Laser Cannons & Dragons, or what does your Mutant Future look like?

Of course,  I never ran that Mutant Future game two years ago.

But, I have the bug again, here we go!

When is your Mutant Future? 

= 2124 + 1d100 + 2d20 + 3d6

Where does your Mutant Future take place? 

Roll 1d6

1. New York / New Jersey 

2. Florida 

3. Great Lakes region

4. Mid West Farmland 

5. Southwest / Southern Border 

6. California or PNW

Because I have to pigeon hole everything, and for balance, I propose these player classes for Mutant Future.

Fighter: a specialist in combat, armed and unarmed, receives +1 to combat attacks and feats of strength.

Mystic or Cultist: a character with psychic or a mental mutation. Also, maybe a character practicing mystical or magical arts, receives +1 when attempting to use these skills. 

Nerd: a character knowledgeable of science and technology, receives +1 when using science based skills. 

Rogue: +1 to negotiation and sneaky stuff. 

What's your Mutant Future social network like?

* Government or Corporations *

These two groups remain the most organized and resourceful, with most capability to help or harm the remaining society. They control the best raw materials, vehicles, roads, building and laboratories. Characters may gain access to these resources through recruitment into Gov. or a corporate program or project. (Or theft.)

While the Government may have the best intentions too reorganize society, one overly ambitious military commander could seriously disrupt any well intended plan. 

* Mechanics *

Racers, Greases or Bikers, call them what you like. This group will have access to the best, and worst transportation available, the fastest hot rod, the toughest war wagon, possibly a flying machine. They'll be able to provide a personal transport at a price you can afford.

* Scientist, Techies, Nerds * 

Individual groups dedicated to the discovery, rediscovery and preservation of science and technology can be found dotted about the Mutant Future. They can be advantageous to player characters by assisting with medical needs, providing general or specific science info and repairing radios and other tech devices.

*Blacksmiths* 

This term refers to craftsmen who repair all forms of weapons. They repair, maintain, craft and collect combat weapons and armor, including hand weapons, firearms and explosives.

--- Next post, more details, less generalization. ---

Laser Cannons & Dragons: or, the return to true scientific realism.

Five years, five flippin' years! That would have been when I went to work for my current employer. Let's hope I've settled in now and can set aside a little creative time.

I have plans to introduce another group of noobs to tabletop rpgs later this month.  And here's my thought process. Your crazy uncle (me) asks you if you want to play Dungeons and Dragons. You say sure because your uncle is a fun guy and you haven't spent much time with him in the past few years. But, what's your character motivation? I have a chart for that! 

Twelve reasons to visit Tidy Island Bay: or rpg local of your choice.

1. The Fabled Market of Fables (shopping) 

2. Seeking employment on the off world colonies. 

3. Seeking knowledge they would not teach you off in college. 

4. To consult the Ishtar Collective.

5. To visit the used droid market of the Javas.

6. 75th Annual Independence Day Cook off and Aquatic Turtle Rat fishing championship. 

7. In search of you Uncle Jake. 

8. Gambling at the Amazonian owned casino.

9. Explore the wreck of the  Kobayashi Maru. 

10. To visit the Vulcan commune and organic farm.on Tidy Island. 

11. Seeking passage off world. 

12. That band you liked in college got back together.

 

Motivated now and do I need another pop culture reference? I'll be using the Mutant Future rules in my Tidy Island Bay location, created for Encounter Critical with elements from the Destiny video game franchise. Stay tuned!

Lastly, I've been reading How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove. I'm certain I'm behind the curve, but if you like History, Alternative History, Speculative Fiction, Modern Fiction and humanity, I recommend this book for ya. If you don't like any of these things, why are you reading this!?

 

Now just in time for Fall: Female Character Name Generator!

I had so much fun with the RPG Character Name Generator that I made a second name generator for female player characters. We want gender equality in our RPGs as in everything else. At least, I do.

Most of the names on this generator are Celtic. I found these via the good ol' entree-net. I have posted the PDF at Scribd, of course, because it's easier for me than Google Drive.

A player character by any other name would slay as sweet.

Or, further proof that d12 is not useless.

After producing the Alternative RPG Survey, I got the idea to create this RPG Character Name Generator. I have finally finished it and stored it at Scribd for our convince. It is a series of charts to produce a first, middle and last name for characters in tabletop role playing games.

Most of the names are vaguely Nordic, Roman or Anglo Saxon with a few Spanish, modern and fantastic names too. The names are also all masculine. No offence intended, the group I designed the chart for is all male.

There is an additional chart for descriptive names, if you want your character to have a name like Able the Irritable. The last chart is just a quick d12 roll too provide catchy names like Alpa or Covfefe.

You should be able to access the chart here: RPG Character Name Generator

Lastly, I have been reading Nietzshe, off and on, for a few months. It is torture and not something I should be undertaking unless for a philosophy class. My school days have been completed for a while but I can be very heard headed about my choices of reading material.  I will just add, I am pretty sure that Lovecraft's body of work was inspired  by exposure to Thus Spoke Zarathustra. 

Another Encounter Critical Community Project!

No gaming activity, or blogging, for me since I moved to Alabama and returend to school back in Dec. The term is over at school so I discovered this Encounter Critical commuinty project over at No Signal. I'm having fun with it, come join us, if you will.

Gygaxian Democracy -  Planet of Tombs !

Polyhedral 2013 Premier

First, I confess, I whiled most of my Holiday vacation time away, creating a Tumblr account and other such useless activities. I did complete a new Encounter Critical adventure. But, I can't tell you about it, in case we find ourselves in an E.C. game using the G+Hangout in the future. It is not a totally new adventure, it is loosely based on a previously published piece for a prominent rpg franchise. I'm intrenched in the old grindstone now and my free time will be limited until July or August, there probably will not be any Hangin' Out in my near future.

I also did a little work on an OSR community project; The Young Green Dragon over the Next Hill. This was lots of fun and I am very happy with my contribution. Now I am itching to run a Labyrinth Lord game. When the weather's a bit warmer I may commandeer a table on the patio at my favorite pub for just this purpose.

Heck yeah, Classic Sci-Fi! Actually, I ended up with two pages on Tumblr. Heck Yeah, Classic Sci-Fi  is the newest and is, obviously, dedicated to images of and related to Classic Science Fiction and Pulp Sci-Fi. I was posting a lot of Sci-Fi book covers to the other page, Fanatical Recycling Inc, and HYCSF evolved out of this practice. Fanatical Recycling Inc. started as a dump for images that would inspire environmental elements in rpg adventures. Then I started putting images of nature on there and the content became a bit ambiguous. Darn nature and all it's beauty! Hopefully I will manage to keep these the two pages distinct.

Ah yeah, how could I forget to share this?  Thanks to Billiam of Adventures in Shopping 
I learned of Dyson's Delves.  I don't buy many new RPG products, as few as one or two a year, but this tome looks both useful and fun. I'll be watching the e-mail and snail-mail boxes for this anticipated arrival.
(Those minis in Bill's article look great too.)

I'm gonna go draw a map for you all now, if you can find a copy of Marvel Apes for $4, I suggest you purchase it. It was a fun read and even has zombies.

Defining an OSR Elf

As I've have mentioned, I play a race as class Elf in our Labyrinth Lord game and leveled up this week. With my advance to 4th level I gain improved saving throws and improved to hit scores. I think these improved saves are where the mathematics of the game play a part in defining the "nature" of an elf.


For a 1st to 3rd level elf the save vs. poison target is 12 which is a pretty excellent saving throw. At 4th level all of my saves are 13 or lower, these are the stats that will eventually allow me to shed the plate mail and begin to feel like an honest elf. (My alignment is neutral so I can feel honest, in character, about nearly anything.)

I gain one second level spell at 4th level and can now use 2, 1st level and 2, 2nd level spells per day. This is all "old hat" to most of you but, I was getting by pretty well with a combination of Sleep, Charm Person and Shrink and now get to add another second level spell each day.

Now, to hire a henchman or two and get the Wand of Magic Missile recharged...!

Help needed to recreat the art of Deities & Demi Gods

I am sure that most of the rpg blog-o-sphere is, by now, familiar with Kickstarter programs. And, you have probably heard that Jeff Dee is recreating long lost illustrations from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. (I'm assuming you all know this story.)

Now, if you have a buck or twenty, is the time to help with another Kickstarter program. This one is to recreate illustrations from Deities and Demi Gods that are the work of Diesel LaForce. There are only five days left to fund this project but over $1500. needs to be raised. You know you need another old school illustration to decorate your huge ruined pile. (I mean humble domain, of course.) When payday rolls around this weekend you can treat yourself, and some loved ones if ya like, and pledge your support to this program.

Now I'm gonna go up-date my resume and send it to my local NPR affiliate.

Fight On! tables compilation

I was wondering what is, or is not, happening with the Fight On! book of random madness that we all submitted our blood, sweat and tears to a few months ago. I looked at the ODnD forum and found the answer. Calithena says, "I am planning on getting to the limited release hardcovers and the second softcover (issues 5-8) as soon as issue 13 is out. Then the tables book."

So, I'll save my tables for the publication and get back to writing up those magic items I had started based on the short stories of Saki.

What we write about when we write about rpgs.

Perhaps this should be titled; What we read when we read about rpgs. It has been noted that I read a lot and I have determined that all this reading is the equivalent of doing the research with out doing the writing. The writing does eventually come about but probably at a much slower pace than is desirable.

I was doing a bit of "research" recently, reading the ol' 2nd Ed. AD&D Dungeon Master Guide and I read a paragraph that looked familiar. I have reached the point in my reading and research career that I read almost all of a book. This is to say that I read the introductions and the "notes about the author" but am not likely to read the glossary or bibliography. So, I was reading the intro to ye ol' DMG and came to this section;

"The rules of the AD&D game are balanced and easy to use. No role-playing game we know of has been playtested more heavily than this one. But that doesn't mean it's perfect. What we consider to be right may be unbalanced or anachronistic in your campaign. The only thing that can make the AD&D game "right" for all players is the intelligent application of DM discretion."

I believe that passage speaks volumes about what is popularly called the "old school" attitude of fantasy role playing games. These ideas have been written, time and time again, across the blog-o-sphere; unlike the rules of chess, the rules of role playing games are not intended to be the final judge of an action in the game. Rather, the final judge are the ideas and attitudes of the members of individual game groups. But, rehashing old opinions about our hobby is not the point of this post.

Those sentences from the 2nd Ed. DMG reminded me of a passage at the beginning of another favorite rpg, Encounter Critical. I don't have any doubt that the author of E.C., S. John Ross, was familiar with that very passage or, at least, similar passages from various old rpgs. In the intro to E.C. he, in the voice of Hank Riley, writes:
"...you can enjoy the assurance that this is the only game we know of to include True Scientific Realism in every system. Combat, especially, derives from actual battle experience and from extensive research into the theories of tactical interplay... This is a complete fantasy and science fiction game in a single manual, but it is also the beginning of your greatest scenario, a foundation on which you can build."

"Although, as far as rules go,...(we prefer) a minimum of systems to keep track of: enough to know what your character can achieve, and enough to know who he can defeat, is enough!"

Perhaps these two passages are not as identical as I had initially thought but they certainly bare a resemblance in tone as they both imply; "this is the most highly playtested game to our knowledge." E.C. is a lampoon of the old style rpgs any way, but a very functional game itself, and that makes the comparison and likeness appropriate.

So, thanks to Zeb Cook and his team that created 2nd Ed. AD&D and thanks to John Ross and Dave Insel and Cody Reichenau for Encounter Critical, I have two more things to ramble on about as I approach my senility.

Miscellaneum of Cinder

Along with Fight On! issue 1, I purchased The Misellaneum of Cinder from Lulu last month. (I think it was?) This book should need no introduction, now that I think about it, this book should have gotten an Enny nomination last year. The Misellaneum of Cinder is by Jeff “Gameblog” Rients who I was surprised, but not startled, to learn was also a contributor to Fight On! issue 1.

The book is a collection of random charts for designing fantasy role playing adventures. I was never a fan of the random charts as a younger man. I thought the charts form the old game systems looked like they would just lead to chaos. The amounts of treasure in the treasure charts always looked ridiculous too me and I knew that too much treasure would lead to chaos. But, we grow and we learn and, now I can appreciate the helpful, conservative, applications of an occasional random chart or two. Mr. Rients mentions this subject in his introduction to the book; “be advised that no random table can fix a faltering game. However, using input generated from a die chart can damage an otherwise functional campaign.” I interpret this as, use this book for prep before the game, don’t use this book during play.

The book has thirty-eight pages and at least as many charts as pages. The first chart is Monster Mutations which is prefaced with the comment, “Oh, yawn. Yet another stock critter.” The chart contains twenty creative variants that would make any monster a bit more interesting and difficult to handle in a combat situation. I like mutation number eleven, “Extra Head – extra bite, second save versus charm, etc.” I never would have thought of the extra save vs. charm but, thanks to this book, I will never forget to give a saving throw for each head of multi-headed monsters.

The second chat is statistics for Six Sages. Mr. Rients has a very creative approach to naming his npcs with names like Rembo the Denier. He calls his style Retro-Stupid but I think it’s just a great sense of humor. The third chart takes the sages and provides adventure seeds for each of them. Rembo, for example, “needs help moving out of town before the witch hunters arrive.” That should be fun, since he’s a sage, he’ll probably need a caravan to haul all his belongings!

Chart four is a d12 chart titled, “What’s my motivation,” and includes helpful and popular silliness like, “PC owes d6x10,000 gp to Jabba…” Chart five is treasure locations and chat six is “A Dozen Saints,” and popular oaths are listed along with each saint. For example; “ By Bertrand’s bloody bludgeon!” Chart, the sixth, listed twelve Gods of Neutrality. Each god has a very creative name such as, Ituchinnikakya. Chart seven lists the names and descriptions of “ The Loathsome Toad Gods,” including, “AkThay – Mistress of the Hopping Dragons.” That was actually not the Toad God that I intended to list but what the hey? I’m only up to page eleven of the book and I want to start designing an adventure with these charts right away.

Next we have charts for “People you meet” and “Carousing.” The creativity of this book really shows in the Carousing chart. Mr. Rients seems to have devised a system where carousing, which happens between every adventure, could have lasting consequences on the adventuring party. The activities include; romantic entanglements, gambling losses, new tattoos, drinking binge and being robbed. These are the milder problems that the pcs could encounter from carousing.

The book continues with charts for Humanoid Politics, Monster Moodiness, dungeon dressing, lists of magic items and, the old standby, the treasure charts. If you’ve read Jeff’s Gameblog you’ll have a pretty good idea what to expect from the Miscellaneum of Cinder. The books a compact portable print out of the fun ideas common to the blog and I recommend it to anyone who emphasizes the fun in role playing games.

We are dropping like flies?

So, I'm surfing the blog-o-sphere, reading and writing and I discover that there's no Eiglophian Press? I know that we all get writer's block, we have to take vacations, family and careers interfere with our free time and sympathize with anyone who has to take a hiatus from blogging. I fear the day that I have to return to the production floor and have no time for blogging or other leisure pursuits.

For the brief time that I subscribed to Eiglophian Press I thought it was one of the most creative and thoughtful blogs in the olden style gaming community. I don't know if the blog's shut down permanently, temporarily or if it's just lost in cyberspace at the moment? I hope it's some spacial distortion in the entree-net but, if it's not, I'm sorry to see you go Mr. Eig and your marry band of Lophians.

Fight On! issue #1

Yes, I'm behind the curve a bit here but I believe it has been proven that rpg game content can withstand temporal displacement. I got my issue of Fight On! Issue 1 last month and, as they say, it was worth every cent. The pages of the publication are filled with useful information for fantasy role playing games. The material is presented in the style of older editions of fantasy rpgs. Issue 1 of Fight On! was produced over two years ago, I imagine this was the beginning of what has been termed the Old School Renascence. I don’t care what the movement or philosophy is called, this is the style of rpg design I prefer.

One thing I found interesting about the first issue is the fact most of the writers and the editor use pseudonyms. An attempt, I guess, to insure that the content of the publication, or writers, are free from any copyright claims. I certainly wish I had known that a bound version of the Fight On! issues had been on sale recently. In the months to come I'll be collecting the subsiquent issues of Fight On! and I'll be intrested to see if the use of the pseudonyms continues.

OSR debate?

What's too debate? We are what we are and we play what we like. It's that simple. Well it's that simple for me because I have no idea what all the debate is about. I do have to comment that given recent qualifications; If you play a game published before 1989, my gaming group and I definitely qualify.

Random thoughts on the OSR

Yesterday I had a random thought moment which I'm prone to have occasionally. I’m not sure what triggered this “flash” of personal enlightenment; perhaps I was thinking about my constant search for old books and gaming material. I realized that for ten years, between 1980 and 1990, I only used five books for role playing games. I owned the Holmes Basic rules, Ad&d Player’s Handbook, DMG and Monster Manuel and first edition Gamma World and these where the only books I used for the first ten years of my role playing career. So this is my personal definition of Old School Gaming; simple game settings and systems derived from a minimal amount of source material and that’s how I still role and roll.