to be able to do some cool stuff.  So, 1st level for all!

Next, I told all the players not to worry about any limitations of rule-book or system.  Rather than playing DCC with the serial numbers filed off, we were playing a fantasy RPG that never had serial numbers, one that only lived in our imaginations, unfettered by arbitrary restrictions.
Forget all the fiddly bits about your characters, I told them.  If they wanted to play a half-orc, lizardman, demonic humanoid, dark elf, or whatever, that was just fine.  If they wanted to play some weird class like bard, monk, or anything else, that was cool.  I didn't care if they wanted to pick an old school alignment like Chaos or chaotic neutral.  All that was fuel for their imaginations and wouldn't be a focus for today's session.

Before I forget, one player had played in my The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence game at the last Game Hole Con.  So, it was nice to see a satisfied customer.  Although, I had my doubts about that particular session.

Highlights

There was some quick thinking as PCs got tossed out of bed and marched to the caverns below Clear Meadows without dilly-dallying for supplies.  One character snapped the leg off a wooden table on his way out.  After hearing that, a few players attempted to do something similar.  I let player descriptions and luck rolls determine their success or failure.

The first death came quickly.  A skeletal wizard at the bottom of a pit trap.

A magic ring allowed one of West's characters to summon a demon.  The demon was summoned and the PC asked the demon to transport him to someplace in the dungeon that contained a really powerful weapon.  The demon did as he was told.

West's character suddenly appeared in a white room containing a pedestal, upon which rested an innocent looking orange.  A few seconds later, the orange killed him.  Such is the life of an adventurer - especially since it was a convention game, he had three other characters, every player except West laughed, and West actually wasn't even scheduled to play, but we're friends and I let him in the game as a favor.

Instead of revealing Kalthalax at the very end, after a big boss fight, I decided to offer it up early so someone had the chance to actually use it!  The demon slayer laid upon a black altar, guarded by a gelatinous green slime.  I was expecting a harrowing fight, but the party's thief (one of them) made his roll to tumble past the creature (both times!).

The party wizard (one of them) discovered and pocketed a yellowish green vial of liquid that would become useful later.

Basically, the adventurers fought the Devil.  It was a 30' demon lord just coming out of some gigantic gateway to Hell.  Kalthalax did a lot of damage, but so did a character with a shovel!

A portal opened after defeating the demon lord.  Out stumbled an American family - the Sterlings - from some "other world".

There was also some necrophilia going on.  A couple PCs rolled that for their dark secret.  One woman in particular named Angela Nekro (played by +Julian Bernick) kept staying behind to play with the corpses.  Awesomely gross!  If this had been more than a con game or one-shot, her creepiness could have been explored in depth.

I was using the DCC mercurial magic table for spells cast.  If the percentile dice fell into the middle range (yielding no strange effect), I rolled on the weird magic side-effect table in Purple.  Just as the adventurers were leaving the caverns, a wizard cast a spell and rolled something close to a 50.  So, I rolled on the other table only to discover that his spell had inadvertently brought the Purple Putrescence itself to Clear Meadows.

It loomed in the sky like a slimy purple Rhode Island of mouths, tentacles, and foulness.   The wizard who had the yellowish-green vial of liquid drank it, started to glow and grew more and more unstable until he ran into the thing's tentacle.  The Thing That Rots From The Sky scooped him up and popped him in its mouth - just as he went nuclear - blowing the purple godlike thing back to its home dimension.

Clear Meadows was saved!


The Outer Presence

Unfortunately, I don't have time to go into detail about this game.  Character creation was fun.  I just used the random tables and players made their own connections based on available data and intuition.

Everyone had a good time.  The world was narrowly saved, yet it cost all the characters their lives - with the possible exception of those who rolled the "hard to kill" distinction.  If there's a sequel, I'll allow those PCs to survive the fistful of dynamite shot point-blank in Nafu Aata's inner sanctum.

Thanks again to everyone who played in my games at Game Hole Con III.  I'm looking forward to next year's games!

VS

Game Hole Con III (part 1 of 2)

This blog post is going to be my experience at Game Hole Con III.

I felt the post-convention blues yesterday - everything just seemed kind of lame and I didn't care about the ordinary world much.  Basically, business as usual, except intensified a bit.  However, I'm my usual self today.

Running games at a convention is the equivalent of playing music live.  Everything is faster; smaller details fall by the wayside, and you're probably less inclined to go off-script and improvise because you're not GMing (performing) in front of your usual gaming group in your home, friend's basement, local library or game store.  No, you're doing it live in front of a bunch of people you don't know.  It's a bit nerve wracking and the pressure's on.

Plus the noise and distractions!  Subtlety is usually lost.  Forget about speaking quietly, hushed tones, whispering, or even delicate gestures.  You either speak loud and clear so the whole table can hear or you've lost a couple people along the way.  This goes for movements, too.  Either grand and sweeping or not at all!

Basically, it's like GMing with one hand tied behind your back.  Of course, it's also very exciting and gratifying to deliver a great gaming experience to people you've just met, who trust (or at least hope) that you're going to give them something enjoyable.

If you're +Frank Mentzer or James Ward you get to have a slightly more private room.  Even though this is my third time attending and running games at +Gamehole Con (and I've self-published about 10 well-received RPG books), I'm still fighting at the front lines.  It'll probably be awhile before I can watch the battle (with lake view) from a cushy office back at HQ.

So, all my games ended earlier than planned - because I couldn't help but speed things along.  Except for the impromptu "off the books" session on Friday night, they all ended on a high note, mysterious cliff-hanger, or with the utter destruction of that corner of the world.  Friday night's game came up against the lateness of the hour (about 10:30pm - I'm old and lame) so I cut their dungeon exploration a bit short... plus I had a big day of gaming ahead of me.

I got extremely lucky with a few things.  First, the weekend before the con, I had completely lost my voice.  I can't remember the last time that has happened, but it did.  While I was voiceless, I kept thinking, "Thank Cthulhu this didn't happen a week later."  But then on Monday I still couldn't talk, Tuesday I was extremely horse, Wednesday wasn't much better... I was starting to panic.  My voice was noticeably better on Thursday, and by Friday I was pretty much out of the woods (though still coughing).

Second, each and every session saw at least one friend at the table.  Even though I consider myself a non-paid professional Game Master who doesn't need such comforts, it's still really nice to have a familiar face amongst all the strange ones.  So, that was really cool and I appreciate having +Tim Virnig, +Brandon Watkins, +Jacob Nelson, +Forrest Aguirre, and West there.  Little did I know that a few others knew of me, but I'm terrible with names and so few people have their actual selves as avatars.

Highlights

I'm not going to do a detailed session report for each and every game.  Just certain details that stood out or illustrate a particular point.

I ran my one-page zine, "The Sanctuary of the Scarlet Sorcerer", on Friday night; Liberation of the Demon Slayer and The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence on Saturday (back to back); along with The Outer Presence on Sunday.  By the end, I was ready to be done.  Although, by Monday night I was wishing I had another at GMing sometime mid-week.

I set up Liberation and Purple to be run with Dungeon Crawl Classics.  Now, I do love that system and the whole DCC vibe.  But when I've run it in the past, I hack it or dumb it down or Basic-D&D-it into oblivion... only keeping the mercurial magic and a few other bells and whistles, while drastically altering the rest.

Recently, all the games I've been running this summer and early fall have been based on a d6 dicepool system.  I suddenly found myself looking awkwardly at the d20 and thinking... I'm not ready to go back.  Luckily, I had been turning over my d6 dicepool ideas over and over in my mind.  Trying to come up with something that's even lighter, easier, and noob/one-shot/convention friendly than Crimson Dragon Slayer.

Just before Friday night's game, I came up with something workable and tried it out then and there.  It worked really well and use that for every session, except for Outer Presence.  I can attest that no player complained, balked, or criticized the core game mechanic I used throughout the convention.  That right there was a great opportunity to playtest the system.

Just as Purple was getting underway, +Doug Kovacs sat down and watched for a few minutes.  He even jokingly said that he was there to make sure I was "running the game right".  Some nervous laughter followed along with my admission that the game was going to be unorthodox, but still adhering to the Heavy Metal aesthetic from which practically all over-the-top, science-fantasy exploitation flows.

I dressed up!  Weeks before the convention, I bought a renaissance / LARP / pirate / Cosplay shirt (black) from ebay.  I wore that, the black velvet cloak I've had since college, a gothic halloween medallion, the fanciest black jeans I own (and was married in), and my black dress shoes.  It's exactly the type of thing I would wear to a Satanic ritual.  So, that felt appropriately inappropriate (which is right where I like to be).

Also, a couple months ago I decided to grow out my "wizard beard".  So, I probably looked like an extra from some Game of Thrones knockoff.  The facial hair still in phase 1, but just wait until Game Hole Con IV.  By then, my beard shall have taken over half the known realm!

I also brought in a lot of props.  Some fantasy calendars that had big, colorful pictures that I could show the entire table.  And a realistic foam sword (my wife: you paid how much for a fake sword?!?), plus a bunch of other illustrations, Terminator mask, glow stick, etc.

Taking the temperature of the room is important for a GM.  More so in a convention setting.  One table contained a jokester - one of those guys who has everyone laughing, like, every 10 or 15 minutes for the entire session.  He was seriously hilarious.  Now, it would have been a mistake for me to set myself up as his opposition, trying to "play it straight" and keep things serious.  So, I took his lead and upped the gonzo, humor, running jokes.

For instance, a couple people (including the jokester) recognized the pre-generated character name Xeljanz from the rheumatoid arthritis commercials.  That ad came on TV not too long ago when I was scribbling notes down for the convention PCs and seemed the perfect name for a dark elf or half-demon character.  Well, Xeljanz became a lighting rod for comedy.  So, too, the jeweled, egotistical sword named Zirkik.  Throughout the session, we kept calling him Zurich, Xerox, Zeke, Zircon, etc.

Also, plenty of premium Nyborg (space cocaine) was lying around the violet-black sand surrounding the islands.  I gave everyone a bonus to attack if their characters were coked out of their minds.  GMing at a convention is all about adapting to expectations, desires, and game table "texture" - those unexpected events that create myriad ripples and wrinkles in the pattern.

Rule #37:  It should be easier to die in a convention game, but also easier to be resurrected.

Purple had the weirdest ending.  I kind of painted myself into a corner, but it was super-cool.  Like my choices were silently being stolen away by Salvatore Dali.  So, I didn't mind and just went with it.  The party hid from the Purple Putrescence overhead.  Normally, a black pylon is the safest place to hide when The Thing That Rots From The Sky comes around.  But one of the players asked an innocent question to no one in particular: "Do you think we're safe in here?"  I took it upon myself to roll my 33% rule.  If the percentile dice came 01 to 33, they would not be safe at all.  The dice came up 27 or something.  So, one of those gargantuan, veined, purple tentacles wrapped itself around the pylon and uprooted the thing.

The adventurers did the only logical thing - experiment with the colored crystals until a portal opened.  They did, it did, and they escaped... to another universe that was far more Lovecraftian than even the one tenanted by the purple islands.  They had heard about a dream vision or prophecy of a man in black who would destroy the world.  The PCs thought they had met him earlier but were unsure, now there was this other dude cloaked in black and surrounded by glistening flesh full of eyes, tentacles, mouths, and leering mutant faces.

I knew I couldn't top that, so ended it right there.  Fade to black...

Liberation and Outer Presence went more as expected... but that's going to have to wait until tomorrow or the next day.

If you have a question, comment, or anything else.  Please leave a comment below!

VS

p.s.  Special thanks to +Meredith Spearman for taking notes and then a picture of those notes.  Zirkik loved the attention but couldn't understand how his name got so mangled.  I'm pretty sure he blames Glarg or whatever that half-orcs name was...

p.p.s.  Thanks to +Tim Virnig and +Glenn Holmer for taking pictures.

Shame On DCC

This is an open letter to Goodman Games policies and/or personnel, and not the DCC RPG community for which I still have much respect.

I was a fan of Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG.  Started reading about it a year ago, bought the book, ran the game using a home-made campaign which became Liberation of the Demon Slayer, joined the forum/google community, talked with people, traded gaming-related opinions, etc.

Unfortunately, it wasn't long before I encountered some resistance.  A mysterious force which made me feel like even more of an outsider than I normally do.  My posts were taken down, someone came out of the woodwork to hate on me and my religion (the Cult of Cthulhu) while admins/mods turned a blind eye, it took  me longer and longer to get my posts approved before they showed up, I started getting the cold shoulder from my fellow DCC fans.

Partly because of those experiences and partly because of game's nature, I began to gravitate towards Swords & Wizardry.  Definitely a friendlier bunch.

Now that I've self-published my own OSR module, Liberation of the Demon Slayer, I tried posting again.  Nothing.  Just silence from the admins.  My posts weren't getting through.  Finally, an acquaintance posted an announcement for me.  His post and several replies were deleted within 24 hours.  Similarly, a friend who posted the same thing on the DCC RPG google community had his post taken down and was given a warning not to do it again.

I have to wonder WTF is going on over at DCC central?!?  Is there a conspiracy against me?  I freely admit that back around 2006, I was a bit of a jerk sometimes on discussion boards.  I've got a big personality and don't always get along with people.  If someone attacks me, I reciprocated in kind.  Fortunately, over the years I've mellowed a bit.  I've become more diplomatic... cautious.

If the admins of DCC believe my posts and LotDS are anathema to them, then I wish they would email me directly instead of deleting announcements and warning those who dare speak of my old school module.  I still like the Dungeon Crawl Classics game (although, not as much as I used to); however the way I've been treated is downright shameful.  This hobby of ours doesn't need censorship, nor alienation.  A small part of me still hopes that there's been some terrible misunderstanding and all this can be forgiven and forgotten.  However, that small hope dwindles.

What say you, Lords of DCC?


VS

LotDS on DriveThru & Amazon

A gonzo, Lovecraftian, science fantasy quest through the devil-haunted Nether Realms!  Or you could just go back to farming your stinking land...

This has been a long time coming.  My old school fantasy RPG adventure and campaign guide is up on DriveThruRPG as a PDF for a special introductory price of $7:

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/119240/Liberation-of-the-Demon-Slayer

The print version should be available in a week.  At that time, the PDF alone will go back up to its regular price of $9... but will be $7 for the PDF + print version of $19.

The print (and I believe a PDF) version will also be available on Amazon in about a week as well.

I'll make another announcement when those go live.


VS