Under Fuchsia Ska'ai & Gary Con

 

I'll be heading to Gary Con tomorrow morning!

Today, I'll be making preparations... just like I've been doing for the last few days (crafted an original adventure just for the con).  Creating this blog post has been on my mind for awhile, so let's get to it.

Below is issue #2 of Under Fuchsia Ska'aki, the Cha'alt webcomic I'm making with Jae Tanaka.  Here is issue #1 and a mid-issue insert.

What else?  Well, I'll be running Cha'alt at Gary Con.  I think all my sessions are full, but still say "Hi."  And if you want to buy some hardcover Cha'alt books direct from me, I'll have a few on-hand and ready to sign.

As a fun little bonus, I'm offering Encounter Critcial III for FREE all weekend!  If you liked Crimson Dragon Slayer D20, you'll definitely get a kick out of EC3, it's sister-game.

I'll blog about my experiences when I get back on Sunday (plus, there'll be a new episode of Inappropriate Characters to livestream on YouTube).  I will also be tweeting about the convention and might make a video or two, as well.

Until then, game well, hoss... game well!

VS

p.s.  Here's a link to VENGER CON II: Electric Boogaloo my own RPG convention happening this July in Madison, WI.  And if you want those gorgeous Cha'alt books, but won't be at Gary Con this weekend, prices and ordering info here.

Never Leaving Cha'alt

 

Take a look at the kind of trash you find in the exhibition hall sewer!  Wow, the things you see when you leave your xxxtra flush porta-potty at home [shaking my tentacle].

Just before leaving Game Hole Con, I chatted a bit with Bad Mike and Jeffery Talanian.  Just catching up after a long weekend of gaming.  Jeffery mentioned a panel with Ed Greenwood and how he's been working on his Forgotten Realms campaign setting since he was 5 or something.

The strong desire, bordering on need, came to me awhile ago, but hearing that only solidified another layer... I'm never leaving Cha'alt.  Cha'alt is my RPG home, and I want to keep creating in that eldritch, gonzo, science-fantasy, post-apocalypse sandbox for the rest of my days.  

If 5 years of running games in the same world gets you this far [pretend I'm showing you a tentacle and measuring about halfway up], just imagine what 20 years would be like?  Now, I'm imagining it [no, I don't actually have a tentacle in front of me... nor do I know what it's like to GM in the same campaign setting for more than 5 years].

My guess is that the answer would be... awesomeness that's commensurate with the wild, untamed joy of PSYCHOCOSM !!!  That's what I intend to do, and if you'll stick with me, you can both share in the strange and wonderful awesomeness that is Cha'a'lt, as well as, discover whatever insights I might glean from that particular struggle.

Because make no mistake, it's not all fun and games.  Well, yeah, it is... but also no.  It is fun, and we are talking about games, but there's work that goes into it, too.  And discipline.  The mind wanders, attention wavers, we get pulled here and there, sidetracked, distracted; always something fresh to pursue.  It takes a certain amount of dedication and focus to stay put and work within the boundaries set out for you, that you set out for yourself years (perhaps decades) ago.

I want to use the phrase "conscious suffering", but again, it's not suffering in the usual sense of the word.  If you add up all the hours of imagining, planning, writing, revising, proofreading, finding artwork, and running games, we're talking about a thousand hours of work.  And it hasn't all been a cakewalk.  Hence the suffering.  But I do it intentionally, consciously.  In fact, I welcome it.

A man has to have a special plan, a calling, something that gives his life meaning (aside from the usual suspects, of course... family, survival, religion, etc.)  If you run from every kind of suffering, you won't be inconvenienced as much, but what will you have to show for yourself when it's all said and done?

Alright, enough philosophizing, how was the Game Hole convention, hoss?

Pretty fucking awesome!  Yeah, no real complaints.  I gave myself an ideal schedule... a 4-hour game Friday at 10 - 2pm, two 3-hour games on Saturday with a couple hours for lunch in-between, and a 4-hour game to close things off on Sunday, same time slot as Friday.

And what were the games like?  Pretty magical... spectacular, you might say!  In fact, I was surprised how "game" everyone was.  I couldn't be sure if it was me or Cha'alt or the players themselves (probably a combination of all three), but there was humor, pop-culture references, sleaze, and the kind of scary, gross-out horror movie exploitation shit that you don't get to see very often.

Some highlights...

• The racial stereotyping of dark-elves having poison on them at all times.  Collaboratively, we decided that one dark-elf PC regularly imbibed poison so that he would be immune, while also having poisonous saliva.  As ingenious as it is fucked up!
• Taking "murder hobo" to the furthest reaches of sorcerous insanity!  The party's wizard: "Is the skinned man eviscerated?"  [me: no]  Him: "Then let's correct that oversight.  I cut him open to see if I can discover signs and portents with his entrails."  Along with a pixie-fairy warrior who could be summoned by saying "Tinker-Stab" three times, and loved to skewer eyeballs and drink their juices.
• Care bear and mogwai doxies seducing NPCs at the Palace gala.
• My friend Jacob who has been a player in a number of my games, played in two of my sessions this con.  But since it was the same basic scenario (with a number of changes), we decided he was having Groundhog's day visions that led him to believe that he was living the same day over and over again. The analogy was even more layered because a central plot-point was this Shadow Void ceremony where the King's sorcerer stood in front of a yawing black void to see if he could see his shadow.  If he did, that meant the next 3 years of Cha'alt would be filled with suffering and doom.
• The demon priestess who single-handedly instigated an insurrection.
• The old fart who used ritual magic to "internal organ implode" the King of A'agrybah (no one respects a weak King).
• Got to try Obsidian Escalation twice.  The first time, it didn't come up because no one rolled a crit.  The second time, it worked almost too well.  Combat was over in 2 rounds, and the results were described in epic gory detail by the player!
• My Friday morning game only had 2 players, so I played an NPC to round out the party.  I played a dark-elf (not the one mentioned above) and got to have sex with a damsel about to be devoured by a slimy tentacled abomination (I waited until after the battle was over, obviously... I'm not a monster).  Inserting myself into the game like that hasn't happened in awhile.  
• BEST WISCONSIN WEATHER EVER!!!!!!!  Seriously, it was sunny and warm the entire weekend.  This almost never happens here.

I'm leaving out a dozen other moments that will hopefully be with me forever.  Just know that it was a blast, and I can't wait to come back and GM the shit out of Game Hole Con next year.  

Of course, VENGER CON II: Electric Boogaloo will come first in July (also in Madison, WI).  Grab your ticket here.

Usually, I run at least one of my megadungeons for the sake of variety and never running out of content... but this time I ran the introductory adventure for Encounter Critical III (also playtested the upcoming EC3 classes and races).  Those sessions included this little gem, which was a big hit... and I got to reconceptualize and tweak the fuchsia and chartreuse tentacled entities organically during play, which is the best way of doing it.

I have a post-con video, as well.  I'll include it here so there's little to no overlap in my con report.

Thanks to everyone who helped put this convention together, and everyone who played in my games!

VS

p.s. Gorgeous hardcover Cha'alt books for sale?  Why, yes... knock yourself out, hoss!

Fairly Odd Entities

 

So, I was running another Encounter Critical III playtest in the RPG's home world of Cha'alt.  Not going to bother linking the Kickstarter campaign because it's ending in about 30 minutes (as I type this first draft).

A little over $2,600... not too bad.  Should be able to afford some cool artwork for that much, plus pay my layout guy.

As per usual, when I'm not running sessions over the weekend or at night, I only managed to get 2 players.  But that's ok.  2 players gets the job done.  One was a returning dude (whose game I respect), the other was a relative noob.

Got to introduce new character classes this playtest, so that was exciting.  The choices I offered were: warrior, pioneer, criminal, warlock, doxy, and psi-witch (or psi-knight).  Now, it's starting to feel a little bit more like Encounter Critical!

Still has a way to go, obviously.  I'd say I'm about 65% finished with it.  Next playtest will involve new races!

Anyways, one player took on the role of warlock, and the other a pioneer.  Both chose human as the race to make things easier, and for the extra hit-points.

I'm really glad someone played a warlock because the magic system was an area that needed playtesting.  I had this whole d6 dice pool thing going, kind of a riff on earlier versions of Crimson Dragon Slayer.  But then decided against it.  Too much fiddling around.  

Instead, magic works like any other class ability - it's a skill check with a 15 target number, but you also get to add your level.  Still pretty tough to do anything at lower level, which is why PCs need to accumulate Divine Favor... and you get that from roleplaying your character, primarily.

Speaking of which, I eased up a bit on backgrounds.  That's a lot of coming up with stuff and writing for such a short game.  While I mentioned that they might want to think about a drive, look, flaw, obsession, relationship, and other noteworthy things + personality quirks, I didn't mandate it.  I also took the time (twice) to tell players that they'd be rewarded with Divine Favor for roleplaying their backgrounds, and that Divine Favor could be spent to re-roll any die (has to be their own die, though).

The returning player made great use of what he was told / given, bringing details about his character to life with social interaction, personal thoughts, and action.  It may not seem like much, but stuff like that is one of the more rewarding things about RPGs in my opinion.  That's why I made it a design goal up-front.

So what happened?  Damn, it was a wild time!  The PCs were prisoners, abandoned with a dead cellmate because the city of A'agrybah was engaged in a bloody civil war - blue versus green (if you've seen The Tomorrow People, then you know what that's about).

But something found in the dead man's pocket made it just that much more special.  Recently, our twin boys have been watching Fairly Odd Parents on netflix, which means that I've also been watching Fairly Odd Parents.  Could have been much worse, BTW.  And those pink and green fairies gave me an idea...

What if I incorporated them into my game, but Cha'altified, of course?  Inside a small leather pouch were two smooth, shiny stones... one fuchsia, the other chartreuse. Tapping them together released wisps of vapor those same hues.  They coalesced into a pair of tentacled entities - chartreuse and fuchsia.  They didn't speak the common tongue, but the party's warlock, Shernoz, cast a spell that made them intelligible.  

But not before the PCs asked the vaporous entities to open the cell door and deactivate the anti-magic sphere preventing Shernoz from casting spells.  Two wishes gone, it turned out.  Only one wish left today.  But why would their third cellmate, who recently died, not have summoned these colorful, tentacled genies when he was alive?

Because they're psychotic cenobites, of course... probably from some Quor'toth-like dimension.  Officially, I'll be referring to them as zenobites or quorta'athians.  They are extradimensional demons who get off on pushing humanoids to the extremes of pain and pleasure.  When they're not granting wishes, they orchestrate mass murder, torture, rape, slavery, and other wickedness.

These entities could also talk to each other, as well as the PCs, so they added to the roleplaying immersion.

There was another whole subplot when a demon (traditional, this time) clawed his way out of Hell to make a deal with the warlock who failed his spell-check and was about to get killed by civil war guerillas.  The demon wanted those mystical fuchsia and chartreuse stones for himself.  I really thought the warlock would have gone along with the demon's offer since the true nature of their guardian demon genies had already been revealed.  

But nope, the demon got nothing and when he unfroze time, Shernoz wished the chartreuse and fuchsia entities to send them far away.  Seconds from being stabbed in the abdomen by a "green", Shernoz and Snare suddenly appeared in the open desert.

By then, we'd gone over our 90-minute allotment by about 6 or 7 minutes, so we said our goodbyes.  Both players told me how much they enjoyed the game, which made my day.

Rest assured, I'll be using those colorful tentacled entities again.  Oh yeah, I came up with names for them... Yazka'an and Dvorek.  Maybe I can get one of those A.I. art making programs to illustrate them?

Ok, that's the end.  Thanks for reading!  Hopefully, I'll see some of you next weekend at Game Hole Con.  I'm sure Yazka'an and Dvorek will show up eventually.

Thanks for reading, commenting, and sharing!

VS

p.s. I now have a paid subscription to Midjourney, that program creating A.I. works of art based on user prompts.  The 3 images below the first one (Odd Parents) are my first results.  Pretty cool so far...

Playtest Palooza

 

Got to run another playtest session of Encounter Critical III this morning [wrote this yesterday afternoon].

Here is the Encounter Critical III kickstarter.

Fantastic game and fantastically weird!  I tried to incorporate as many of my proposed ideas as possible.  This contains the various concepts and mechanics I wanted to test out.

There was some combat, but not much, and no one rolled a critical-success or failure.  So, Obsidian Escalation didn't really come up.  Which is fine, I tried it out last session, and will include that in subsequent sessions.

I don't know if the stars aligned or what, but I had SIX players.  Normally, it's two; occasionally three.  Text only, I feel, is easier with bigger groups than voice & camera, but still challenging.

Before I dive-in, let me give you an overall impression:  I feel like the playtest was a success because the ideas seemed to fuel an immersive, fun-filled game.  And one of the highlights was having Jeff Rients as a player!  Achievement unlocked, bitches.  ;)

All the information gathering prior to the session's start had a specific purpose - to give players a better idea of their characters, so they actually had backgrounds to roleplay off of.  Any RPG can encourage backgrounds, but what I'm trying to accomplish with the new rules is in-game incentives.

The scenario was to search the interior of a dimension traveling space-worm and find an unknown artifact.

Here's a window into my playtesting soul... good, bad, and ugly.  Instead of a carefully crafted scenario providing a curated experience, I like to playtest by the seat of my pants.  Given enough time and creative juice [Venger juice], I feel like the GM can turn a shitty system with dumb mechanics into something pretty cool.  I don't want to do that because engineering a fool-proof experience isn't going to help me figure out if I'm doing something right or headed in the wrong direction.

Instead, I prefer to attune myself to the world in the campaign setting, rules, vibe, and whatever else... becoming an integral part of the game..  Having a few ideas in the form of loose notes and winging the rest will show me what I need to see.  

Every designer eventually hands-off his ideas to another GM in hopes that he'll get it and be able to run a great game.  So, the improv also helps put me in the perspective of the GM who most likely has a vague notion of what I said in the rules, or was trying to get across.

Can this anonymous GM take what I give him and make gold?  That's the question.

The players did great with coming up with background stuff.  I didn't need to break out the random tables that I had ready to go just in case.

Since this was just a one-shot, I didn't meticulously write every flaw and obsession and drive down in my GMing notes.  Everything exists in the chat log on Roll20, though, which is another good reason for running games as text-only.

But I realized the PCs had plenty of material to riff, and riff they did.  I told them about the point of Divine Favor they'd receive for roleplaying their backgrounds.  If this was several adventures into a campaign, I can only imagine the heights of roleplaying and social interaction we'd reach.  As it was, there was enough to prove my theory - an "old-school" RPG focused on social interaction (as opposed to combat and exploration) is not only needed, but totally awesome.

And I asked them to take part in a flashback scene.  I neglected to mention that relationships should include another PC, my bad, so the first thing that came to my mind was a tavern where they hear the proposed mission.  That went well.  For instance, without even realizing it, one of the players, Judd, came up with an identity for the "quest giver"... a wizard.  

The free exchange of ideas before solidifying what's going on is exactly the sort of Fiasco-like scene creation I was hoping for.  The vibe was assuredly set because a little later, when I was describing the immediate, present-day environment, one of the players provided some bonus description all on his own.  "Reeks of  bile, but then again, what doesn't?"  Excellent!

So, the PCs are wandering around the inside of a space-worm traveling through dimensions... and PSYCHOCOSM was had by all.  Well, certainly me.  Staring into the psychedelic depths of the Kort'thalis meta-sigil didn't hurt.

They follow a trail of popsicle sticks (a subtle nod to Cremza'amirikza'am that one player picked-up on) to find something pretty weird, dark, and gross.  I'll save that for another time, or perhaps a future adventure that you'll be apart of.

The PCs fought some toadlike humanoids who desired tasty flesh.  Combat ensued, but the adventuring party was so large that 4 toad dudes didn't last too long.  It was pretty much over before the spellcaster could do anything.

After a bit, and learning of Xedra'as, an evil sorceress currently residing within the space-worm, the PCs came face-to-face with Xedra'as and her demon minions.

The PC sorcerer who didn't get a chance to act wanted to go first.  Since combat hadn't even begun, I said Hell yeah, go for it.  He cast a spell, and I had him roll a couple of six-siders (because I'm also workshopping an alternative system of magic for EC3 - check back here in a couple days).  He rolled really well, a critical-success, in fact.  Xedra'as and the demons were caught in the sorcerer's ectoplasmic webbing.

The session was coming to a close, all too quickly.  Some of the PCs were wondering if they should keep searching for the mysterious artifact the tavern wizard told them to recover.  They had found a magic item (and a powerful one at that), but was this what they'd been seeking?  Others wanted to leave as the space-worm seemed to be blinking out of existence as we know it.  Since we had about 6 or 7 minutes remaining and there wasn't enough time for another encounter, I decided we should do another scene.  This time a flash-forward.

The "kid" who'd been traipsing through the space-worm with the adventurers was all grown-up.  Another player volunteered to be part of the scene but only if he could roleplay an NPC who was also present during the scene.  I was all for it.

The young man who had grown since that adventure taking place several years ago was accompanied by his butler Gerhart.  The wizard from the tavern addressed him, asking what he found in the worm.

Sadly, there wasn't much interaction between the young man and the wizard, so the wizard said his peace and promptly vanished... again!

"That pain was necessary for this world to grow, to change, to become what it must. There is no stopping the evolution of Cha'alt. Freeing the Duke allowed it to evolve. That's what was needed."

It was an extremely bizarre adventure (even for me), but it was equally awesome.  And just as the camera faded to black, there was a little bit of not-quite-necrophilia, thanks to one of my favorite recurring players.  Why have an online game tagged "sleazy" without a cherry on top?

Below are a few choice lines copy/pasted from the chat log...

• "I have never been inside a purple space worm before, unless you count this one tentacled lady in Port Grenthak."
• At a lull in the conversation, full of liquid courage, the kid asks "How come you're not going?"
• "WHERE IS THE CONTROL CENTER? I WOULD HAVE HIS BODY." You see the inner mole rat tugging at various nerves/wires within the golem-body.
• Mork Borg draws his untrustworthy blade.
• "This transdimensional space-worm gets a lot more traffic than I expected."
• "Ok, here's what we need to do.  On the count of three, I pull the sheet and whoever can kill her the fastest gets it done. Ready?"
• Once again, the playthings of gods and wizards. Thus is always the fate of honest, hardworking adventurers.
• "I assumed he had a name like Slartibartfast."
• "I am Barry Fastslart, or Duke Fastslart, if you prefer.  Do you know of me?"
• I was going balls-deep as we faded out...

In a couple days, I'll post what I have for the proposed magic system (working on the details right now).

As always, thanks to the guys for playing; and thanks to you for reading.  Don't miss the next session (I'm going to squeeze-in two sessions a week for the next couple months).

VS

p.s. Like what you're reading?  Want to be part of the action?  For $5 a month, you can have first-crack at playing in one of my weekly one-shots!  Subscribe to me on SubscribeStar!

Delving Design

 

Months ago, years even, I was hesitantly perched upon a dozen different fences about what to do with Encounter Critical.  I'm Kickstarting the 3rd edition, if you didn't know!

Part of the problem was knowing that whatever direction I went, some people would be disappointed.  But the whole making an omelet thing reminds me that I've got to please myself at the end of the day... which is fitting, because I was (still am, to some degree) a huge fan of Encounter Critical after discovering it - with no small help from the imagination and blog of Jeff Rients.

At any rate, I'm trying to find a yin-yang sort of balance between traditional and what we now call "story-games".  The black (yin) has a little bit of white in it.  Basically, I'm trying to take "modern" and "innovative" RPG design and adapt it to OSR sensibilities.

I did make a video about fiction-first, Obsidian Escalation, and several other things.

The following is what's on the playtest menu for the moment.  Anything can change at any moment.  I don't expect it to, but I am expecting tweaks, fine-tuning, and possibly weird organic growth that I didn't realize was part of this project's evolutionary journey.

Without further ado, here we go...

One Page Cheat-Sheet

•          Every PC must come up with a Background that’s broken-up into the following aspects: Look (appearance, aesthetics, vibe, etc.), Drive (motivation for adventuring, reason for being, core values), 2 Relationships (either members of the party or an NPC in the world), Flaw (downfall, vice, or something that keeps getting in your way), and 3 Obsessions (something you love, something you hate, and something that fascinates, perplexes, or strangely amuses you).
•          A character gets 1 point of Divine Favor every time he indulges in or falls prey to his Flaw.
•          When a character is confronted with one of his Obsessions, he’s easily distracted and/or manipulated… unless a successful saving throw is rolled.
•          If running a one-shot, start the session with a Flashback scene from an earlier time in the PCs’ lives, when they first met or were all together… perhaps a montage (micro-scenes with a common theme unfolding in quick succession) of each PC discovering the startling revelation that “reality” is merely densely coiled layers of illusion.  Ahead of the scene, the players and GM should discuss where events happened (location), who’s there and why (relationships) and the general mood, conflict, and/or resolution they’d like to see.  The GM, who should have an inkling of what’s to come, might suggest a motif, object (McGuffin), or major/recurring NPC (villain, helpful contact, rival, comic-relief) for inclusion, in order to strengthen narrative ties between the Flashback and future events.  The players roleplay the social interaction until everyone is content that the scene should conclude.  A point of Divine Favor is awarded to every player who participated.
•          If running a campaign, start each session with a Flashback scene from an earlier time in either one or two PCs’ lives (see above for details).  Players who don’t have their character present in the unfolding scene are encouraged to roleplay whatever NPCs might also be in the Flashback scene.
•          Between encounters (and occasionally during) PCs are encouraged to roleplay.  PCs earn a point of Divine Favor when they demonstrate (talk about, think about, or act out) an aspect of their Background. No more than 1 point per scene.
•          Obsidian Escalation during combat!
•          Skill-Checks: Natural 1s the GM (or mischievous player, if preferred) narrates the failure.  Natural 20 means the player can describe his own success.
•          Top result on a saving throw, skill-check, or damage die means the player can narrate his epically awesome deed with an additional embellishment that may provide a modest edge, asset, or godsend (with GM approval, of course).

This cheat-sheet is 1) based off changes or amendments to Crimson Dragon Slayer D20, and 2) written down in a sort of shorthand that's explained just enough so I know what's going on.  

If YOU would be interested in running your OSR ruleset with the above modifications, I'd love to hear your story.  Please share it with us.  Better yet, email me your feedback: Venger.Satanis@yahoo.com

After a few playtests of this stuff, I'm going to go back to the proverbial drawing-board with other fundamental concepts, such as magic.  I've been doing magic the same way for a few years, and want to try something radically different than my comfortable go-to system.

Feel free to comment, ask questions, throw tomatoes, or whatever.  ;)

VS

p.s. You can support me for $5 a month on SubscribeStar, and next July's Madison WI VENGER CON II is happening with or without you, so grab a ticket and play with us!

Encounter Critical III

 

What's up?  I've got news...

I finally have a new Kickstarter campaign, and it's for Encounter Critical III.

Let's get down to brass tacks, hoss.  The original EC is great and all, but many find it virtually unplayable because of its OMG WTF?!? system (game mechanics).  I want to take my version of EC into a smooth, easy, and light OSR ruleset while making the things outside the system OMG, WTF?!?

The very first playtest was earlier today, and I think that went well.  It's going to take a lot more, and each time I hope to learn new things.

Obviously, I'm building on what came before... the original EC, Crimson Dragon Slayer D20, and Cha'alt.  The concept is there, now I just need to refine it and come up with awesome stuff to make it really fly.

I'll post more about the playtest session in a couple days.  For now, I'll just say thanks for supporting me, and feel free to ask questions or volunteer to playtest Encounter Critical III as we go into fall.  

VS