Our 200th Episode Celebration is live!
This episode Sean and I share a special piece of feedback, each share our top 25 games of all time, announce our biggest giveaway ever, spend some time with the chatroom, thank all of our Patreon patrons and more!
Our Latest Podcast Episode Is Live!
Check out "The 199.5 Bonus Episode" where we review Dulce from Stronghold Games, share where we have been, talk about Star Trek Games, the hate for Catan, family games over Zoom and more!
We also set the date for episode 200! Which we will record live on March 8th, which you aren't going to want to miss!
https://tabletopbellhop.com/podcast/ep199point5/
We better find out where we can get cats sometime in the next 30 days.
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Licensed CC BY-SA
Jupiter's Ghost is free culture collaborative science fiction.
https://intergalactic.computer/
Saturday NEA Gamers Guild is holding a library game day in Jonesboro and Sarah and Kier will be helping with that while Megan holds down the fort at Eclectic Geekery. I am looking forward to visiting with family both this Saturday and next when we'll take the drive to Walnut Ridge for more visiting and Just Quest.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1176261366287803
Cast Of Characters
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Ari is a human healing sorceress who is bossy and good at reading people.
Caper Tobbins is a halfling bard who is likable.
Tude is Ari's pet wildcat who is protective and obnoxious.
Clairen is a friendly bouncy dwarf.
Edge Bravestone is a cautious, friendly fighter.
Wyleth is a soldier who was raised on a farm.
Snurgi Snurgison is a dwarf who is a fighter and a poet.
https://weirdandblue.itch.io/hearth-and-hillside-home
First we rolled up elevenses from the Sweet Treats table. Caper rolled Tart rhubarb pie with clotted cream and an extra flavour that everybody either loves or hates and Ari rolled Sticky honeycomb fresh from the tallest oak this side of Woolshod Hill which Caper had recently rescued from the bees.
They went to see old Took where Caper bought the pony with the magic ribbons and also bought some light tack for the pony.
Then back to the Inn to see the people they rescued. They now realize they have been thrust 400 years into their future and are at a loss. Ari suggests they make furniture since antique furniture from their era is valued. Turns out a couple of the men are furniture makers and most of them have carpentry experience. They decide to go into business making genuine reproductions with the slogan, hands from the past.
"I was a water elemental and one night I took to gaseous form to explore the dry land near the river. I got in a fight with a mage and his magic crossed my fey magic wrong and I got stuck in gaseous form. That's how I became Mister MistMeister."
"Time doesn't mean much to me so I don't know how long ago this happened. Later a party of humans wandered into the mist. They were lost and distressed. I liked them and I didn't want to hurt them so I froze time for them."
Ari and Caper have been campaigning together for over 30 years.
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Caper's Pony
from FREE*SVG
https://freesvg.org/cartoon-pony-color-drawing
Dancing Fairies
Adventuring in Tobbins Shire at Eclectic Geekery on June 18, 2022
On their way back from Mr Muffin's Second Hand Store Ari, Caper, and Clairen met Edge Bravestone, a cautious fighter. Caper said "Well met" and invited him to his hobbit hole for elevenses. They had a floral mix that, when steeped, thickens the air with love and tea infusing aromas from across the Four Marches.
Caper mentioned that he had heard of an interesting tree across the river in Wilken Woods and when everyone said they were up for a hike anyway off they went.
They took a short cut along the riverbank and soon were crossing the bridge and entering Wilken Woods, a magic forest. Ari and Caper had been to the tree before so Caper led the way, a little over a mile on the road and then a slight veer to the north following a barely used woods trail.
Soon they came to a large oak tree with some owls perched in the upper branches and acorns covering the ground. Caper gathered a bunch of acorns in a pile and stirred them with his finger and up popped an acorn man who said, "We are acorns from the sentient oak. When met with intelligent interest we wake up and talk. The sentient oak can talk too but time runs slow for him. We acorns can understand him but other living creatures cannot."
Caper continued talking to the acorn man and Ari, Clairen, and Edge gathered acorns together. Soon they were all talking to acorn men.
After talking about the tree, the owls, and everything (including fairies) Caper's acorn man stepped to the fore. He said, "We need your help. There is nothing we would like more than to lay on the ground and wait to be an oak tree. But acorns lying in the shadow of a sentient oak cannot grow. The owls sometimes help by carrying acorns or acorn men to other parts of Wilken Woods but they never cross the river. We would like to expand our horizons and answer our constant conundrum, which came first, the magic forest or the sentient oak trees?"
Caper said, "I know just the spot.", turning to Ari, "Remember the hill above the mist where we rescued those people from the past?"
Ari agreed that the hill would be more than suitable. Caper said, "We have some unfinished business there too and maybe we can make the misty valley safe with the help of Clairen, Edge, and our new friends, the acorn people.
So each of them carried an acorn man on their shoulder and trekked back to Tobbins Shire and then up the road leading to the misty valley.
When they got to the top of the hill they could see the mist in the valley below and the two ancient houses on either side of the road. The acorn men loved the spot and they jumped onto the ground and ran in different directions looking for a nice place to lie down and wait to be an oak tree.
Caper filled everyone in on the danger of the mist while he started boiling water for tea.
"Ari and I drank this tea before and then we braved the mist and pulled about 20 humans out and guided them to the top of the hill. They wandered into the mist 400 years ago and when we brought them out it was still the same day to them. It wasn't until the next morning that they began to believe they were 400 years in the future."
Everyone wanted to solve the mystery of the mist and dispell the danger.
Ari pulled out a bag of tea and four cups. Caper made the tea and poured it. Ari stirred each cup with the silver wand King Groad had given her in feyland.
"So drink this down." said Caper, "It's not safe in the mist and we don't want to be waking up 400 years in the future, if someone comes to rescue us."
Ari said, "The tea protects against fey magic and when enhanced by the fey magic in the silver wand it is very powerful protection, indeed."
When the party entered the mist it was Edge Bravestone that started a conversation, calling out to the mist believing there was a persona involved.
The mist was soon showing multiple faces and waving hands. Although his conversation was disjoint and punctuated with oooos and ahhhs here's the essence of his story.
"I was a water elemental and one night I took to gaseous form to explore the dry land near the river. I got in a fight with a mage and his magic crossed my fey magic wrong and I got stuck in gaseous form. That's how I became Mister MistMeister."
"Time doesn't mean much to me so I don't know how long ago this happened. Later a party of humans wandered into the mist. They were lost and distressed. I liked them and I didn't want to hurt them so I froze time for them."
"Later on two of you came into the mist and took them off. I don't know why you weren't lost and distressed. I tried to freeze you in time anyway but it didn't work."
"And now here you are back again with two others. I like you and I'd like to keep you but my magic isn't working on you again."
Caper kept an eye on Mister MistMeister while Ari, Clairen, and Edge tried to come up with some ideas to fix things. Disperse the mist? Turn it back into water? What kind of spell could do something to a water elemental?
Ari said, "Ah, but you forget, I am Arimeth, and I am not new to this game." She picked up a D20 brandishing it in front of us and then she made it disappear. It reappeared on the floor and it was a 5.
Checking the Entirely True Tales From Beyond The High Hedge dice table we read.
The Dwarf-King’s royal artisan has a secret technique for brewing molten metal into heavenly spiced mead.
Clairen the friendly bouncy dwarf is still a dwarf and she could read between the lines. Maybe we need to get Mister MistMeister drunk. That seems to solve most problems for dwarves.
That got Caper's attention. He tipped his hat to one of Mister MistMeister's many faces and said, "I believe we're going to help you out in a bit."
Then he led the party out of the mist, to the top of the hill, past the resting acorns, and on towards Tobbins Shire to get a keg of ale.
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Dice tables from Hearth & Hillside Home
https://weirdandblue.itch.io/hearth-and-hillside-home
Please share.
https://archive.gamerplus.org/blogs/post/950
It's from humble seeds like these that the hobby grew into what it is nowadays.
Origin Story
Donald Saxman played in a "medieval fantasy campaign" under Mike Ford, an apparently very creative gamer who would have assault guns as often as dragons in his fantasy games, not to mention "over two dozen alternate universes, each with its own natural laws and historical motif". One of those alternate worlds was a world populated by comic and pulp novel heroes. Rules for this latter one were a pastiche of rules adapted willy-nilly from other games since at the time there were no rules specifically for that genre. Saxman, inspired by Ford's campaign, embarked upon a course of making his own set of rules for the superhero genre.
The Book
Superhero:44 is a self-published 48-page booklet printed on plain white paper with a pale brown cover made of light, matte card stock. It is so much a DIY labour of love it hurts: the text is obviously typewritten and pasted into place for reproduction. The art—which is surprisingly good for the era and budget!—is all black-and-white line art which ranges from barely-better-than-doodling to quite impressive set pieces, with more toward the latter. (About one page in three has some kind of art on it.) One nice touch is that each artist is individually credited for each work on each page.
Reproduction of the text is imperfect (to put it politely) and can be a bit of a strain to decode. (The later, expanded, Gamescience publication of this game as Superhero:2044 is much easier to read despite being in smaller text.)
There is a one-page foreword, sixteen pages of background, eight pages of "player setup" rules (character generation and coverage of character planning), six pages of combat rules, eleven pages of "handicapping and patrol" rules (for which q.v.) and four pages of costs and salaries.
The Rules
Being, as it is, a game made by early gamers who still hadn't quite sussed that role-playing games and wargames are different breeds of games, this game has many of the flaws of early games (like the original Dungeons & Dragons, as a matter of fact). Concepts are introduced in an order that seems a little quirky to people who are used to modern game writing, and there is a focus on things which have been deprecated or fallen entirely by the wayside in modern games.
That being said, it also has quite a few innovations which people today might find surprising coming out in 1977. This is, after all, a year before which there were only three published RPGs: Dungeons & Dragons, Metamorphosis Alpha, and Empire of the Petal Throne. In this year Chivalry & Sorcery was first published, as was Traveller. This is when the first book for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was published, as was the original "blue box" of Dungeons & Dragons. This game predates Runequest and Gamma World! (Which is to say that there is a reason why this game has some oddities when viewed by the modern reader.)
So lets dive in and look at both the innovations and oddities, shall we?
Background
While not really counting as an innovation at this point, it is still unusual that Superhero:44 has a (for the time) detailed setting. Before this only Metamorphosis Alpha had a (very sketchy) setting, and Empire of the Petal Throne had a(n extensive) setting. Many games published after this one, well into the 1980s, had no setting provided, or one that was so sketchy (like Metamorphosis Alpha's) that it made little difference.
The setting for Superhero:44 is Earth in the year (unsurprisingly) 2044 in the fictitious city of Inguria, "the city of the future". This setting is intentionally kept small as an introductory set from which borders a campaign can spring out into a broader world as desired. To cite the author's intent:
Superhero '44 can be played on many levels. The handicapping scenarios can be enjoyed as short games in themselves. With the use of weekly planning sheets and patrol result calculation Superhero ' 44 can be maintained as a campaign over a long period of time. It is also possible to use the combat system to play specially designed scenarios, commando raids, or situations actually taken from comics or novels. In the ultimate form it can be successfully combined with other similar games and inject novelty into other campaigns.
The island (Shanter Island) holding Inguria is located in the west Pacific in the area of Korea. It's "future" history includes an Indian-Australian war and a six-day war in 2006 that's strongly hinted at being nuclear in nature. In 2032 first contact with aliens from "Formalhaut" ...
You know what? This is too much information to pack into a review. Basically Inguria became the centre of "Formian" presence on Earth and also a hub of "uniques" and other crime-fighting (and criminal) types' activities. In a few short pages the background covers history, technology, psychology, economics, politics (both earthly and with the aliens), and geography. It's very densely packed with overview information: quite a shock for a game self-published in 1977!
Player Setup
Characters in Superhero:44 are defined by seven "prime requisites": Vigor, Stamina, Endurance, Mentality, Charisma, Ego, and Dexterity. As a capsual summary, Vigor measures health; Stamina measures ... a lot: "offensive and defensive hand-to-hand righting ability, as well as the ability to run fast, hold one's breath, etc."; Endurance measures resistance to injury from various sources; Mentality covers intelligence and education; Charisma covers looks and strength of personality; Ego is the mental version of Endurance; Dexterity covers speed, reaction time, balance, hand-eye coordination, etc.
Huh. No measurement for strength. What an odd oversight. It probably shows up in the powers or such, right? (Foreshadowing: nope.)
Further, characters are members of one of three groups: Uniques (think Superman or the X-men), Toolmasters (think Batman or Iron Man), and Ubermensch (think Tarzan or, if you squint right, maybe Captain America).
To make a character, first a background has to be written up (!), and a character type selected. Then the prime requisites are done up. By point assignment.
This is, to my knowledge, the very first published RPG with a purely point-assigned character generation system.
There are three steps in assigning points.
1. Each character gets 140 points to distribute over the 7 prime requisites. Each prime requisite must have at least 1 point after all the steps are gone through, but there is no upper limit.
2. Each character type gets modifications to prime requisites. Uniques get +20 Charisma, for example, while an Ubermensch gets +20 to Endurance, Vigor, Stamina, and Dexterity, but -20 to Mentality.
3. At the discretion of the referee, a single, very specific +50 bonus can be given in a limited area. For example a character may be given a +50 bonus to Vigor, but only vs. firearms.
And here, too, not only do we have the innovation of a point-assigned character generation. We have the vestigial beginnings of full-blown advantage and disadvantage systems:
Some powers do not adapt well to this system, and alternate ways of representing abilities are certainly allowed if they can be quantified in some manner and do not unbalance the game. Plus and minus additions on attacks may be given. Characters who accept weaknesses or disabilities (kryptonite, for instance) should be rewarded with extra power.
This is in 1977!
In case this onerous task of coming up with a background and 7 numbers is too much for the player to comprehend, the book helpfully provides three sample characters, one of each type.
Then it ... goes a little weird. It goes straight into the "weekly planning sheet". No introduction of the concept. There's no game system talk yet aside from some tables showing the effect of (some!) prime requisites at various levels. It just jumps from character generation (and prime requisite levels) into:
Each week each character must submit a planning sheet to the referee. This sheet should tell the status of a hero at the beginning of the week. The referee uses this information to calculate how many and what kind of crimes are encountered during the week. He determines the result of each encounter, totals the rewards and bonuses, and notes any lawsuits, injuries, or captures before returning the sheet to the player.
And in the introduction the writer posits this as the default play, recall. The planning sheet (which also doubles as a character sheet) is literally a schedule of when the character works, goes on patrol, changes in pecuniary circumstances, health issues, crime stats and ... well ... everything that in a more modern game would be played out live, not once a week by paperwork. Very odd.
Then, finally, it gets to what we would consider the main body of rules (and entire point of the game!) these days.
Combat
OK, I'm being a little bit sarcastic. Obviously the point of RPGs isn't just combat. It is telling, however, that in most RPGs the rules for combat are long and detailed and the rules for social interactions or other non-combat forms of conflict are sketchy (if present at all) and vague.
This game doesn't have that problem. It has no rules for anything that's not combat, really. Combat is detailed and everything else is basically non-existent except in passing, like a drive-by shooting of rules only using whiffle balls instead of bullets.
So let's deal with what's actually in the rules before we look at what's not there except in very brief passing.
Combat is divided into turns. Each turn has one round for each player or group. In each round, a player (or group) may move twice, attack twice, or move once, then attack once. (Never attack once, then move once.) Attacks are one of four kinds: direct physical attack, transformation (?), mental attack, or projectile attack. Mental and physical attacks are resolved using a universal combat matrix where a 3d6 roll must exceed or equal a target number, but transformation attacks are resolved using their own procedure on their own table.
The rules on initiative and ordering are confusing and contradictory. Each turn has a round for each player or group. Movement is simultaneous, but people with higher dexterity go first. And then the sudden introduction of "phases" in the middle of a sentence changes the nature of the system entirely. Damage is supposed to be applied at the end of all players' rounds, but the phases are such that someone is guaranteed at least one move before they're injured. Despite damage applying at the end of all rounds.
The rules are not clear and not well thought-out, I'm trying to say. (And I haven't even yet addressed the way powers are addressed or—foreshadowing!—aren't...)
Intermission: The full combat sequence is documented (for want of a better term) in a half page of badly-written and inconsistent rules plus a small handful of simple tables. The total rules for this section (including damage, healing, and movement) amount to six pages, equally lacking in rigour. This is very much a disease of old school rules, traditional dating back to the original 1974 Dungeons & Dragons rules. As with that venerable rules set, instead of offering the oft-derided "rules for everything" it offers "rules for almost nothing, but what it does supply rules for is inconsistent and baffling".
Physical damage is done to vigor, to endurance, or to both. Losing vigor represents actual injury while losing endurance represents pain and shock. Different classes of attacks have different mixes of vigor or endurance loss and offer different modifications to stamina for the attack chart. Projectile damage has the added minor complexity of dealing with locations hit.
Mental attacks don't do damage: they're instead illusions, mind control, etc. and once successful just continue being successful until circumstances change.
Transformation attacks are a catch-all category that includes actual transformation (like into stone, say), making lighter, heavier, or phased out or such. (There is no real guidance given as to what that entails.)
Movement is dirt simple: you have a number of "inches" you can move per phase. An inch is either 2 metres (10 second turns, the usual), or 500m (30 second turns, larger scale). Your movement comes from a combination of your stamina, your species (if applicable), and any tools you may use to perform movement.
Oversights
While we should cut the game some slack, seeing as it is the first game of its kind ever, it needs to be pointed out how little this game actually provides in its rules. I mentioned earlier that we saw vestigial advantages and disadvantages, but I glossed over just how vestigial, reserving this for when the rules got introduced.
There are no powers listed. At all. Any references to powers are mentioned only in passing. They're mentioned, for example, in the sample characters:
Apollyon is a master of disguise and of computers. (His 50-point bonuses are gained in these areas.) His favorite disguise is that of some master criminal he has recently thrown into the power screens. (This MO raises his To Locate handicap somewhat and helps to balance out his high Prevention score.)
West has developed a weapon that disrupts matter and can be set to stun or completely disintegrate . It almost al ways works, so he is sued only aoout once a week.
Charmer uses her fifty charisma points as a mental attack and can force humans (only) to follow her vocal commands. Obedience is always literal and immediate. She uses this power to get money to hire investigators.
They're mentioned in passing in some rules:
Certain special powers may alter the sequence of combat. For instance, Super-speed will allow multiple attacks in one round. Some projectile weapons are capable of more than one shot per round. Players with high dexterity may be able to attack in more than one manner in a single round. Some kinds of attack require more than one turn to take effect.
This is an attempt to change the defender into some different object through magic, supertechnology or some unique power. Transformation may be to stone, ice, an animal, or may mean "phasing out ." It also may include making heavier, lighter, etc.
There is nothing systematic in coverage of these. There's not even any words of guidance for how to assess impact and balance of these. It's almost all Referee fiat (which is another disease of the old school gaming world).
And I can't really cut the game slack for this since there have been better rules written before this set. Yes, RPGs as a concept were new. Game rules, however, are game rules. We've done better before this one by over a century.
Handicapping & Patrol
This forms the bulk of the actual rules of the game, and it is very telling what that signifies. The default mode of play is something more reminiscent of GDW's 1975 proto-RPG En Garde. In the handicapping and patrol system, the handicap is a score from "10 to 80" formed by adding together eight values ranked from 1 to 10. (I'm seeing math problems here...)
The scores are in prevent, locate, stop, capture, convict, leads, damage, injured/captured. Prevent is a measure of the character's patrols preventing crime from taking place at all, locate is a measure of finding crimes, capture is a measure of capturing criminals, damage is the tendency to cause collateral damage, etc.
These scores are used to design handicapping scenarios in which all eight areas are to be "tested".
Note, that this is the very first mention of handicapping scenarios and it offers no definition of what that is. It's an adventure. Probably. How do we know? There's an example of one and by inference...
"By inference" is a lousy way to deliver rules, in my opinion. This is, again, a disease of the old school game seen time and again in the era.
Handicapping scenarios, however, are only the lead-in to patrols, which is a paperwork-intensive system (the paperwork having already been introduced, recall) in which the handicapping scenario is used to set the flavour of overall patrolling based on the handicaps the scenario set to determine the outcome of the character's patrolling. The recommended rate is one weeks' worth of patrolling calculations per one week real play time. The outcomes of this system include monetary expenditures and income, injuries sustained, lawsuits, etc. In brief what would be the goal of actual RP in modern designs is relegated to a few dice rolls and calculations in the background, rather like En Garde's campaign system.
Unlike the slipshod, inconsistent, incomplete combat and "handicapping scenario" rules, however, I cut the patrol system some slack. This is an early RPG and was written at a time when RPGs were still largely considered a branch of miniatures wargaming. The systems provided are not to my taste (and likely not to the taste of many modern RPG players), but they are well-written, well-communicated, and do what they were intended to do.
Costs & Salaries
The rules close off with the traditional-for-the-times obsession with equipment lists and monetary costs. Some of this builds up on the patrol system (salary, litigation, etc.) and some of it is just said lists. It's a mercifully short section with simple, comprehensible rules.
Final Thoughts
And this brings us to the important part of the review: the one that answers the Three Questions:
1. What was the author trying to accomplish?
2. Did the author accomplish this?
3. Was it worth accomplishing?
The author was trying to write a set of rules for a specific style of half-skirmish level miniatures, half-old-timey RPG game that covered a genre that had not yet been covered. And in this, once you filter for the times (where the entire notion of an RPG hadn't yet solidified!), he was largely successful.
It was not an unmitigated success, however.
While many of the "flaws" of the game can be accounted for by virtue of time-and-place filters, the complete lack of any kind of sensible guidance for superpowers in a game of superheroes is largely inexcusable. I'm not looking for Champions-esque hyper-detailed book-keeping (oh GOD no!), but it would not be out of place, in a game about superheroes with superpowers, to have a few pages devoted to discussions about superpowers and how they might impact game play.
And then there's the bizarre omissions! They name-drop Superman ... but the rules don't have anything related to strength. Even back in 1977 the notion of "strength" wasn't an unusual one. The three prior-published games had the notion and the game published the same year (Chivalry & Sorcery) also did. How did the author overlook this?
And the fact that the rule are internally inconsistent or outright wrong (1×8=8, not 10!) in many places is also a pretty big red flag.
So was it worth the effort?
Superhero:44 has an important place in the history of RPGs, being first in an important genre, but its place is marred by the poor delivery of the rules and a design decision that put it out of the path of where the hobby eventually grew. In my opinion the first really usable superhero role-playing game was 1980s Supergame. (I'll bet you thought I was going to say Champions!)
Our granddaughter Liz joined Vivian and myself at Eclectic Geekery to play Just Quest. She's playing a dwarf, Clairen, who is friendly and bouncy.
We woke up in Caper's hobbit hole and had a fine breakfast. Roughly-chopped turnips, baked crispy brown and served with a selection of chutneys. Also Beastie-shaped roast veggies that create visions of long-forgotten magic.
Then Caper served a sweet treat, A suspensefully swaying tower of sponge cake, liqueur, orange pieces and custard, topped with a layer of syllabub cream. (Now if I just knew what syllabub is)
Clairen wanted to head to town and make new friends so off we went. On the way we met Pogbert Piper blowing spectacular smoke rings in his garden. His smoke looked like soot from a roaring black hearth.
We all heard the ghost of the shire making smart ass comments about the game. (When we are playing in Tobbins Shire and a non player kibitzes they are providing the voice of the ghost of the shire.)
Not to be outdone Caper asked Pogbert for a pinch of bacca and he started blowing smokerings resembling long-gone monsters. He blew a huge ring which floated above their heads and then he blew a Gryphon that flew through the center of the ring.
Caper played a merry jig on his flute and every one was tapping their feet or hoeing in time to the music except Clairen who was bouncing up and down.
Then on to town and a visit to Mr. Muffin's second hand store. Clairen bought a yellow headband. Caper bought a black saddle for his pony. Ari looked at a brown saddle for her brown horse streaked with white but she wasn't convinced she needed it. Then back to the hobbit hole to try out the saddle. When they passed Pogbert Piper's garden he was nowhere in sight. Probably inside for elevenses, which made Caper start to think about what they would eat for elevenses when they got back home.
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We played using the dice rolling tables in Hearth & Hilside Home, Being a book of pastoral pleasures for Halflings and Bigfolk alike.
Thanks to Ducalisto for joining us at Inspired Unreality open game chat. We discussed fantasy and scifi gaming systems.
https://archive.gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4414
Hairy Larry
https://archive.gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
I wrote a new program called Plain Text Blog and it is what it says.
Install the program and put your text files into the text directory and it all becomes a blog with permalinks, rss feed, table of contents, and automatic link detection.
It's cool.
Here's Hairy Larry Writes using Plain Text Blog.
https://hairylarry.rocks/writes/
I rely on it.
VENGEANCE TAKEN FOR KINDRED UPON KINDRED
This situation has four necessary components. I'll address the need of some of them after the list. First and foremost there are the two obvious: Guilty Kinsman and Avenging Kinsman. Less obvious than these two, however, though equally necessary, is Remembrance of the Victim and the Relative of Both.
This situation is fraught with raw anger, mixed, likely, in equal parts with sorrow. Families traditionally have a tight code of conduct with trust being at the foundation of it all. Breaches of that trust lead to extremes of emotion: both anger at the betrayal and sorrow at the need for revenge.
There is a lot of dramatic potential here, but it only works if the relationship of the two Kinsmen to the Victim is remembered explicitly. It can't just be mentioned in passing. It must be wallowed in for a while to hammer home just how important the relationship was. Further, to amplify just how out of place this situation is, another family member related to both Kinsmen needs to be there to react and try to mitigate or mourn as appropriate.
It's a heady situation and it comes in a few flavours.
1. A parent's death avenged upon the other parent.
2. A child's death avenged upon the sibling.
3. A parent's death avenged upon a spouse.
4. A spouse's death avenged upon a parent.
Now personally I think all of them involving death is a bit much. There are other situations that could invoke this kind of wrath. But let's bear with it for now. There are thirty-two more situations to go through after all and maybe what I'm looking for here is available in other situations!
In role-playing, this situation would be difficult to integrate. Not impossible, but difficult. The hardest part would be getting players invested enough in their families to actually have that aforementioned betrayal and sorrow to rise up. If you can pull it off it will likely form sessions that become the "stories of lore" in gaming groups talked about years later in hushed tones.
There's another option, however. It would be easier to integrate one or more PCs into the role of Relative of Both and still make the RP meaningful and connected. Alternatively the PCs could be people outside of the family, but associated in some way with one or more of Victim, Other Kin, or the two Kinsmen. These outsider views may not quite give the visceral grip that being one of the main elements would have, but they will, if played out with gusto, still form good, satisfying RP.
VENGEANCE OF A CRIME
In this situation there are only two necessary components: an Avenger out to wreak revenge, and a Criminal upon whom vengeance shall be delivered. This situation can almost be viewed as the reverse of DELIVERANCE or SUPPLICATION, in that the Avenger could be the Persecutor or Threatener while the Criminal could be viewed as the Suppliant or the Unfortunate. The difference lies mostly in sympathies: in DELIVERANCE/SUPPLICATION the victim is sympathetic to the onlooker while in this one the victim is viewed negatively. (Of course playing with viewpoints could have this be a parallel dramatic situation and the resolution could have the story start with VENGEANCE OF A CRIME only to have it, via a mid-plot reveal, turn into DELIVERANCE, say.)
There are three primary forms of this dramatic situation.
1. Vengeance for direct injury upon persons valued by the Avenger: kin and friends, for example. The nature of the crime can one of violence (death or injury), one of honour (which would include seduction in most cultures) or other such personal injury.
2. Vengeance for more abstract injuries like crimes of property, deception, false accusation or other forms of calumny, or even vengeance for having been robbed of an opportunity for vengeance. (The opening sentences of "The Cask of Amontillado" would be an example of this type: "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult I swore revenge.")
3. This one is an odd one out: professional pursuit of criminals. Think cops and detectives here. While it seems a little oddly out of place in this heading compared to the others, the same dramatic tensions exist.
Vengeance is a dramatic potboiler in RPGs! In the first two types, it's going to practically spring up by itself in a normal campaign as the femme fatale steals the vital gem, as the orc tribe that massacres villagers the players had grown fond of finds it bit off more than it could chew plus a thousand more things.
That being said, however, that third odd duck out has serious potential for driving campaigns. Picture the PCs as an investigatory team sent out by the powers that be, or self-motivated (for mercenary reasons, or others) to hunt down criminals. An old west campaign, for example, (even if it's the weird west or such) could have the PCs be lawmen or bounty hunters quite easily, and such professions would exist almost anywhere.
Similarly, even in places like Ancient China or medieval Europe you often found magistrates who had personal investigation and enforcement arms (even if the methods were ... unscientific) who would solve crimes. Moving this into an RP scenario would not be difficult.
So never underestimate the power of vengeance and crime to drive RP in games!
Continuing in the series I'm calling The Thirty-Six, based on Georges Polti's The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations (original version and a modernized take), today's situation is "deliverance" in which an "unfortunate" is rescued from a "threatener" by a "rescuer".
DELIVERANCE
In contrast to SUPPLICATION, in which the victim of a threat seeks to find succour from someone in power, in deliverance the Unfortunate, while under threat by a Threatener is helped by a Rescuer without beseeching such. The victim in this case is more passive, and the motivation of the Rescuer is motivated by something extrinsic to both of them, requiring no pleading to take action.
There are two main forms of this situation:
1. Rescue of the condemned.
2. Rescue of someone in dire straits by someone who is indebted or otherwise related to the victim.
What makes this situation ripe for RP purposes is the mystery of why the Rescuer is taking action on behalf of the Unfortunate. Why is the outlaw gang rescuing the hanged man by shooting out the hanging rope (as is a common trope in western movies)? (Maybe the outlaw is on a personal quest of vengeance against corrupt and vicious authority.) What has prompted a group to return a deposed queen to her rightful throne? (Perhaps it is the children of the queen who seek to restore her.)
And of course the PCs may have their own reasons for becoming Rescuers: anticipation of reward, say, or repayment for past good deeds received, or payment forward for the good deeds of others.
It's a bit trickier to have the PCs as the Unfortunate, however. Played with a light hand, especially if backed by prior RP (like, say, they gave hospitality to a wounded knight and nursed him to health), it can be a powerful moment, but played clumsily, without a good reason established in advance to call back to, it can come across as stripping players of their agency in regard to the threat. (A lot of the hatred of the dread GMPC stems from GMPCs being transparently used by the GM to show how awesome that character is by doing what the players can't. Continually.)
Of course, taking a turn for the darker, the PCs can be the Threatener, hunting down someone (justly or not) only to have a third party intercede and interfere. Will the interference be successful? Will they justify the threat they present and make the Rescuer back off or even switch sides? It could go any way with a good bite of tasty RP!
I recently thought again about Georges Polti's The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations. Having found both the original version and a modernized take online, it's led me to a new set of blog posts I'm going to call The Thirty-Six.
So what is a "dramatic situation"? Often badly translated as "plot", strictly speaking a dramatic situation is what drives a plot. The plot is the resolution of one or more dramatic situations.
A dramatic situation is what motivates characters to do things, the things they do furthering a narrative that leads to a conflict which leads to a resolution of some form. Knowledge and application of these dramatic situations (and more: despite its claim to the contrary, Polti's book is not comprehensive—but it still has many more dramatic situations than all of the output of Hollywood put together makes use of!) can help liven up a story, give it verisimilitude, and make it compelling. And even in a gaming context where no single person has the power to force things down specific tracks, using these dramatic situations and the choices they present characters can be strong motivators in a role-playing game.
Today's dramatic situation is "supplication" in which a "supplicant" is persecuted in some way by a "persecutor" and begs for help from a "power".
SUPPLICATION
This situation needs three elements: a Persecutor, a Suppliant, and a Power. An additional element may be present in some situations: an Intercessor. Supplication comes in three main forms:
1. A direct appeal for assistance against active persecutors. For example a piously religious man may appeal to the ducal court because his religiously required activity is being banned by his local lord. Or people fleeing bandits who destroyed their village may appeal to their local lord for succour and vengeance. The key to this form is that the Suppliant is under some form of threat (physical, spiritual, social, etc.) from a person or group that seeks to harm or hinder them in some way.
2. A direct appeal for assistance against more abstract/environmental persecution. People shipwrecked appealing to a local tavern owner for room and board on a stormy night. The seeking of pardon for a crime committed and already prosecuted with punishment in effect. Even something as simple as begging for the right to die in a society that prohibits assisted suicides. In this variant the Persecutor is not necessarily a person. It is more circumstantial.
3. An indirect appeal like those above, but via an Intercessor. For example the religiously required activity being banned has drawn the attention of the spiritual leader of said religion who intercedes on the Suppliant's behalf, asking the duchess to overrule her vassal. Or in the case of the pardon, a prison reform group pointing to the Suppliant's dramatic change in jail which suggests that further punishment is meaningless and, perhaps, even counterproductive.
The role of PCs in this dramatic situation could be any of the principles: Power, Suppliant, Persecutor, or Intercessor. Or they could work as agents each thereof. For example in the case of the pardon, again, they could act as investigatory agents of the Power to establish if the Suppliant truly deserves a pardon or not. Or they could act as enforcers for the state arguing on behalf of keeping the prisoner imprisoned or banished or whatnot.
Next week on Monday November 15, GM Sarah will host a DCC one off. The game will start at 9:00 but we'll be their a half hour early doing game prep. We'll be done by 10:30 or 11:00. GM Sarah is a DCC convention gamemaster and she is one of the hosts at NEA Game Fest. They had a successful convention just last month.
https://archive.gamerplus.org/user/Sarah
A bard's songbook is like a magician's spell book in that it contains words of power, songs for wind, songs for rain, songs to make the fire burn hotter and warm the room, songs of companionship to warm the heart.
https://archive.gamerplus.org/blogs/post/797
Ari and Caper worked on Caper's Song Book last night on Inspired Unreality.
First we worked on a list of songs.
Song to make people dance
Song to make people alert
Song to make people like me AKA the opening numbers
Song of reflection
Song of hope
We renamed Song to make people alert to
Song of perception
tin tin aree tin tin aroo
look about look about could be you
jump about jump about one and two
tin tin aree tin tin aroo
and we wrote the lyric.
To be sung by the whole party twice through to increases alertness and perception.
The bard leads the song. The party sings it twice around. Just that helps. Some DMs may give pluses or advantage on perception and other pertinent rolls.
We had a great time and I look forward to filling in more blank pages in Caper's Song Book in the future.
Next week, Monday, August 2, is the first Monday of the month and we will be discussing Fantasy and Science Fiction literature.
https://archive.gamerplus.org/blogs/post/796
At his music, a strong breeze sprang up and the boat surged forth into waves of cold and green that threw salt spray onto their lips.
- Poul Anderson, from "The Broken Sword"
I'm working on a song book for Caper. A song for wind, a song for rain, a song of warmth, a song of companionship, a song to give you courage.
If you have suggestions for Caper's book please leave them in the comments. Or if you have favorite bardsongs from fantasy literature or gaming point the way.
As another famous bard sang in another era,
The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind.
The answer is blowing in the wind.
- B.Z.
Ari, Caper, and the Milyagon witch have been decyphring teas and potions from a book written in Witch's Chicken Scratch. They have been gathering their knowledge into an herbal listing medicinal herbs and teas found around Milyagon including magical plants found in Wilken Woods, a magic forest with fey inhabitants. Here's a start.
mint - refeshing tea good for stomach discomfort
rose hips - also good in tea with charismatic properties
rose buds - used in love potions
lavender - used in teas and creams, helps with sleep, skin, and pain
chax - used in teas and potions, good for muscle aches and relaxing
yaloleaf - used in teas and potions, good for congestion and head colds
yellow flax - used for pain, swelling, and as an appetite suppressant
red vermilion - a poison used in red paint for artists
sweet lemon - used in teas for flavor and stomach distress
panacea - a red berry growing on cliff walls, good for healing and nausea
nightmare - a dangerous herb that can cause hallucinations in battle
sleep seed - in a tea acts like a sleep spell
babble plant - in a tincture with alcohol makes you talkative
scratch grass - grows in great fields and causes itching, untreated it can cause damage
mushrooms harvested in the moonlight under the ancestor tree, used in a cream for the ogres bunions
lard - base for burn medicine
honey drop sap from the honey drop tree, The honey drop tree is called that because it exudes a golden sap, it is a good base for skin medicines
scarlet pimpernel - field of brilliant red flowers with an odor that makes you want to turn and run, boil in water and strain keeping the water to thicken and sweeten teas and potions, used for pain relief and nausea
opium flowers - powerful pain relief, addictive
willow bark - used like aspirin for pain relief
cloves - used in teas an potions for nausea, colds, and pain
mead, wine, whiskey have their traditional medical uses
To be continued with Caper's help
mushrooms
smoking herbs
That is the herbal so far. Although some of the Milyagon herbs have real life equivalents most are just made out of whole cloth and the Milyagon Herbal should never be used for actual ailments.
Continuing with this project I plan on adding more recipes to Ari's book written in Witch's Chicken Scratch.
https://archive.gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4145
Like workflow documentation isn't sexy. But also like workflow documentation is very important in any technical creative endeavor. Instead of waxing on about the joy of documentation I will include my Post Production and Upload document. Then at the end of the post I will address a few issues that the document raises.
HairyLarryLand Twitch Videos
Post Production And Upload Document
---
Log the show noting the songs in order.
Include song title, start time, end time, and other notes.
Star songs for video production. Three stars for extra promotion.
The show is logged from the twitch website so I am also doing quality control on the stream.
Produce videos of the starred songs in Openshot.
The assets are Title, Credits, and one or two clips.
Load a previously edited video as a starting point.
Save all the videos and the hard drive source recording in a dated folder, YYYY-MM-DD.
Videos are saved as song_name-YYYY-MM-DD.
After rendering each video I do a full viewing for pre upload quality control. I have found problems but even when there are no real problems I benefit educationally by another close viewing of my best performances.
Rename the videos adding NN_ as a prefix numbering the videos in playlist order. The playlist of all the videos produced for a certain date is a document of my performance on the twitch stream.
Take a screen shot from the first video and save it in the same folder as the videos. This is for promotion on the Live Music Archive and anywhere a photo is needed.
Use VLC to create mp3 audio files of each video.
This is done as a batch using Open Multiple Files and Convert.
Rename the mp3 files artist-album_title-NN_song_title where the album title is the date performed.
I do this using Thunar bulk rename which makes it easy.
Normalize the mp3 files with MP3DirectCut.
Make the song list in list.txt.
I do this by executing ls 0*.mp4 > list.txt in a bash shell and then editing the file with two search and replaces and manual editing when needed.
Make the notes.txt file for the Live Music Archive upload.
Copy the last show's notes.txt to the current folder and edit it changing the date and the playlist.
I now have all the assets ready for my file uploads.
Upload the mp3 files, notes.txt and the screenshot to the Live Music Archive.
The item ID is hlYYYY-MM-DD because this is recommended. Then the link will be like archive.org/details/hl2012-06-29.
Add the songs to my KGPL on demand internet radio station, HairyLarryLand Livestreams, at kgpl.org. I use a program I wrote to make it easy to add an entire concert. I also wrote KGPL and KGPL is GPL.
Upload the mp4 files and notes.txt to another item on the live music archive.
I use hlYYYY-MM-DD.video for my video link.
The mp3 files upload fast. The mp4 videos take longer.
At peertube.hairylarry.rocks create a playlist for the performance.
The playlist is called twitch.tv/hairylarryland June 27, 2021 with the date corrected.
Upload the videos to peertube one at a time.
I use a song.txt template for the song information so I only have to correct the date and then search and replace on the song title for each song.
I always add tags to peertube and the Live Music Archive. jazz, blues, piano, hairylarryland, twitch, livestream, etc.
After the video is uploaded add the link to the description and add the song to the playlist.
After all the songs are uploaded check the playlist
https://peertube.hairylarry.rocks/
Create a folder on the HairyLarryLand Nextcloud for the performance date.
Add the mp3 files and mp4 files to Nextcloud for download by collaborators and others. Also upload notes.txt and the screenshot. I can share these files by sending a link and I also include the link in the peertube descriptions. Create a markdown text file for each mp4 file and copy and paste the peertube description to that file.
https://hairylarryland.com/nextcloud/index.php/s/Z9RFW4QS6XGa3qo
All of this seems like a lot but it actually goes pretty fast and much of the time consuming part is unattended. Start the upload. After it's done do the next thing. I manage to keep up and I do three livestreams a week for 4-5 hours of video content total. I have streamlined this workflow to make this possible.
Promote the songs on Youtube, the fediverse, other social networks, websites, and blogs using the song links, playlist links, and download links.
Additional notes, issues not part of but raised by the procedure above.
---
Licensing - I license my songs Creative Commons Attribution which means anyone can use my songs in their projects as long as they include me in the credits. That's just me. It's what I do. Make stuff and give it away. When you make your decision about licensing I suggest you read through the information provided at the Creative Commons website. All Rights Reserved may not be the best choice for you.
Live Music Archive - I perform livestream concerts so the Live Music Archive works for me. If you are doing game streams, actual play, vlogs, cooking, or DIY archive.org also has a Community Video area which would probably be better for you. The Internet Archive is a library. Their service is free. They have embed code so you can share easily. They encourage sharing items on their site on other websites. All around double plus good.
https://archive.org/details/etree
https://archive.org/details/opensource_movies
Servers - Ok, I'm a computer geek. I did games and music before computers but computers were my career and they remain my hobby. I realize not everyone runs their own internet servers. So I recommend using archive.org as your primary server and then using Youtube and Tumblr or other web platforms for your daily updates and your pretty face. I also recommend the fediverse, programs like Mastodon, Friendica, Funkwhale, and Peertube. With these programs you can set up your own server but you don't have to. There are many fediverse instances with an existing lean to your area of interest that would be glad to have you participate.
If you want to run your own server I use two. The first is based on the famous LAMP stack, linux, apache, mysql, php. The second runs Yunohost.
Google lamp stack.
Best of luck in all your creatives endeavors.
Our little hobby is filled with intriguing oddities. One of the most persistent such oddities is our weird tendency to take what is already a fringe subculture and cut it up into further warring fringes.
In the '70s (and even a bit into the '80s) the hobby was divided into the camp of wargamers (themselves divided into board and miniatures camps, not to mention by era) and role-players. This is where I entered the picture, and I came to it from a direction radically different than most RPGers of the time: I came at it from my high school drama flake crowd, not from the wargaming crowd. I especially saw a lot of the disdain hurled at the role-playing fantasists crowd because I not only played them, I exclusively played them and really didn't like wargames.
As the great creative explosion of the '80s began, more and more weird divisions happened, usually in feuding camps based on genre (since most RPGs of the time still lived firmly in their wargaming roots). This was also the era where "realism" vs. "playability" became an argument (despite no RPG ever written being even remotely realistic, and most were only barely playable: this is a hobby that demanded a degree of dedication to enter and be a part of!).
The '90s started to usher in the era of the "story-based" game (although the earliest of these were barely distinguishable in terms of rules focus from Dungeons & Dragons). This is where the largest divide of role-playing games started and what is likely the largest single cultural shift of the hobby began, as typified by the (pretentiously idiotic) phrase "role-playing vs. roll-playing".
The earlier divides were arguments over taste. Something in the loudest of the "story game" crowd stepped over a line from discussions of taste into very literal notions of "wrong fun". In many ways it was the stalwart wargamer crowd's disdain of the role-playing crowd all over again, only it was the newcomers who held the most disdain. The peak of this was likely the essays of people like John Wick or, worse, Ron Edwards who would start bizarrely hinting at (and sometimes openly stating) some kind of moral failing of those who preferred original-style dungeon bashes. It reached the point that to this day I can't stomach the notion of actually buying a product published by some major names in gaming. (And, naturally, because we can't have nice things, a lot of OSR advocates are just as disdainful of people who play differently as are people like the two I named above. I'll just drop James Raggi's name here for that.)
And it was in the midst of this acrimony that sometime in the early '00s the OSR sprung up. (OSR is an initialization I've seen expanded as Old School Revival, Recreation, Renaissance, and other such R words to the point I'm not sure which one is actually canonically correct, so I will just be using OSR.) The OSR is a movement to return back to basics. Back to E. Gary Gygax's original D&D. To return to a time of simplicity. It's a movement born of people wearing pink-tinted contact lenses because—hoo boy!—this is not a good description of the rules of the time!
There is a reason why the original edition of D&D was not the dominant one over the decades and that reason is not just, as has been claimed, a money-grab by TSR and others.
To establish my credentials, I have been playing RPGs of all kinds since 1977. My first exposure to the genre was the 1977 "Blue Book" edition and I have backfilled experience with the original books, not to mention gone forward into both branches of D&D (Advanced and what would later become the Cyclopedia). I played through the explosion of creativity in the '80s, witnessed the rise of story games (playing many of them, though not the White Wolf line of Storyteller games—I hated those), and continued through to the present day where I play intensely story-oriented games (FATE, Spark, Mythic, etc.) as well as some OSR or OSR-alike games (most notably Mazes & Minotaurs). I am emphatically not a young-un telling grandpa what's what. I'm one of the grandparents saying what actually was.
And what actually was was a mess. Don't get me wrong. I don't judge the OSR and, indeed, I like its ideals: simplicity chief among them. I think modern games have gotten ridiculously and pointlessly complicated and as someone who works in marketing, I can even smell the marketing decisions that led to that. I would love to have a game in the old style to play (and indeed do in the form of M&M).
I just don't want to play the original D&D.
So let's talk about why.
I have open on my screen the so-called "White Box" set of rules. The three-volume set of Dungeons & Dragons published by Tactical Studies Rules in 1974 before they even had the TSR logo. (Their logo looked like a bizarre stylized 'K' embedded in a similarly stylized 'G'.) And already we're off to a rocky start. On page 5 of the first book (Men & Magic) we have the recommended equipment which includes ... Chainmail miniature rules, latest edition. Which, note, at the time of publication, wasn't even a TSR product.
Time to open another document. (Picture me rolling my eyes here.)
The current edition of Chainmail at the time would have been 2nd. The third was 1975, a year after D&D was published, while 2nd was 1972. So this is the version we'll go with.
Back to D&D. And here we get to the next problem with this edition of D&D (which I will refer to as OD&D from now on): the writing. It's atrocious. The information design is execrable. Gary Gygax had a large vocabulary, but he had no clue how to use it to deliver information. His writing style lies somewhere between the ponderousness of an academic frightened of clear communication because it would reveal how trivial the ideas under discussion actually are and a middle school essay writer earning his D+ marks throughout the term. On page 6, for example, under the heading of "Characters", he introduces the 3 main classes of characters: Fighting-Men, Magic-Users, and Clerics. Then, buried in the description of what these classes even are, he throws in the fact that fighting men can "include" elves, dwarves, and even halflings while magic-users can only be men and elves with clerics limited to men only.
(From the way it is worded it is easy to mistakenly think that men can only be magic-users and clerics, incidentally.)
In the section on Fighting-Men (referred to multiple times as "fighters" in the text because consistency in game terminology is for cowards?) there's a bizarre section irrelevant to the topic at hand consisting of base income for fighters of high enough a level. In the section outlining Magic-Users there's a sudden table of income costs for making magic items. In the section on Clerics there's more talk of income from high-level clerics and holdings. NONE OF THIS IS RELEVANT. The game is discussing stuff that comes at "end-game" (so to speak) for characters before they've even actually finished off what a character is and how to make one! It's very clearly written stream-of-consciousness and it's a chore to decode. THIS is why the Basic line was started and expanded into the Cyclopedia. Gary Gygax's writing style is just not suited to actually explaining things!
And it continues on and on in this vein: opening up with the classes, introducing the classes, and mentioning races only in passing, suddenly, on the very next page, right after talking about Clerics, races are introduced at the same heading level in a jarring transition. Each is defined solely by what it can and cannot do. There's no explanation of what a "dwarf" or "elf" or "halfling" really is. Maybe that's what you need Chainmail for? Yep. That's where the races are described. (Though there's no "halflings". Only hobbits.) Further the races' advantages and abilities are explicitly specified in Chainmail. You really do need Chainmail to play OD&D!
Alignment is handled in the same kind of slap-dash way: character types are defined by alignment, but alignment itself is not described (not even in Chainmail!).
This mess goes on and on. There's rules for changing character classes that reference prime requisites, but prime requisites for classes haven't yet been defined! (They do have the decency to forward-reference this, but this is utter crap information design. We've known how to write better than this for centuries before D&D was written!)
Once you do decode this, the rules for making characters are, indeed, very simple. It's just that the writing is so phenomenally bad that D&D rapidly became known as a game that you couldn't just buy and learn. You had to have it taught to you.
And one of the purported advantages of the aulde skool rears its ugly head here: it is explicitly intended (according to the introduction) to be merely guidelines. So what you were taught wouldn't transfer well to other groups…
Of course when you played, again you needed Chainmail according to the rules thus far. We're on page 18 of the rules and half the rules mentioned explicitly call out to Chainmail for resolution. Page 19 introduces the "alternative" combat system that replaces Chainmail's in which we see the beginning of the THAC0 system that was so beloved in later years. And again it's incoherent dross. The hit table only applies to fighters. Magic-Users and Clerics use different progressions mentioned in an asterisked footnote. This is also where the infamously bizarre categories of saving throws make their first appearance. To this day I don't understand these categories, why they were made, what they were intended to represent. I only know that it was really weird seeing rules in later editions say "save vs. paralyzation" for things that had nothing to do with paralyzation, just because those were the numbers the designer of the monster or trap or whatever liked best.
And of course the saving throw matrix manages to be incoherent there as well, interlacing levels and classes in bizarre ways making it awfully hard to figure out which is which when using it.
Anyway, I think I've made my point here. The rules were awful. They were incoherently written. They relied on an outside book (then published by another publisher!) to actually use. And on top of everything else, they covered so very little that, quite ironically, to use them meant the referee (DM being a later term!) had to make things up on the fly all the time. Just like the "GM fiat" games that many OSR advocates deride now.
They're god-awful rules!
And note, I'm not saying here that the rules should cover every possible contingency. In that direction lies madness (also known as Chivalry & Sorcery)! But what the rules should provide (and emphatically don't!) is a coherent framework for adjudication.
Now D&D has an excuse. It was the first game of a kind nobody had ever seen before. Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax deserve the accolades they get for having made it and popularized it. I will never cast shade on the giants who made the very hobby I love so well! But I absolutely will cast shade on the people who think that OD&D was the best of all possible times to the point of wanting to return to it.
Not casting shade in the "wrongfun" sense either, but rather in the "are you really sure?" sense. Because yes, there is a lot of the OSR vibe I love. I just don't like the game at the core of it and I think an attempt to return to that in specific, even if rewritten to be more coherent, is doomed to failure. I think there is room for the OSR concept: simple, fun-focused, hack-and-slash or exploration-oriented, pick-up-and-play games that also have room for depth and soul but that don't have a need for the millions of pages of rules for every contingency. For the concepts behind D&D, but concepts executed with now nearly 40 years of design experience to get it right.
My stream schedule has been changed. Tuesday and Thursday at 3:00 PM Central. Sunday at 5:00 PM Central. Some Sundays my band, Bebop Beatniks, will be streaming from the porch.
If you are producing videos from your twitch streams like I talked about in the last article most streamers post to Youtube. I have an active Youtube channel and I do post there but it's actually the 4th place I post and Youtube won't see every video.
It's important to have a posting strategy and a procedure that makes posting easy. I use a notes.txt file in a dated folder for the stream performed on that date. This notes.txt file is very much the same for every show. The playlist is changed. The date is changed, and occasionally comments are added. So I work from a template modifying it as necessary for each stream.
I also have a template for posting songs. Again I only change the date, the song title, and add an occasional comment.
So, for me, playlists are important. I deal in sets of short videos that are related, in my case all performed on the same day. So if you're going to produce highlights videos from your game stream you may want to put them in a playlist so viewers can go through all of them easily.
And here's where it gets kind of geeky. The first place I post my videos is to my own servers.
Most people don't run web servers at home so this probably won't apply to you but it is an option every production studio should consider because uploads to in house servers don't take nearly as long as uploads to The Live Music Archive or Youtube.
On my right I have the Hairy Larry Rocks server hosting my peertube.
https://peertube.hairylarry.rocks
On my left I have my MixRemix server that also hosts HairyLarryLand.
Let's say I played a stream and then I produced 4 song videos from the stream.
I number the songs based on their order in the set as logged in my logbook.
I create a playlist for the stream.
I upload each video to my peertube using the songs.txt template so I don't have to do a lot of typing. After it's posted I add the link to the video into the text and I add the video to the playlist.
This goes really fast because these large mp4 files never leave the house. Nevertheless, as soon as I am done the songs are available on the internet and I can click a share button to link or embed the videos.
On my HairyLarryLand server I have a file sharing program called NextCloud. After I have finished uploading to peertube I create a folder for the stream and upload all the video files to NextCloud. Then I create a text file for each song and copy the exact same text I used for the songs on peertube. When that is done all of my highest quality video files are available for download here.
https://hairylarryland.com/nextcloud/index.php/s/Z9RFW4QS6XGa3qo
Why both?
The peertube interface is user friendly making it easy for viewers to find and share videos. It is even possible for other peertube instances to include my songs for people to enjoy from there.
The NextCloud interface is a file manager where you can download the best quality videos as rendered by OpenShot. So if someone wants to collaborate with me or just wants to download best quality that's the place to go.
The song.txt template cross links both of these sites so it is easy to switch between interfaces from a Youtube like federated social network to an all business file manager for downloading what you want.
In the next article I will discuss uploading videos to the Live Music Archive and Youtube. I am also uploading mp3 files of the audio to the Live Music Archive and I plan on making them available on my on demand KGPL internet radio station.
d = /
o = o
u = u
w = w
hairylarry@curators.mixremix.cc
hairylarry@deltaboogie.comEveryone wants to buy equipment but nobody wants to think about workflow. Yet, without a well defined idea about anticipated workflow it's difficult to even know what equipment to buy.
One of the advantages of livestreaming is simplified workflow. For instance.
Prepare for the stream.
Do the stream performance.
Check your stats.
Twitch keeps your streams online and it's possible to download them if there's one you want to save. I press the record button in Streamlabs OBS and record everything. So I need big hard drives, video eats disk space. This is how workflow drives equipment purchases.
My workflow is more complicated because my livestream is also a video production environment. I am livestreaming my shows. But I am also producing song videos of me playing my original songs. This is where workflow is most important.
Because there's this thing about video production. It's time consuming. So if you're going to do a lot of video production it's important to simplify your workflow or you end up bogged down in post production. This leads to the dreaded post production backlog where you are unable to keep up and end up with unwatched video footage that you worked to make but will never see the light of day.
The only way I know of to avoid post production backlog is to finish with post before you produce more video. When your performance is on a schedule, like mine, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 3:00 PM Central, you have to be able to zoom through post production and uploading your videos. There is only two or three days until the next performance.
So here's my workflow.
Pre Production
Write songs.
Create backing tracks.
Learn the songs well enough to practice them.
Production
Perform the stream which is livestreamed over twitch, recorded on twitch, and recorded on my hard drive.
Post Production
Log the show.
Create the song videos.
Upload the videos to my peertube instance for easy viewing and to my NextCloud file sharing site for best quality downloads.
https://peertube.hairylarry.rocks/video-channels/twitch/videos
https://hairylarryland.com/nextcloud/index.php/s/Z9RFW4QS6XGa3qo
Promotion
Share links to the songs on my blogs, websites, and social media.
Upload song videos to Youtube or other websites.
I will do an article on promotion later.
Now I want to discuss Post Production and just how I manage to produce a handful of song videos every two days.
I watch the whole show on twitch logging the songs start and end times and marking the songs that should be excerpted for song videos. I add other comments while logging. Most commonly I note where the song video should begin because I don't always hit the groove right from the top.
This takes a little bit longer than it took to play the stream. Producing the log is only part of the purpose here. I am also monitoring my stream quality as viewed on twitch and I am learning from my performance.
For editing my videos I use OpenShot because of ease of use.
I load the stream recorded to the hard drive into OpenShot and I do a rough cut of the songs beginning and end.
I zoom in and fix the cuts to exactly where i want them. I leave the spoken intros and outtros where possible.
I use templates for my title and credits screens changing only the song title. I add them to the video and I place the fades to go from title to video and from video to credits.
This goes really fast. While I still have the song loaded in the editor I do a quality control viewing. Sometimes I decide the song isn't really good enough to post. Sometimes I choose different edit points. Most of the time I am happy with the song and deem it ready to upload. So besides checking the song I am also doing another learning pass listening again to my best performances. So I play the song, log the song and select it for post production, and then I listen again for quality control. This repeated listening may be the most valuable part of my piano practice.
Sometimes I want to include the spoken intro and then start the song later in the performance. This takes only one extra cut. To avoid a jump cut I zoom in on the spoken part so it's just a video of me talking. Then when I start playing I'm back to full screen making a very natural transition. Here's an example.
Bunnies
https://peertube.hairylarry.rocks/videos/watch/955242be-6dd2-45f9-b2cb-a09a49b15a1a
Here's a video from the same show without the zoomed in intro.
Eventually
https://peertube.hairylarry.rocks/videos/watch/ebdd8dcb-cfde-413d-b7ec-fbbad81d6e9a
Today's Monday. My last stream was two hours on Saturday. I logged the stream Saturday night. Sunday I produced Something Blue and uploaded it to KASU. So today I get to produce eight song videos. I know I will be able to finish this today, no problem, because of my streamlined workflow.
Because tomorrow I'll be playing another show.
Tonight on Inspired Unreality join Ari and Caper in their quest for mushrooms and tea. At least that's what we did last week when Ari's cat, Tude, found a book, Ari and the witch deciphered a tea blend from one of the pages in the book, Caper went to the woods to hunt for mushrooms, the witch brewed the tea, and when Ari and the witch drank the tea they became far sighted and could see Caper leaving the woods several miles away as if they were looking through a powerful telescope. What will happen next? Nobody knows. Because we're winging it.
https://archive.gamerplus.org/newsfeed/4113
Here's the good news for a change. The software needed to set up a twitch stream is free.
I am using Streamlabs OBS as my streaming platform. Before that I used OBS. These are both free software. I used OBS recording audio only podcasts but for my twitch stream I wanted to view the live chat as part of the stream, and not just see the chat on the twitch interface. Streamlabs OBS supports that so that's how I get my live chat on the left side of the stream.
https://streamlabs.com/
To display my tablet playing iReal Pro on the right side of my stream I use scrcpy, also free software.
https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy
I had to download and install a windows driver for my Zoom H6. No charge for the driver and the install was painless. I use the Zoom as an interface between my PA and my computer.
I am planning on implementing the ability to record multitrack to make it easier to collaborate with other musicians. Pro Tools First is a free download and Pro Tools is the industry standard for sharing audio files.
https://www.avid.com/pro-tools
I use Openshot for video post production. I like it. I even use their titling templates. It makes life easy.
https://www.openshot.org/
I am using VLC to monitor my videos. Under tools I can view the codec information to make sure I'm recording everything right. VLC will also compress your video files in case they end up too large.
https://www.videolan.org/
GIMP is my photo editor. Video producers need photo editors the same as anyone else.
https://www.gimp.org/
Some of this software is open source. Some is not. But it is all free to download and install. Which is good news because twitch can be an expensive hobby.
Next week I'll discuss workflow and backups. Can't wait.
It's important to know the big idea for a twitch stream before talking about equipment. Different streams have different equipment needs from top to bottom.
A very common idea is the streamer playing games while they talk to their audience in a small window. This only needs one camera but it needs a really good computer or game console.
Another popular twitch topic is DIY that streams only live video. So the computer needs are less but this type of stream might benefit from multiple webcams providing multiple scenes. A scene is a single shot or several shots combined on a screen. DIY crafts streams often benefit from a top down view so that would be a scene but another scene showing the streamer talking to the audience might also be desirable.
So this is why it's important to work towards an idea when gathering equipment for your twitch stream.
Since I play piano on my stream I opted for a single scene made up of four elements, a shot of me playing, a top down shot of the piano keyboard, a window showing my tablet running iReal Pro for the chord change and backing track, and a window for the chat box.
I have a nice T420 laptop with an i7, 16 gig of ram, and an Nvidia card. I used it to test some of my ideas and it did fine streaming from the built in webcam but when I set up multiple windows with Streamlabs OBS the whole thing bogged so bad that it was unusable. I hope to use this laptop for field streaming but that is a work in progress that I will write about later exploring the idea of running a stream wherever you want using all battery operated equipment.
So, I needed a more powerful computer. I needed two webcams. My old tablet wouldn't work with scrcpy so I needed a newer tablet. And, as always with video production I needed lights. Fortunately I already have audio recording equipment. I am using my Zoom H6 for an audio interface and an Audio Technica AT4055 for my microphone. I also have tripods and mic stands but I do some carpentry DIY for stands as well.
Here's what I got.
On ebay I bought an HP Z640 Workstation, Xeon E5-2620 2.40GHz, 32GB, 1TB, NVIDIA Quadro K2200 Video, Windows 10. This cost around $325 with shipping and taxes. Since 1 TB is not enough disk storage for an extended video project I added 2 HGST 4 TB drives in a RAID 1 configuration using Win 10 Storage Spaces. These ran about $105.
To update my tablet I bought a 10.5 inch Samsung Galaxy Tab A SM-T597 32GB, Wi-Fi for about $100 used in excellent condition.
I bought two Audkey webcams for about $30 each.
And for lights I got two 8.5 inch clamp on utility lamps and daylight bulbs for about $20.
Really, that's it.
Computer --- $325
Hard Drives - $105
Tablet ------- $100
Webcams --- $60
Lights ------- $20
-------
Total -------- $610
So my whole setup to implement my big idea costs less than a high end graphics card required for twitch game streams. At megantopia my daughter spent more than twice this amount for her gaming computer.
I'll continue this series next week. Future topics will include bandwidth, DIY, field streaming, post production, and more. Please ask any questions in the comments.
Also, please contact me if you use twitch to play RPGs. I am very interested in this.
Here's our links.
https://www.twitch.tv/megantopia
https://www.twitch.tv/hairylarryland
It's all Megan's fault. When she set up https://www.twitch.tv/megantopia Vivian and I started watching. Before that I knew it was a popular site for live gaming but twitch flew under my radar. Once I saw what Megan was doing and I started to understand how twitch worked, and how it can be used for videos that are not about gaming, I became interested.
The problem with video production is post production. Post production is a lot of work. It takes a long time. There's always a few more tweaks that can make it a little bit better. It can wear you out.
Live streaming takes post production out of the equation. Like the evening news it happens in real time, it's as good as it is, and it's done when it's done. There's no post production and even when videos are excerpted from the stream post production is minimal.
The tradeoff for no post production is the setup. Sure, you can stream with just a laptop, phone, tablet, or game machine. But since it goes out live with no post that can be dull. The goal is a live show that's entertaining. It can be high energy or chill but it can't be boring. So you have to put a lot of thought into the desired look of your stream and then figure out the hardware and software to achieve that look.
The key element is OBS, Open Broadcaster Software.
I have used OBS for recording podcasts on Discord but I didn't realize it's real power until I started using it for twitch videos. OBS is free and open source. The good thing about that is that it's legal for others to build on it. For my stream I chose Streamlabs OBS because of the ease of setup and features like the onscreen chatbox and the ability to include running programs in the stream. You can do these things with OBS too and there are other options to explore but my most direct route was Streamlabs OBS.
I watched several videos on Youtube about setting up streaming for DIY streams and other streams that use live video instead of gaming screens as their primary focus. This opened my eyes to what is possible and led me to dream about what I actually wanted to do and how I wanted to setup my screen to be helpful and interesting.
So here's my big idea.
The name of my stream is Hairy Larry Practicing Piano. A big part of why I wanted to do the stream is to add discipline to my piano practice. I practice every day and sometimes for several hours a day. But what I was missing in my practice was scheduled rehearsal of a specific repertoire. My twitch stream provides that.
And choosing my repertoire I decided to practice all songs that I wrote. This avoids copyright issues and it allows me to tailor the repertoire to the stream. Practicing improvisation is easiest with short changes that have one or two interest points. Baby steps.
And so once I decided what I wanted to do on my stream I began to visualize the screen. I wanted the central focus to be me, practicing. I wanted to be able to pull a microphone over to talk to the audience and sing but I also wanted to be able to push it off shot for instrumental numbers. I wanted an angle shot that would show my hands on the keys. And I wanted it to feel like a live jazz show.
There are many musicians teaching jazz piano on the internet and they almost always have a top down view of the piano keyboard across the bottom of the screen. I like that, it's helpful and visually appealing. So I decided to include that in my screen layout.
I am using iReal Pro for my backing tracks providing bass and drums. The iReal Pro screen shows the chord symbols and highlights the chord being played. I wanted to include that screen as part of my display.
Twitch uses text chat for the audience and voice chat for the performer as it's standard chat format. The performer can also type but it's easier just to talk and shout outs from the performer to viewers in the chat box are the way it's done. So I wanted to include the text chat on the screen to provide context for my shout outs and other responses to the ongoing text chat.
And I wanted to be chill. Many people use twitch as background noise while they go about their business. I wanted it to be easy for people to just let my stream play in the background, enjoying the music, without having to be fully engaged. Kind of like Bob Ross or Mr. Rogers but practicing piano instead of painting or telling stories.
So that's my big idea. In future posts I will discuss equipment, both purchased and DIY, software setup, extracting videos from the stream, bandwidth issues, and even home renovation.
In the meantime you can enjoy my stream here.
Here's four webcomics that I like and some of them even have something to do with gaming.
I don't like rom com movies much. In fact I don't like movies much. I prefer my TV in small doses. But I do read a lot of coming of age fantasy and science fiction which is kind of close to rom coms. Especially "The Wheel Of Time" which I am definitely planning on rereading, all 14 volumes.
But it turns out that I like rom com webcomics. I guess the dosage is about right.
"Questionable Content" is alternative history science fiction. It's present day but in the recent past Hannelore's dad discovered true AI and built it into robots. So it's a rom com with robots. (Shades of Isaac Asimov) It's actually my current fav and it turns out I must have started it in the middle because when I went to episode 1 to link here I hadn't read it. But there is an AI robot right at the start. Plus rom com. It is a lot different than the more recent episodes but I'm restarting at the top and you can too.
https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1
Oh yeah, it's drawn by J. Jacques. And it's 5 days a week.
Dumbing Of Age is a College Webcomic by David M. Willis. This is my latest fav and it's actual contemporary fiction rom com. It has more about cartoons than about games although D&D does get an occasional mention. Big on superheroes too with an actual superhero character who is actually just a shy girl with tendencies towards violence.
7 days a week. Yaaaaaay!
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/home/
The absolute best webcomic ever is all about D&D with in jokes right from the first episode. The Order Of The Stick is about an adventuring party drawn as stick figures. If you haven't already read this it's a treat. The only bad thing about it is that it's a weekly so I save it for my weekend reading. It's by Rich Burlew.
https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html
And my new find is Gunnerkrigg Court. It's also in a school setting but so far not a rom com. Definitely fantasy and I'm not far enough into it to tell you much more. Except that I like it so far. Not sure of the publishing schedule but the art is great and it's drawn by Tom Siddell.
https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1
Please add your favorite webcomics in the comments. Especially if they are about gaming.
Thanks
I know I've been a bit absent from Gamer+, but hoping to change that in the near future starting... now!
I am currently open to new clients. I've been a graphic/digital designer for my entire career and wanted to put my feelers out there and utilize my existing network to make my services available to you. Especially those of you who do self-publishing for tabletop RPG's, I'd be available for assist with layout. Companies I've helped with this in the past include Legendary Games and FASA Games.
Currently I'm building out my new portfolio coinciding with the launch of my site at aqualith.media. In the meantime, check out my Behance to see my previous work.
Interested in working or collaborating? Feel free to find time on my calendar for a free initial consultation.
Steady tides be with you!
Ryan
Full disclosure: I was given this game for free by its publisher. This was not done for purposes of review (more out of pity!), but it would not be honest to fail to mention this potential bias.
I have a somewhat complicated relationship with Bloodshadows. I originally encountered it when it was a West End Games setting for their Masterbook game (itself part of the '90s trend of turning every house game system—in this case the game system behind Torg and Shatterzone—into a generic game). The thing is that while I admired several features of Masterbook, at it core I found it a pretty fundamentally flawed game that I didn't want to play very much. Which was a pity because the Bloodshadows setting I adored straight out of the box.
So here we are, over two decades later, and I find myself with a Bloodshadows game in my hand from the home where all the great, undervalued games go for continued unlife: Precis Intermedia (rapidly becoming my favourite currently-active publisher of RPGs).
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I hope to chat with you tonight about fantasy literature and gaming. As always, bring your own topic. All gaming is on topic.
https://archive.gamerplus.org/groups/9
We see some unhealthy trees around the pit in fact the whole area looks nothing like the vibrant forest we just left. One of the trees, about 20 feet from the pit, looks like it has a door in it. Caper says, "Let's check out that tree with a door." Leaf and Caper approach the tree.
Leaf decides to check things out before we head down the stairs. He silently crosses the 20 feet to the edge of the pit and peeks over the edge. The pit is about 90 feet deep. 30 feet down Leaf can see a bridge made of wood and ropes that goes from our side of the pit all the way across to the other side. At the bottom of the pit is a blue shining portal constantly moving and shining as if lit from behind.
https://archive.gamerplus.org/index
We played Virtual Dirty Santa! Here's a post with all of our virtual gifts.
https://archive.gamerplus.org/blogs/post/440
https://archive.gamerplus.org/photo/useralbum/hairylarry/90
We played Virtual Dirty Santa on Discord yesterday. We all passed the wrapped gifts around on a gameboard and then we opened them in order.
Here are the gifts given by those who are Related To Geeks (my family).
Half Halfling
by Larry Heyl CC-BY
My Mother, the midget
Fell for a halfling bard
Who sang her sweet love songs
beneath the pine trees in his yard.
They married in April
Which makes me a Winter's child
Quite mild for a human
As halfling, quite wild.
So yes I'm half halfling
From bald head to hairy toes
I hunt through the forest
Where wild mushrooms grow.
Will I seek adventure
Or farm in the shire?
Sing for my lady love
While I pluck the lyre.
Megan Heyl produced by Megan Heyl
Carl Heyl drawn by Kier Heyl
Gretchen posts Megan dancing behind Megan
I mean really dead. (Not mostly dead.)
https://archive.gamerplus.org/newsfeed/2935
I wrap the swords and the mace in my blanket and tie the bundle up. Jennifer carries the bundle on her back and we head back to town. Leaf calls his raccoon and leads the way.
Finch
We hear another animal in the woods and find another trap. Leaf frees a trapped canine, a dog-bear. We lower him down and he likes us fine. Now we have two wild pets, the raccoon and the dog-bear.
Rowan
Fighter the Cleric buys two fine horses for Leaf and herself.
chockoLAT
Salted Caramel
The next day Leaf detects magic auras on the short sword, the long sword, the mace, the ring, and the potion.
https://archive.gamerplus.org/newsfeed/2917
https://archive.gamerplus.org/user/hairylarry
hairylarry@curators.mixremix.cc (on my Friendica)We read in the journal. Marusan was on a quest for eternal life. He made a deal with Moloch. We also find a map of the building folded in half in the book like a bookmark.
We lower the rope down into the temple and climb down. In the temple there are pews or benches, an evil looking statue, and 5 doors. Two to the north on either side of the statue, one each east, west, and south. They are all wood with push down latches. The one to the south is a light brown color. The others are a reddish wood.
Well, today is the last day so it's not too late to check it out.
It's a benefit for the Paragould Children's Shelter. Today you can buy a badge for $5 or contribute directly here.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/nea-game-fest-2020-for-the-children039s-shelter
I played "Goat Crash!" hosted by Will Hose and "Lizard Wizard" hosted by my granddaughter, LizardQueen aka Elizabeth Brown.
And I also attended "Make your own adventures!" hosted by Carl Heyl and featuring panelists, Mike Stewart, Casey Christofferson, and Levi Combs. They discussed the creation of exciting adventures to wow your players and bedazzle your dungeons as well as playtesting, publishing, and marketing.
I also did a bit of hanging out in Discord chatting with other gamers, always the most important part of any gaming convention.
So I am sending out a big thanks to the NEA Gamers Guild for putting on such a fun event in trying times. It got me through another week anyway.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/neagamersguild/
It's still going on. I am now attending "Sarah, Kier and Megan are about to count down our top ten board games for anyone who wants to witness the madness!!!".
They are closing out the Game Fest with "Um Actually".
In 1978, Hamlyn Publishing released a book called Spacecraft 2000-2100 AD by Stewart Cowley. It was a large, hardback art book filled to the brim with science fiction artwork of spaceships, planetscapes, and future cities/bases that were rendered by some of the greatest SF artists of the time: Angus McKie, Gerard Thomas, Chris Foss, Peter Elson, and others represented by J.S. Artists.
More than an art book, however, it was also a detailed future history with little vignettes of space battles, a future history, etc. all paired with pictures showing the subject. It was a brilliant concept that was well executed, leading to more books in the series authored by Cowley—Great Space Battles (1979, with Charles Herridge), SpaceWreck: Ghostships and Derelicts of Space (1979), Starliners: Commercial Travel in 2200 AD (1980).
All of these books were tied together in a future history involving the name of the Terran Trade Authority (TTA) hence the name of the RPG.
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Caper and Bones found a bench under an oak tree and sat down to rest while Ari and the witch made the squamish salve.
They ground the squamish mushrooms into a paste with wild cherries and sage to make the salve which is good for treating carbuncles and other skin ailments and can also cure light wounds. About 2/3 of the salve filled a jar the witch had set aside so she went and got a smaller jar which she filled and gave to Ari.
With that task done Ari and the witch walked over to Caper and Bones and the witch said, “The items are for the Ogre up in the foothills Northwest of Milyagon. He has been under pressure from orcs and hobgoblins moving in. The branch makes a magic quarterstaff to fend them off and the mushrooms are the important ingredient in a salve for his carbunkles. And the feather? That's for his hat. The Ogre has a magic hat and the owl's feather, willingly given, is a component of the spell. He is smart for an ogre because of the hat so it is very important that the feather in his cap does not become bedraggled.”
Enlightened but still very tired the party made their way back to the inn where they ate a hearty supper and turned in early for the night glad to be sleeping on beds under a roof instead of on the ground under the stars.
In which we recover all the loot, branches from the ancestor tree, squamish mushrooms, and a tailfeather from an owl, and complete our quest.
Last week we left off talking to the fairies near the fairy circle. Cautious not to ask a favor and indebt ourselves to them we finally found out that the fairies remembered when the woodcutter came through here and found the ancestor tree. When the fairies pointed out the trail that the woodcutter took, Caper couldn't see it but Ari and Bones could and Caper soon discovered that it was a game trail and he could also help follow it with his tracking skills.
After hiking for about 4 hours we found ourselves at the foot of a large hill. The trail seemed to continue up the hill but it was not distinct. We decided to climb to the top before dark even though we were already tired.
It was dusk when we got to the top so we waited for dark to see if the big tree at the top of this hill was the ancestor tree. Ari detected magic on the tree and it was magical. She detected magic on branches on the ground and they were not. So this might not be the ancestor tree but at least we were in the right vicinity.
The moon was already up in the sky when the sun set. Soon it was dark and the moon lit the treetops but we didn't see a fey glow. Bones helped Caper up to the first branch and Caper carefully climbed to the top where he could look out over the moonlit forest. After Caper got back to the ground he said, "I think we've come too far. The moonlit glow is brightest to the northwest and I think the ancestor tree is back a ways in the direction we came."
In the morning Bones suggested that Caper climb the tree again for a daytime view but it was slick with dew and Caper couldn't do it. (I rolled a 4) So we headed back down the hill the way we came and at the bottom with the sun peeking up over the eastern horizon we searched for a path up a hill to the northwest. Soon we were climbing the next hill and were at the top well before noon.
Of course there was a big tree at the top of this hill too. Bones boosted Caper up and he was easily able to scramble up to the top. When Caper climbed back down he said, "The next hill to the northwest is even taller than this one. I'm not sure the ancestor tree is there but I'm pretty sure this isn't the ancestor tree." So after we ate we continued on to the northwest again. Ascending the next hill we found a huge tree. It was time for supper. After we ate we thought we would look around for squamish mushrooms just in case this was the ancestor tree. Bones found a patch of them due west and then Ari found a big patch north of them.
After the sun set the big tree glowed brighter than the moon. We went to the big patch of mushrooms and followed the moonbeams penetrating the forest canopy and shining on the ground. With half the night gone Bones finally saw the moonbeams light some mushrooms and he was able to pick five of them which barely covered the bottom of the witch's bag.
In the morning we ate and although we were tired we decided to search for a branch from the ancestor tree before we slept. We searched here and we searched there and then Ari found a big branch just north of the tree. She detected magic on the branch and sure enough it was a branch from the ancestor tree. Caper searched again to the northeast and Bones searched around close to the tree. Bones found one but Ari couldn't tell if it was magic or not. Caper suggested that Ari carry her branch and that Bones should carry his back to the witch to find out if it is magic.
After their naps Ari searched for medicinal plants and Caper searched for mushrooms. Ari found a fever plant and harvested leaves. Caper found two large mushrooms he knew to be edible but when Ari detected magic on them she discovered that they were magical and Caper decided not to eat the magic mushrooms until he had talked to the witch about them.
It took two more nights to find enough mushrooms. The third night we spread out a little with Bones looking at the patch to the west while Ari and Caper looked at the big patch. We had good luck toward morning. With the moon near full it didn't set until almost sunrise. We ended up with 30 mushrooms. 20 filled the witch's bag half full and Ari put the other ten in another bag stowing them carefully in her pack.
Although we were tired we decided to hike on back to Milyagon. We found a game trail heading east and we left the Wilken Woods in the farmlands to the west of Milyagon. Soon we were across the bridge and at the Inn having a hot dinner, something Caper really missed while they were camping.
After we ate it was a short walk to the witch's cottage to the northeast of town and she was vary glad to see us. She kept the branch Ari was carrying saying it would do fine. She looked at the branch Bones found and said it was also from the ancestor tree and was in fact a magic quarterstaff. She told Bones to keep it and thanked him for his help. When Ari showed her the two bags of mushrooms she was delighted and said that she would teach Ari how to make the squamish salve and she could keep the extra for her medicine kit. She grinned wide when she saw the tailfeather, stuck it in her bonnet where it looked right at home, rolled her eyes three times, touched her nose, and said, "Yes, this will do nicely. My thanks to all of you." Then Caper showed the witch his magic mushrooms found beneath the ancestor tree and the witch said, "Now these are nice. These mushrooms are not dangerous but they should be consumed in moderation. One half of one of these large mushrooms will affect three people as if they had two large tankards of ale. And, of course, the mushrooms are much easier to carry then a keg of ale. Unlike ale the mushrooms don't slow you down in fact they do the opposite and make you slightly more dextrous for about four hours."
XP
Group XP
For finding the ancestor tree and completing the quest - 400
Ari
For finding mushroom patch - 20
For finding mushrooms - 40
For finding a branch - 100
For finding the fever plant - 20
Following fairy trail - 40
Detecting magic - 40
Total for session - 660
Bones
For finding mushroom patch - 20
For finding mushrooms - 80
For finding a branch - 100
Following fairy trail - 40
Total for session - 640
Caper
For finding mushrooms - 60
For finding edible magic mushrooms - 40
Tracking - 20
Climbing trees - 40
Total for session - 560
https://archive.gamerplus.org/blogs/258
Next Monday the Related To Geeks Book Club is discussing "The Epic Of Gilgamesh".
https://archive.gamerplus.org/groups/28
Today's review is going to come from the weird side of game publishing. The game is Story Engine and it has a fairly convoluted history that led to its demise and current fate.
History
Our story begins in 1996 with a small indie press outfit called Hubris Games. Hubris published a little game called Maelstrom Storytelling, that had some decent indie success spawning four follow-in products in the process. They also published a free game called Story Bones with the essence of the ideas behind Maelstrom's game system but the setting excised. Then in 1999 they published this game, Story Engine (sub-titled "Universal Rules") and followed that up with a revised edition in 2001.
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We're reaching deep into the wayback machine for this review. Today's fringe gem is another game from the (in)famous game publisher Fantasy Games Unlimited (FGU). As I said in an earlier review of Psi World, FGU was a game company willing to champion and publish any game concept imaginable (with predictable mixed results in quality and sanity). One of the games I mentioned in my capsule history of them is a very rare beast called Starships & Spacemen (S&S).
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Our story so far:
https://archive.gamerplus.org/blogs/259
Ari, Tude, and Caper were joined by Bones under the owl eyrie. The party erected a large tarp using rope and Bones' tent hoping to catch a naturally falling owl's feather. Caper climbed a tree trying to make friends with an owl but when it started to get dark he had to come down. They attracted two owls by putting out some meat in a cook pot on a tripod.
Then Ari threw Tude's ball under some bushes. Tude ran over and flushed a bunch of rodents and bunnies. For a few minutes there was a flurry of owls feeding. The next time Tude ran under a bush Caper shot a little bunny rabbit. Holding the dead bunny Caper called to the owls with a series of hoots. An owl landed on Capers outstretched arm and started feeding. With his other arm he slowly petted the owl. And then he had a hold on the tail feather that had been bothering this owl. Bones said we should scare the owl. Tude tried to scare it and Caper added in some cat noises and the owl flew off leaving one tail feather behind. Caper handed the feather to Ari for safekeeping.
We went south looking for the fairy circle trying to get some help from the fairies finding the ancestor tree. Ari and Caper kept true south while Bones scouted east and west. Bones was about a quarter mile to the west when he found the fairy circle. He jumped right in it and started dancing but fortunately he made his saving throw and didn't fall into Feyland.
Bones stayed near the fairy circle and after a while Ari and Caper noticed he was late. Ari asked Caper if he had anything with Bones scent on it so Tude could track Bones by scent. Caper held his rope out for Tude to smell and then they followed Tude west to Bones.
Caper found some rocks for chairs and sat down about 20 ft. from the fairy circle and played his flute. Sure enough some pretty fairies came to listen to the music and the party started up a conversation with them.
XP
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group XP for surviving a half day in Wilken Woods - 100
group XP for getting an owl's tail feather - 200
group XP for talking to fairies - 50
Bones - idea about tarp - 20
Boosted Caper into tree - 20
Finding the fairy circle - 40
Ari - working with Tude at Owl's Eyrie - 30
working with Tude finding Bones - 30
Caper - Climbed a tree - 20
Held owl on arm - 30
played flute for the fairies - 20
Some D&D players meet a stranger on the road and start into talking and just blurt it all out. I mean, "He seems nice enough." is not a good excuse for giving him too much information. Obviously your antagonist, The Boss Of The Big Bad, is going to pick someone with high charisma to weasel your party's secrets out of your big mouth.
Too Open!
But then there are other players who just never get to the point. They're trying to start a conversation, or talk about the weather, or listen at the next table over when a simple question would likely get the information they need and not really have a dangerous downside even if they are asking the enemies spies. (Except they might lie to you.)
Overly cautious!
But ... asking a question is in fact giving information and it is possible to give something away or be killed just by asking the wrong question in the wrong company.
Now here's where we get all meta and start looking at the same thing from two different points of view.
As a player you want to be careful what you say around strangers. Loose Lips sink ships. But you also shouldn't be afraid to ask anyone a question, ever. I mean that's why DMs have NPCs so they can get on with the exposition.
So this is a strategic decision about game play. Finishing the quest and staying alive.
And when you can't make up your mind? Is this real dangerous or is this maybe just a little dangerous?
Look to your player character. Ask yourself what your character would do. Is he timid or is he brave? Is he drunk or is he sober? Is he smart or is he an idiot?
Let your player character be your guide. Play your role and act it out and the hell with the rest of the party for griping about how you are always getting them into fights.
Prerelease text from the If You Play You Win game now on Inspired Unreality Monday nights. When this is published I will add the link here.
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Ari is a human wizard trained in healing and defense. Ari has a pet wildcat named Tude, she has raised from a kit. The cat is not a familiar but there is a very close bond and the cat is always alert for danger. Caper is a halfling bard with a storied past. Although designed for two player characters this quest could be played by any low level party.
Kendrick uses a telecommunication spell to send Ari a message. (calls her on her cell phone) He says "Big things are astir so small things must be put in place. Contact the witch at Milyagon. She has a task that needs done.""You have to go to Wilkin Woods to get a feather from an owls tail, some squamish mushrooms, and a branch from the ancestor tree.
"The feather cannot be stolen but must be given freely. If the owls
suspect foul play they will attack as fowls do. Do not let the feather touch the ground. If you find a feather on the ground it will not work.
"The squamish mushrooms grow in leaf molds under large oak trees. Their magic concentrates under the moonlight and they are best picked with the moon shining directly on them. Here is a small bag. It needs to be more than half full but not all the way full or the mushrooms will bruise.
"The ancestor tree grows large in the heart of Wilken Woods. It's a giant oak. The legend is the ancestor tree was the first tree in Wilken Woods and the forest started from this one tree. The ancestor tree is big magic, the other oak trees less so. The magic dilutes with extended lineage those grown from ancestor tree acorns have half the magic of the ancestor tree. Those grown from their acorns, half again. You will know the ancestor tree because it shimmers with a fey glow in the moonlight.
"Do not to cut, break, or chop any tree in Wilken Woods. The oak trees will defend the forest. It is safe to pick dead branches from the ground for firewood but fires should not be started under a tree. Never burn a branch from the ancestor tree.
"Branches on the ground have no magic except for the branches fallen from the ancestor tree. So you can detect magic on branches around the ancestor tree to make sure that a branch fell from the ancestor tree. A branch doesn't fall far from the tree so first find the ancestor tree and then find a branch. Get a big one.
"The squamish mushrooms close to the ancestor tree have the most magic. So after you get the branch search the area for the best mushrooms.
"Wilken Way deliberately avoids the most magical areas of Wilken Woods. The ancestor tree is to the south of Wilken Way. Nobody knows Wilken Woods like the woodcutter. He lives at the north edge of the woods in the least magical area. Still, all of the woods are magical and you should be on your guard at all times."
The witch points to the sky and says, "See the half moon up in the blue sky. You have come at a good time. The moon is full in a week and you will have strong moonlight over the next two weeks.
#SixWordStories is a thing.
Xan is an expert.
Here’s my first shot at #SixWordStories.
And then the sun went nova.
- by Larry Heyl CC-BY
There’s a website.
And a Flickr group.
https://www.flickr.com/groups/sixwordstory/
Prefaced by “Just as a reminder here is the story that started it all. For sale: baby shoes, never worn. “.
Cross posted from SFF Short Stories.
Megan, Vivian, and I were joined by Alan of Chronicles Of Ember fame
last night at Inspired Unreality. We discussed the post apocalyptic
genre, literature and movies. We also spent a little time on podcast and
vlog production. Plus, of course, dad jokes and other miscellany.
Megan, Larry, and Carl are joined by Alan Wortman, creator of "The Chronicles Of Ember", discussing House Rules in board games and role playing games.
https://anchor.fm/relatedtogeeks/episodes/Related-To-Geeks---Season-2-Episode-7---House-Rules-efo4qa
Monopoly Board photo by Horst Frank, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3627036
Here's the script for the outtro.
You have been listening to the Related To Geeks Podcast, recorded March 2, 2020 on the Monday night Inspired Unreality open game chat held at Tenkar's Tavern on Discord. For more about our geeky family visit relatedtogeeks.com. For more information about Inspired Unreality join Gamer+, a social network for gamers, at gamerplus.org.
The music for this show is "Spam" by Hairy Larry from the "Collaborators" CD.