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!

Game Hole Con 2022

 

I'll be running games at Game Hole Con this October!

Their covid policy is more lenient this time around - especially compared to Gary Con [info here].  That reason, the location, and focus on old-school tabletop RPGs are what drew me back.  

Last year was fun, but the masks were not ideal.  My blog posts about last year's GHC can be found here.

The 4 Cha'alt sessions I submitted were just approved.  I decided to do all Cha'alt for a couple different reasons.  First, it's just easier for me to run.  It's what I've been focusing on for the last 4 years, and it's open-ended enough to allow pretty much anything.  I can incorporate everything from snake-men sorcerers to dimension-hopping Rick and Morty to tentacled Kool-Aid man.  

I can literally start the game anywhere in the eldritch, gonzo, science-fantasy, post-apocalyptic campaign setting, roll on a few tables, drop in a weird dungeon, monster, or plot-hook, and keep the game going based on PC action (or inaction).

Cha'alt, in conjunction with any rules-light OSR system, such as Crimson Dragon Slayer D20 (still free, still awesome) is perfect for noobs, conventions, one-shots, and games on the go.

If you want to play in one of my GHC games, I've got one on Friday, two on Saturday, and one on Sunday.  Hope you can make it, hoss!

Yes, I'll have a few books of the Cha'alt trilogy at the convention.  So, if you want to buy one, or just chat, feel free to say, "Hey, Venger!"

VS

p.s. About 5 more weeks before I launch the new Encounter Critical III Kickstarter campaign.  In the meantime, you can support me on SubscribeStar.

GameHole Con 2021 [part 2]

 

My first game was around noon on Thursday.  First blog post of this series was yesterday.

Six players including an acquaintance from Milwaukee, Glenn, who I've run games for multiple times previously, either at conventions or when I was running Cha'alt at my FLGS in Madison, WI.

It was an exploration through The Black Pyramid of Cha'alt. Not sure if I did it intentionally, but the very last game of the convention was pretty much the exact same scenario - except it had a totally different vibe (will get to that in a couple days).

There are a few ways I like to start out a Black Pyramid adventure.  I never begin such scenarios inside.  The PCs are always trekking through the desert trying to arrive there for one reason or another.  Why?  A little something I learned in college called processional access.  Partly, the journey is an important part of the destination.  But it's also about the build up of emotion, anticipation, expectation, and gravitas that comes with getting to the good stuff.  

Like in a porno, it's more enjoyable to watch the process leading to sex than to just immediately watch people fucking for no discernable reason.

Anyway, the PCs saw a sandworm near the pyramid and decided to run when it came towards them.  This part of the scenario is important for setting the right tone, as well.  If the PCs, at first level, were Hell bent on slaying the sandworm, this would have been their wakeup call.  PCs would have died, telling players A) don't get cocky and B) I'm not fucking around.

Scattering was the right move, so they all survived.

It had been a long time since I've run The Black Pyramid and I was a little rusty.  I almost forgot about the message in that glass case.  Just like I almost forgot to have them roll for rumors about this nigrescent wonder of the world.

The first few rooms gave them a taste of gonzo.  It's the "we're not in Kansas anymore" effect.  There always seems to be a couple players who engage with the weirdness in order to move forward, while the rest of the party are either still acclimating, not yet able to interact because they're on edge or taken aback by how strange everything is.

And some people enjoy the silly and bizarre aspects of the megadungeon while others aren't quite sure how to take it.

That's all part of its charm.  If you're going to run The Black Pyramid yourself, that unevenness and uncertainty is a feature, not a bug.  At least, I hope you come to see it that way.  It's a form of initiation, separating the wheat from the chaff.

Was it also weird running a session face-to-face after nearly two years of virtual?  Yes, it was.  There are cues I wasn't used to receiving because all my Roll20 games are text only.  So, I don't know how someone feels about the game we're playing unless they physically type it out, which usually comes at the end when they say they had fun or "awesome game" or "thanks for running", etc.

Anyway, there were a lot of cool and interesting rooms they encountered... the floating colorful shapes entity, under a microscope, the frozen giant peach, the barrels of monkeys, the museum (where a PC stole a disintegrator rifle that didn't have an energy cell, but then returned it for the reward), the kabuki theater, the gonzo statue, democratic republic of Y'gk, etc.  

A lot of stuff they interacted with minimally.  The driving force for some PCs was to acquire treasure, and if there were odd people walking around without any noticeable loot, they were quickly bypassed.  

There's no right or wrong way to explore this megadungeon.  Some groups or individuals will want to really get in there and experience it all.  Others will breeze through the more esoteric rooms in order to accomplish their personal goals.  And the interplay between PCs is interesting, to me at least.  

Combat happened sporadically.  I don't remember them taking significant losses.

There wasn't a big finish or climatic resolution.  If memory serves, the PCs came to a good stopping point just before our game was set to terminate and we ended things there.

All in all, it was a solid group and good game.  The players were enthusiastic about what I had to offer, even if they didn't always make the most of their opportunities.  I thanked them for playing and they thanked me for creating this unusual experience for them.

If I could go back and do one thing differently (I try to come up with some area for improvement each session), it would be giving the PCs a stronger motivation to explore the pyramid's interior than what I provided.  I honestly don't even remember what I told them, something about inconceivable opportunities awaiting them inside or some vague bullshit like that.  Strong motivations help players direct their characters.  I didn't make that mistake the 2nd time running The Black Pyramid, though.  

Oh yeah, I used the dice that remind me the most of Cha'alt, a gorgeous mix of chartreuse and fuchsia.  See this old blog post for a visual.

That's it for now.  Tune in for another blog post tomorrow!

VS

p.s. My Kickstarter campaign for Cha'alt: Chartreuse Shadows continues.  Please, check it out and back that sucker if you're into eldritch, gonzo, science-fantasy, post-apocalyptic gaming awesomeness!