[General][Gaming] "But You're Wrong, Steve. You See, It's Only Solitare"-

It is confirmed that Wojo/Vysh' s player is moving upstate for better employment. :)
--I hope to have his last session, this Friday, be memorable for him.

Part of my Classic-Play years were spent listening to a LOT of Jethro Tull, and as I type this, Chequred Flag, off of the Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll, Too Young to Die album, is just ending, and Warchild is beginning.
--Not only do certain albums/songs remind me of certain times and games, but they seem to re-activate centres in my brain with the same sort of creative energies present then.

My mother, of all people, reminded me that I ran a lot of Call of Cthulhu (two or more years of 36-hour sessions each weekend), far removed from the 'right way' of dealing with the Mythos, but a method that kept even the more jaded GMs and picky players coming back.
--What was I doing then that worked so well, and had I lost it in the meanwhile?
---Happily, no, I still have the mental film projector playing in my mind, and am able to articulate it in 'real-time' keeping the PCs on their toes as much as Indy was forced to be back in Raiders, while keeping them totally off-kilter as regards what's around the next turn.

It's not in the holy writ of mouldering and soft-drink stained folio sized booklets, kids. Rather, it is in your noggin and in your heart. Loving the scenes you are describing. It seems to me, that unless you love the game you are running, you cannot expect your players to give much of a good golly about it, either.
--Formulae, charts, and reconstituting a 'lost art' through philosophising the perceived intent of other, now departed, game-players turned 'pros' is a deathtrap, in my worthless opinion.

So, what do I have planned for Friday? I can't tell you that, because now a few of my play group have the URL to this blog, but I can tell you that I am already thinking of the to-be-published Adventure Locations and how they are going to be set up, and even what they'll look like, whether I digi-paint the covers myself, or I continue to utilise Peter Mullen's excellent artistic tallents, or grab the talents of other great artists available in the Classic-Play community and elseswhere.
--To that end, I have made a contact of a local printer and wargamer, and need to discuss the technomantic page layout-look I am seeking for in Autumn Garden Vol. I. I'll need to get my Wacom digital tablet to communicate with my PC again, and then give this guy my roughs rendered in the various art programmes I've fiddled with for over a decade.

Furthermore, I have found a means of securing an actual boxed game release venue ready for brick and mortar stores, as well as selling them out of my home. This prospect, filling a boxed set with custom dice and up to date catalogue and other bit-inserts, thrills me with the same sort of giddiness that I felt when a really cool game caught my eye on The Compleat Strategist, Davie, Florida store when I was a wee cur in my tender teens.
--Likewise, cardboard figures have now progressed to the point where custom artwork can result in game-specific runs, Print on Demand, so that's pretty toe-curling (except my freshly broken one, that is).

Time for chocolate! :D

[Playtest Campaign] "Undead, undead, undead..."-

After Wojo, Vyshwanythan, and Kitty the Black Bear stayed on the 1st level of the Undercity, the iris valves sealed off the Lift Shaft as the klaxon blared. They quickly set about the task of devising a way of opening the LS, and in the process, determined that easily half of the assembled support crew (as well as Wo' and Vish') were not Human in a genetic sense. One of the Men-at-Arms, Byllys the grizzled veteran, managed to assure the Security AI that the threat was dealt with, and opened the Shaft again. The lot of them tried the psychic AI interface and easily half found that they were 'funny', in that sense.

Meanwhile, the bumbling foo-- the Adventurers determined that if a non-Human were closely accompanied by a Human, the automated defences wouldn't fire. They entered the Bainsidhe room, and fought her to death. Her demise sounded like dishes shattering and glass being ground underfoot. They hoisted Tybalt's body (smoke or mist wafting from his mouth and nostrils) and Dee-dee'd out of the kill-zone without opening the other door. Report that the LS irises had re-opened, and the M-a-A's and the other two (three) party members had descended to meet them.
On the way down and back up, some other sort of undead was seen behind the shimmering blue force field, pounding on it to get at them. Once back up, the irises were sealed.

The plan to map out the rest of Level One was initiated with troops, carpenters building hides to block-off corridors, and other reasonable measures met with good result, slaying most of the undead Screaming Wom carriers (wax in the ear provided a +4 to the Control Critical Test), but even the wax-in-the-ear trick didn't work for a few of the party and they instead fled to the inn across the way from the surface entrance (formerly named bum alley for the dead vagrants found therein) now blocked off with hasty construction, and the establishment 'procured' by the Kherstic Academy as a supply centre and field hospital. With 'whisky' in their systems, as well as the wax, they were able to secure themselves enough to enter the 'dungeon' again.

The Wargs had been commanding some of the Screaming Worm undead to help them batter-down the door to the kennel, but that had been stopped, although the Warg are still in there, ready to fling themselves into the fray.

Now in the third barracks, the party, M-a-A's, and those poor High Risk Armed Security dupes ;) encountered a trio of Lich-like creatures --magick using-- who proptly killed 13 personnel with some sort of plasma weapon ('electric-acid stream') and forced a Resolve test, which was largely failed except for Byllys and a few others. More NPC deaths as the two lesser undead of the trio (diadem, and wand each) were controlled by the greater of the three (crown, hate-filled scrying sphere, and full staff) marched up the stairs toward the party, while the M-a-A's hid in a side passage and waited for a reasonable opportunity to attack the rear front.
Another plasma-stream lashed out, after which melee was enjoined and one of the minors was engaged by Darius, CiCi, Ashta, and Delver; Wojo 'mind-blasted' the major, and they saw the damage was instead transferred to the two minors. Deafening and Blinding attacks knocked out most of the party's ability to fight. ~~~ The two minors were dropped, and finally the combination of the remaining forces, and two of the M-a-A's were permanently blinded as the major undead disappeared in an indigo flash that left the scorched stones of the passage carven with deep sigils.

---
We held it there while the SO and I went to play AT-43; her Karmans beating my Red Blocs when my UNA 'allies' were taken out by her and her 'ally' Theians.
--Dang, but that system is super-fast and plenty of fun.
---

During the game the LGS owner took me and a fellow Classic-Play player (Wojo/Vish') to task for our lack of concern/interest in minis 'back in the day', and offered to run (tool us in) an AD&D game sometime soon. Joy. > eye-roll <

So, what did you game this weekend?

A The Grand Tapestry Exclusive: Jeff Berry: "What's Old School Gaming?"-

The following was an unsolicited (but much enjoyed) e-mail I have received this fine day from Jeff Berry, friend to and gamer with both Dave Arneson and Professor M. A. R. 'Phil' Barker, as well as the author of the Tekumelani wargames rules set: Qadardalikoi.

(c) Copyright 2009 Jeff Berry All Rights Reserved. Used here by permission of the author.

Linking to this article is permitted.

I'm a dinosaur, I think...

(This is a short little essay on gaming styles that might be of interest to folks, in response to the various postings I've been reading lately.
All opinions are my own, no warranty express or implied, and are packed by weight, not by volume; some settling of contents may have occurred during shipping and handling...)

Okay, I give up. What's 'old school gaming', and how does it apply to miniatures and role-playing games? I've just managed to get my head around the 'simulationist' and 'narrativist' schools of role-playing games, sorta, but now I'm even more confused. I got started in miniatures back about 1970, and in role-playing about 1975, and I have the feeling that I'm either a dinosaur or trapped like an insect in ancient amber; I still do things the way I have been doing them since that ancient and long-lost time, both in miniatures games and in RPGs.
Am I an 'old school gamer', or just imprisoned by the conditioning I got at the hands of Dave Arneson (of D&D), and Phil Barker (of EPT)?

For the benefit of those of you in the audience who hadn't been born yet, gaming back then consisted of historical miniatures. Period. Sure, some folks had been calling their medieval figures 'orcs' and 'elves' so they could play out the battles from Middle-Earth, and if you took the five SPI "Prestags" board games and put all the maps together - and sorted the counters from all five by color - you had a mega-game that looked just like Tolkein but evaded copyright issues; but, oh my patient listeners, the world of RPGs as you know them just didn't exist.

Enter, stage left, a bunch of bored Twin Cities Napoleonics players; enter, stage right, a bunch of bored medieval players from Lake Geneva.
Net result, D&D, followed in short order in the Twin Cities by something really weird called "Empire of the Petal Throne": all three of the authors involved were old hands at historical miniatures, and their first sets of rules reflected this - the 'Simulationist' school of game design, they tell me. Dave Arneson was a particular example of this kind of design; he was a perfectionist at getting all of the little details nailed down before the players showed up on his doorstep, and he played - like they did - for keeps. Sitting down with Dave to play with him was an invitation to having your heart cut out, doused with Tabasco sauce, and eaten with great glee; you - like all of the folks who regularly played in that group - had to be quick on the uptake, fast on the draw, and really smart; you had to know your stuff, or you'd get handed your head on a platter. The only exception to that was if you were a new player, and didn't come into the game session with an attitude; if you were polite and reasonable, that bunch of unreformed Visigoths would be more then happy to help you learn the game and the rules.

Phil Barker certainly did his own rules, of course, but his natural flair for story-telling usually showed through the rules mechanics.
Tekumel was the setting for his stories and fiction writing, and those of us who gamed with him were the 'bit players' in the story arc and quite often provided him with the 'local color' he used in his books.
Very quickly, he dropped using any rules more complicated then the following:

Prof. Mohammed abd Rahman Barker's Perfected Game Rules:

1) We both roll dice.
2) If you roll high, your view of reality prevails.
3) If I roll high, my view of reality prevails.
4) If we're close, we negotiate.

Simple, yes? I still use this complex and detailed set of rules to this very day, which - I assume - makes me a 'Narrativist' like Phil. Mind you, I also do all of my research and planning ahead of each game session, just like Dave did, so I guess I'm sort of a hybrid of the two genres. And just perhaps, is this hybrid 'old school'? The major objective of any game run by either of those two was to have fun; if there wasn't a laugh or two around the table in the course of the mayhem, we all thought we were slipping up somehow. I try very hard to make sure my players have fun, and I also make damn sure that I know my source material, too.

Over on the miniatures table, I run games pretty much the same way.
Yes, I confess, I did write a set of miniatures rules for Tekumel; it's still in print, still being played, and still being denounced as "too simplistic" by historical gamers (who have never played it) and as "too complicated" by RPG gamers (who have never played it). I might modestly mention that both types of gamers who have played the thing discover that it's neither, but that may not be important; what is important is that I try very hard to provide players with a good time; everyone gets something to do, everyone gets a laugh and some fun, and everyone gets to play equally heroically. I do the figures and the scenery, and that's where I get my jollies; I'm a model-builder before I'm a gamer. (Which may be rank heresy, and probably the subject of another essay.)

So, I think I'm a fossil. I game the same way both Dave and Phil did, and my players don't look at the published rules very much; they seem to be having fun at game sessions, which think is the point of the exercise. We keep it light, simple, and fun; is this 'old school'?

[Bold: mine]

I realise that the above will not settle the matter for either the Old Guard, the OSR or New School crowd, but then again, nothing is likely to do so.

Sally-forth unto Adventure, Honour, and Glory!

[RPG] I have been to the edge, and back!-

OK, not really that "monumentous" a trek, just reading through the Players' Manual and finding errors, inconsistencies, oddities, and other cool word-like thingies that need a fixin'.

My good buddy, Brian Penn, and I spoke on Sunday and he gave me his very non-D&D (and very Tunnels & Trolls) perspective on how it read and how terms he wasn't familiar with threw his initial perceptions for loops when they were later defined within the text. That was interesting. I think he's planning on posting those findings after he gets through with the Referee's Manual. I'll wait for him to speak for himself.

Beyond the new stuff (Sanguine Elements taking a larger role) I can see tighter editing on the background stuff in the PM, and some more of it being moved to either a Setting Manual, or the RM. Both groakes and Brian have given me great feedback on the Genetic Memory and incorporating it more fully into the low-tech setting of Early Autumn, without having to add rules mechanisms. Whew!

After tomo--, after today's (I'm writing this at 2am) game session, I ought to have the time to pore over the RM and make a list of what wisdom ought to be included. Some topics include city and nation 'building'; common-sense stuff about materials and their susceptibilities; how to make combat cool and exciting by thinking instead of coming up with boatloads of tack-on rules/feats/etc.; and, lots of imagination-inspiring (get the Ref out of a jam) tables to roll upon, from common folk met on roads, to random descriptions of Ancient complexes, etc.

If I have been somewhat more acerbic than usual (in other words, showing my personality rather than keeping this blog on task), I apologise for any wasted time in your blog reading lives. I hate that crap, too, and sadly, I occasionally slide into the cesspool.
--Having broken a toe on Tuesday night; getting into arguments with my father who is convinced I am keeping him from the Internet (although his Mac, too, seems to have been damaged in the lightning strike), and my ex- being diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer, I've been a bit ... stressed out.

So, here's to all of you gamers of all stripes who are going to be gaming this weekend.
--Do It Your Way, and old Blue Eyes will be smiling up from, er-- down from... Well, you catch my drift.

"I dare you to cross my line drawn in the sand!"

Yawn.

Next catastrophe, please.
:D

[General][Gaming][Philosophy] "We killz you fast fer lettin' uz go."

We may be losing one of the APG to a move, and may have a change of venue, as well.

Talking with a lot of gamers over the past two weeks, both in person, as well as via e-mail and on blogs has really demonstrated a few key things, although I'm not certain they can easily be put into words.
--I'll try:

• Like formative sexual experiences, our earliest gaming sessions seem to heavily contribute to the choices we make in selecting our future outlooks, down to even which games we will play, and how we perceive how they are to be played. --Kathy B. was my first real kiss, and although she was a terribly skittish sort of gal (horribly abusive home situation), she had a smouldering fire that blew me away that October night. In a way, she was the measure of all subsequent kisses. --Likewise, the first session of Joe C.'s AD&D campaign, in which I realised we were facing an undead (in the dark) before we got within melee range, and his appreciation for my intuitive-inferential way of thinking was a flip of the light-switch that gaming could be more than the rules and rolling of the dice. I'd GM'd before that, but never had meet a 'peer' in the games. Although much of the subsequent Giants/Slavers/Depths of the Earth/Demon Web Pits campaign was highly adversarial, it became the measure of a good game.
• Phobic or other conditional experiences often cause us to steer clear of people, places, and things that have, in the past, caused us harm or turmoil, go on to inform us of patterns in our later life. --Sitting down to game with these shit-kicker Rebel sons in Jacksonville, I was already aware of their malign nature before I was filled in on their racial agenda being played-out in their campaign. I lasted about as long as it took to create my character. Later, I almost got into a fist fight with steroid-junkie Dane when he didn't like me calling him out on his hate rhetoric at my friends' store. --Now, when I meet pricks, online or at the table, I don't get angry...
• "That's not the way we ran it..." That's nice. Go run your own game. --Likewise, if I want to play in a game with folks with diametrically opposed gaming philosophies, I need to just STFU and play my character. Let the dice [wor]k me over, if that's my fate, but don't give the f[ol]ks ammo.
• "It's a man's world." Yeah. --Bruck up, sister.

So, for better or worse, prejudices and predilections inform our gaming attitudes, as they do everything else. Where we go from there is our own burden.

In my SO's 3.5 (forgive her) game the Ent, the Elven Wolf-shifter Druid, and my Grugach/Dryad/Eladrin Src1/Scout3 (hopefully soon to be Fey-pact Warlock) did our best to spare the lives of Goblins we bumped into when we strolled into their territory. The bow-happy alcoholic Halfling Rogue shot a captured gobbo in the hand of the Ent, losing much of whatever charm he had in the process.

Cutting the bonds of the second of the surviving gobbos after I updated their painted warning on the rocky entrance to their zone, now in 'Common' and 'Elven', my character was told,

"We killz you fast fer lettin' uz go."

Sweet. I'm making inroads with the anti-human critters. Soon the cities will be in ruins.

[Playtest Campaign] Rebel Yell-

AFTER Their crushing defeat at the hands of the Sneers, the Party decided not to cross any of the other bridges in the complex's first level. [Referee scores 1 point]

Instead, after [k]icking around a bit in the NW sector and discovering a tapestry in that Troll room, they concoct an Oxi-Clean type batch and clean the mould and crusted Troll-faeces from it to reveal a scene of the stark white Emperor Avrdyn of the Star Throne Empire (Summer era) in shiny metal full plate handing a sceptre or scroll tube to an Abbekqorru leader. Wojo, the former slave/altar boy of the Hierophantic Church, uses his ecclesiastical history knowledge to date the scene to roughly 1100 years prior, although the tapestry is clearly no older than 200 or so years, like the rest of the evidence they have found, including a mandala created by an Abbekqorru prisoner (a starship pilot) in one of the dungeon cells.

They debate going back into the worm-ridden undead barracks of the south eastern sector, but the collective remembrances of the group suggested against that plan of action, as they have no proof versus the Terror effect.

"Let's take the Lift Shaft to a lower level." Sez Tybalt.

Dumbfounded looks of incredulity meet that statement.

"We can't carry out our mapping mission without doing so, eventually."

...[the sound of acquiescence]
--Only freaky see-through-skin mutant-boy and the Warden with Kitty the bear remain behind, as the player bailed, not feeling well.

• Second Level: Protected by closed Blast Door.
• Third Level: Protected by glowing blue force-field.
• Fourth Level: Using the bizarre two-page map from the old JG City-State of the Invincible Overlord, the Shaft has a short corridor running NE, and a longer one running SSE.

Delver (WI Vrun Warrior-Noble) proceeds down he corridor, and at the half-way point, triggers the automated defences of the ship (they've puzzled that much out of their explorations, and interrogations), as he is no-longer human-enough to escape scrutiny (as witnessed when a different laz cannon shot at him and Wojo earlier). A deafening klaxon sounds and the door shuts, and the Shaft is sealed at each level by iris valves.
Tybalt uses Jaunt to see if he can pass through the defences, and is rewarded with success. Sadly, even carrying one person at a time will cause such strain upon his system that he'd have to take all their remaining healing potions just to get back up to the First Level. They debate the logistics of this plan, but, being Tybalt, he decides instead to probe further into the ship's darkness.

The door panel recognises him as Human, and due to his Engineering Genetic Memory background, the door opens for him. He proceeds and reaches a second door, followed initially by Delver. The AI seems to permit the transit of the Alien with the Human, and they move on to a third door. Delver hangs back before returning to the others.

Tybalt enters a trapezoidal chamber filled with alcoves of 'devices'. An amber light activates and moves toward him. He falls back in case it is an attack, but is pleased to see that it is some sort of utility light that hovers near him (similar to those in Lynch's DUNE film). The chamber is littered with bone shards and scraps of Ancients clothing. He gets to another door, opens it, and steps in.

"Roll Initiative."

"Uh. I got an 11."

"You see a hideous chalk-white woman with dessicated breasts and a wild mane of stark white hair. She is dressed in tattered clothing of the Ancients. There is an indigo light rising in her throat you can see through her open maw."

"I step back through the door."

"Please roll Initiative for the door-closing speed versus the woman."

"8."

"Tied."

"That means she's crushed by the door, right?" [hopeful]

"No. I means she steps through and the door loses right behind her, tearing off a slice of her. She seems unconcerned. That was your Action.
"What's your Lifeforce score?"

"+11"

[I roll to attack his Lifeforce and score a hit]

"I'll get back to you in a bit.
"You all hear, even over the klaxon, a hiss that begins to shred your auditory nerves. Just then, the klaxon stops, and you all can hear this terrible sound. Lifeforce, please."

[All but CiCi make it. She cowers, grabbing her knees, sobbing. The others lose that Round.]

"When next you are able to act, you distantly hear a sound like a sack of potatoes hitting the floor."

[Darius, Tybalt's mace-wielding Man-at-Arms and Delver rush down the hallway.]

"Darius. Are you Human?"

"He's Vrun."

"I know that, does he have his Knacks and stuff determined?"

"Yeah [blah-blah-blah]."

"Nothing about his true nature?"

"No."

"Okay. Please roll percentile. 51+ is Human."

"02. So, do those mutations kick in now?" [hopeful]

"Sadly, not yet. We'll have to determine that at some other point."
"Roll half of your Defence on d12, please."

"d12? Um. Can I Focus?"

"No. You know you need to declare it at the start of the Round."

"[$#!+]"
"13."

[I roll a 9 --darned thing is rusty from lack of use, dontchaknow?]

"You see a scorch mark just about where your head was going to be, before you twitch-dodged. Your go."

"I turn to see what shot at me and attack it if I can."

"The same sort of laser cannon you guys saw earler. What do you do?"

"I hit it with my mace."

[Hits. Does 2 points beyond its d12 v. blunt Armour roll.]

"It doesn't look damaged. Its go."
"It'll hit. Give me your Defence at full."

"Great. 01."

"You take it in the mouth. [Roll 5d8] [x]. Critical Damage."

"Critical Damage?"

"It comes directly off your Terminal Threshold."

[Blink-blink]

"I'm at -10 out of -14."

"Okay. Anyone else?"

[Delver rushes in, and we roll Initiative. He attacks it with his lightning ring for decent effect again. It fires, strikes, but his Reflection: LASER beams it back at full effect. The thing's AI retracts it back into the ceiling to render repairs and consider its course of action: 3 Rounds before it re-deploys.]

"Darius, you are now at -11. Anyone else?"

"CiCi can act? [yes] Okay she runs in and gives him a Cure Light at 1d6+1."

--"He has two potions!" sez Darius' player.

"Okay I give him the potions, too."

"Just roll 'em all together. 3d6+7"

"15."

"I'm back at 4."

"03. There is 0 to consider."

[-nods-]
[01 Round down to reactivation]

"I stand right under it and fire again."

"Roll."

[Hits. 15 points of elec.]

"Take that. No Armour."

"Huh? It bounced?"

"Yup."

[2 Rounds]

[CiCi empowers her mace by +2 by pumping in 10 of her DPs. It is now +3 to Hit/+5 to damage. Delver gets an acid flask ready. They 'ready an action' to strike ]
[It deploys again.]
[I question Delver/CiCi player as to their placement and smile as they are on opposite sides of the housing hatch. I imagine CiCi getting struck by the flask, but that doesn't happen. The Strike does some damage, but the acid virtually none.]
[It fires at CiCi, but she 'dodges'.]

"Let's hold it here. Tybalt, let me speak to you outside."

---
Tybalt hears the woman and a velvety-voiced man (like Berry White, but deeper and smoother) discussing who gets Tyb's spirit. The deep voice explains that the woman is undead and won't be filled with it, and 'He' is Tyb's sanguine lord. Lord Shadow banishes the bainsidhe and then Tyb feels himself flung into Deep Shadow. Other weird stuff from my previous 3.5/Pathfinder game which featured the Shadow Plane is referenced, but he doesn't catch them, and I explain. He laughs and is pleased he is given a 'tiny chance' to avoid being a Shade for the rest of history.
--He can still see the amber light hovering over his body. lol.