Willfully and Persistently

Booked Up for BASHCon

2012-01-19T10:55:00.001-05:00

Looks like we're all set to descend on Toledo for BASHCon XXVII in February. I'm running two events:

Shadows of Silver Cove (Peryton RPG+) You’ve clawed your way out of the underwater cocoons, felt your way to the surface, and clambered onto the shore. You’re free of the bizarre little crustaceans that had been feeding on your dreams, but what now? You have no idea where you are, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone around to ask. Could you have been the only ones to escape? Characters will be provided. This event is part of the Walk the Spiral campaign, but you don't have to know anything about that to play. Saturday 2pm-6pm
The Only Good Pirate (Call of Cthulhu) Modern day paranormal investigators are abducted by time-traveling pirates into a deadly nightmare world. Also, one of the players is secretly a ninja. (Hey, the theme of the con is Pirates vs. Ninjas, so I had to work it in somewhere!) Saturday 7:30pm-Midnight

And the other Peryton Gamers will be pretty busy too:

The Null'ood Queen (Trevor - Bolt & Hammer) This is an Indy RPG design by a Northwest Ohio Native. The participants will be using pre-generated characters. The setting takes place in a post-apocalyptic (Disease Caused) Earth, particularly the Western U.S.A. and will have to defeat an alien insect-like queen and her minions. Friday 1pm-3pm
Panic Station (Jerry - Board Game) A paranoia-driven partly cooperative game in which you control two characters in the Extermination Corps sent out by the government to investigate the presence of fiendish alien life forms. But, one player is secretly an alien, plotting against the others to keep them from competing their mission. Friday 6pm-7pm
Leprechaun Island (Tom - Tunnels & Trolls) Deep in the Issippyan Sea is the island of Obdlunn, and it's a stranger place than even your hardcore tunnel delver has ever experienced. A tunnel crawl for Tunnels and Trolls, 7+ edition, characters. The levels are roughly 4-6. PCs can be created here. Friday 7pm-Midnight
T&T Horror: Apocalypse Kinda Now (Jerry - Tunnels & Trolls) You are having a good old time at the BASH Con convention, but something does not seem to be right at the end of Saturday Night. The security guard is trying to get your group out the door, but others seem to be trying to get back in. Will you survive the night? Saturday 9am-1pm
The Massacre of Glass Town (Trevor - Bolt & Hammer) This is an Indy Game that uses pre-generated characters. The game setting is based in a post-apocalyptic (disease caused) Earth. The adventure itself takes place in the destroyed metropolis of Toledo, OH. What will they face? Who is that creature in the shadows? Join the game and find out. Saturday 3pm-6pm
Bigger Than a Breadbox (Tom - Call of Cthulhu) A group of UFO hunters found something last winter at the Castle of the Moth, but their notes seem rather incoherent. Did something just go bump in the night? Saturday 7pm - Midnight
Darkshade Chronicles - Ninja Dawn on Pirate Island (Jerry - AD&D 2nd Edition) You have been hired to hunt down Mad Morgan and his crew for terrorizing the High Seas, but who else is trying to take down the Pirate King? Characters provided - kid friendly. Sunday 9am-1pm

If you're going to be anywhere near Toledo, Ohio on the weekend of February 17-19, stop in and say hello!

Once More, We Have Survived

2012-01-11T10:27:00.000-05:00

I'm back from InConTroll, which was essentially a Troll Hoot in a game store in Indianapolis. We ran five sessions at the Arsenal Game Room & Cafe, four of which were playtests for our own new games.

Tom's Tunnels & Trolls game was a continuation of the campaign my wizard, Jerry's dwarf, and Trevor's troll have been making their way through with various extras for the past few years. This one had something to do with stuff being developed for the Trollish Delver's Peakvale setting. There was a high body count, but Jherrrii the Great and Alanthea survived, which is only proper.

Scott's ND-RPG card-based game has some neat rules. I'm eager to see where it goes. The scenario was really just a combat experiment though, so there's not much to say. My Walk the Spiral scenario, "Shadows of Silver Cove," went well, with several players saying they found it creepy and Twilight Zone-ish. I'll be running it again at BASHCon, so I'm not going to post the full summary until after that. Trevor took us on a snake-killing rampage with his Dynamo (which was originally Quantum and briefly Bolt & Hammer) RPG for the evening show, when, as usual, everyone was kind of punchy.

Finally, on Sunday, we played Scott's board game, a very detailed arena combat game in which we took the role of people who own gladiators (there's probably a better name for that which escapes me at the moment), equipping our various conscripts, champions, and monsters and sending them out to fight. It's not really my kind of game, but I still had a great time. He really has this thing well thought-out. I would probably have gotten tired of it if we played for the full duration, but for a few hours it was really cool.

And that's it. I'm not going to go into the kind of detail I usually do and write up the whole weekend because I'm kind of busy, but Tom and Jerry (I love saying that) have summed it all up admirably, and even provided pictures, in their own blogs.

A Weekend for Awesome Uber-Overlords (Tom)
InConTroll of the Arsenal - Day 1 (Jerry)
InConTroll of the Arsenal - Day 2 and 3 (Jerry)

And by the way, if you didn't get the classic film reference in the title of this entry, shame on you.

Friday Creature Feature: Denzohld the Devil-King

2011-12-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

"Body like Arnold with a Denzel face," the song goes. I've mentioned before that I always thought this sounded more like a monster from Babylonian mythology than a "mighty good man." I could see Denzohld the Devil-King with his army of goat-fish, breathing fire and wielding a barbed whip in his epic battle with Marduk. Further discussion led to a few additions, and now I have a Peryton RPG monster for you:

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Miscellaneous Updates

2011-12-13T11:08:00.003-05:00

'Kay, so here's some stuff that's going on:

We stopped by the North Coast Gamers Holiday Game Bash last weekend but weren't able to hang around as long as we would have liked. Still, it was a fun visit and we had a good session of Walk the Sprial.

There was an overall positive review of Peryton RPG over at Trollish Delver, complete with a wacky troller who apparently doesn't know the difference between Tom and me.
http://trollishdelver.blogspot.com/2011/12/peryton-fantasy-role-playing-game.html

Glow World, the second part of Tom's Quest for Trollstar is out too. It's an adventure for the New Khazan setting.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=97058

Tom has posted several installments of Trolls Upon Trolls, a series of monster write-ups for T&T. So far, he's got a Lope Troll, a Cave Troll, a Chaos Troll, and a Sea Troll. Readers are warned that these links are pure, unfiltered Tom. Enjoy in moderation.

Over on Google+, We've created a page for Peryton RPG.
http://plus.google.com/109670738359423897568/

It Came from Beyond the Stars, by Scott Malthouse, is out at DriveThruRPG and has already earned one good review.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=97555

Over at Troll Hammer, Paul Ingrassia has reviewed Tom's Under the Sundered Moon adventure (T&T, of course.)
http://trollhammerpress.blogspot.com/2011/12/t-supplement-under-sundered-moon-redux.html

Carnage in Wonderland

2011-11-09T22:54:00.000-05:00

My October was muted and dreamy, as it should be. While Halloween was a factor, lots of those dreams were also swirling around my plans for the upcoming Carnage 14. Despite some anticipated hitches, the preparation fell together rather easily. In between, I had also been entertaining myself by "checking in" on Facebook at various graveyards, shovel stores, occult bookstores and, once, "the Pawtuxet bungalow." I don't think anybody ever noticed but, in some ways, that made it even funnier. Have I filled in enough text to get past this picture yet? The ideal place to take it from would have been a little ways back, but since that would have put me in the middle of a busy street, I -- oh, here we are!

Wednesday
We took off early because Mike & Kelly were flying into Syracuse in the afternoon. I spent some time polishing off my notes and then sat back to enjoy the ride. Nothing much of note happened on the way, landing the four of us in a quaint old building in Little Falls, New York after a fancy dinner in a restaurant that looked like something out of The Godfather. A clock mysteriously fell off the wall. Tom has since decided that it was a train. Seems likely that it was something like that, but nobody heard a train at the time, and there hadn't been anyone nearby when it fell. Anyway, you can read all about the not-quite-spooky incident and the subsequent reenactment over at his blog. Apart from some unsettling dreams about demonic possession, I had a good night.

Thursday
I love the drive through New York and Vermont, but there's not much more to say about it than I've said in previous Carnage posts. At the resort, we checked in, got settled, and headed out to the lobby to hook up with our friends, after which we had a reunion dinner at Leda's. But all that is just the introduction. It's how you get to Andre's Thursday night horror session. This year he was back to good old Call of Cthulhu, none of that fudgey stuff. As before, it was in the closed-off pool room, complete with professional lighting and sound effects, and this time there was even fog. The scenario, Horror at Harwicke Castle, was great. I'm not allowed to say much, but there was a haunted castle with buried secrets and lots of people died. What more could you ask?

The game ran until four in the morning. The lights were all out, so I went to the room, just assuming Tom had moved on as well. When I got back and he wasn't there, I sent him a text message, only to hear the buzzing of his phone on the counter beside me. Oh well.

Friday

I didn't get much sleep that morning with everyone bustling around and Tom showing up and announcing that he had been abandoned on a bench in the bar, so I eventually gave up and got moving. That afternoon, I played Mindwar, a psychic spy/conspiracy setting for Dream Factory, a collaborative storytelling style RPG run by its creator, Benjamin Grant. It was a cool introductory scenario, and I had lots of fun being sneaky and manipulative.

In the dinner break, I found my way to the bar, chatted with lots of people, and finally got a pizza with Monk, Kelly, and Tom. Then it was off to bust ghosts (or rather, marching cards, a grabby mirror, and a gigantified slacker) in Tyler's Girl in the Looking Glass adventure. There was a particularly troublesome multi-part ghost at the end, but my lack of sleep was catching up to me by that point so the details are kind of hazy. Something about an ecto-unicycle. The part I was awake for was lots of fun, though.

I stopped by my appointed midnight game to let the GM know I was dropping out, and then went to bed. Of course, I knew I'd be missing at least one great party somewhere, but I was wiped out and needed to not be frazzled when I ran my game the next day.

Saturday

After a good night's sleep, I got out the door in time for the lunch-mingling and ate something from the hotel's concession stand. We picked up on some sinister scheming that Tom and Andre had started the night before about a Troll Hoot style get-together for horror games. Other chatter and socializing meandered about. Everyone seemed to be having a good time so far.

There was a bit of shuffling with my event, but it was all handled smoothly. Apparently, somebody glommed up a bunch of tables without telling the organizers that he was going to need more than one, so I and several other GM's were moved into a different room. All my registered players found me and, since I had five out of six seats filled anyway, I really can't complain. This one was called Throne of Gorgudai, but it was really part one of The Other Tower, which you can read all about with a wee clickety-click.

I'm a little fuzzy on the dinner mingle-break. I think that's when I got this picture of Ray hosting a tea party, but maybe not. Mostly I was thinking about my next event.

The Other Tower (part two) started fast. In addition to the three guys who pre-registered from the previous session (Steven and John had dropped out to play in that barroom brawl thing - apparently the GM gives you money) I had four last-minute joiners, one of whom I had to turn away because six is really all I can manage. So anyway, full table, and I decided to deviate from my plan a bit. Instead of handing out the fresh characters, I used some of my spare copies. Two of them were the same character as one who had dropped out, and one of them was a copy of someone who stayed in. If you want to know why this made sense, you'll have to read the summary.

The players for both sessions were great, and gave me a lot to build on for future sessions. Also, I got some good rules feedback for the game. Overall I'm very happy with the way it's going and can't wait to get on with the next one. And let me just say one more time, the players were awesome. I'll have to make sure that Carnage always marks some kind of milestone in the story.

I had finished up a little early, so I grabbed my laptop and made notes about the events in the game, hoping to remember as much of it as possible for the summary later. Eventually it got close to midnight, so I wandered over to Andre's Cthulhu Cognac Cave and joined the party. Naturally, Tom was already there, and told me about some girl who sat on his lap and broke the camera. Luckily, the only problem was that the battery door was open, and I was having too much fun to fuss about people sitting on Tom. Anyway, I was there till three or so but I'm not really sure when the party ended.

Sunday
Well, you know. Sunday. Checked out, sat around, did an interview with Tyler which I dread hearing because I'm terrible at these things. When I stopped to talk to Ray, he informed that he was the hot chick. If you've been paying attention, you'll probably get the joke here, but I failed to make that connection at the time so all I could think to say was, "yes you are." Chatted some more, said goodbye, went outside, came back, said goodbye, left for a farewell dinner at Leda's, came back, said goodbye. But finally (sigh) we really did leave and start the long drive through the mountains to Syracuse.

Monday
After a somewhat confusing breakfast, we investigated a few potential horror hoot sites, including the Maplewood Inn, which was such a nice place that it got Tom thinking about turning it into a real convention. At the Knight's Inn, we were fully educated on an exciting feature called, "standard rooms." Before long, it was time to return Monk and Kelly to their home somewhere inside the Syracuse airport.

Tom and I punched in some new instructions to our trusty travel guide, Mavis, and were led through Ithaca to good old Tag's.

We sort of found Tag's by accident after our first Carnage, and it's been a regular stop ever since. After yet another tasty meal accompanied by Shock Top Ale, we were about to head out when Tom spotted a guitar signed by Foreigner and wanted to take my picture next to it.

"I'm not really much of a Foreigner fan. Why do-?"
"Carl."
"Oh, hell yeah. Take my picture."

I don't NEED no instructions to know how to ROCK!

Sooo. Yeah. That's Carnage.

Back from Wonderland

2011-11-08T11:12:00.000-05:00

Carnage in Wonderland was awesome. It was a fun trip with lots of good friends and great gaming. I'll be updating this blog shortly with all the details, but Tom, speed-blogger that he is, has already got part one of his version up and able, so remember, don't believe his lies.

I can't get over how well the two-part pilot episode of the Walk the Spiral went. I managed to pull off one of my best GM'ing runs ever, but I also had two groups of excellent players without whom it could never have come to life. Like I said, more about that is coming real soon.

Lost in the Barrier Peaks

2011-09-30T09:37:00.000-04:00

I run a lot of convention games, and I've noticed some people actually use it as venue for sort of disjointed campaigns, posting the events of each session online and catching new players up at the start. And I'm sure lots of people have tried running campaigns that work along the lines of the TV series Lost, with a group of characters starting off in a limited environment, surrounded by tangled history and tantalizing partial revelations. That being the case, there's nothing magically inspirational about combining those two, but...

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Friday Creature Feature: Frost Wisp

2011-09-16T15:38:00.000-04:00

Providing lots of spirits for the Peryton RPG is still a goal, given their importance in spell-casting mishaps and creating magic items. Here's another one, with a picture, even! The picture was a fairly lucky find, considering that I wrote the description before I saw it.

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Parasite

2011-09-08T11:05:00.000-04:00

I wrote something along these lines once, but this is better:

There’s a parasite that eats crabs from the inside. It enters the crab by penetrating a weak spot, then spreads long rootlike tendrils through the crab’s interior... The crab’s immune system fails completely to recognize it, and it soon takes over the hapless crustacean, body and brain... It looks like a crab. It moves like a crab. For all I know, it tastes like a crab. But it isn’t a crab. Not anymore...

Read the rest. There's more to it.

Click Here for the Rest

Trollish Delver: The Kalessian Deadland {Steal this Setting}

2011-09-06T17:57:00.000-04:00

Trollish Delver: The Kalessian Deadland {Steal this Setting}

Go steal Scott Malthouse's setting. It's pretty cool.

Friday Creature Feature: Shard Weaver

2011-09-02T20:54:00.001-04:00

What? Friday Creature Feature? Oh yeah, I was doing that for a while, wasn't I? Okay, here's a Peryton RPG monster for ya. If you're more in the mood for Tunnels & Trolls, there's a new issue of Elder Tunnels you might want to check out. We'll talk about that schedule thing later.

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Gen Con 2011: Beyond Good and Evil

2011-08-10T13:05:00.007-04:00

In which we learn, among other things, that you can subtract from Awesome several times and still have an end result of Awesome.

So, yeah, a lot of things could have gone better this year, and I'm not just talking about the usual, "there was so much to do that I couldn't do everything that looked cool" thing. I mean stuff went wrong. You'll see what I mean.

But this isn't just any con. I'm sure it's possible to ruin Gen Con, but it takes more than a few mistakes and misfortunes to keep "the best four days in gaming" from living up to its nickname. No, really, they didn't pay me to say that. That's how I feel. I can see that I'm being ambiguous again, so I'll try and clear it up:
GEN CON ROCKS!

Okay, now on with the play-by-play. As always, you can click on the picture for a larger view, but you may find out that some of them are blurry.

Wednesday

We got out the door as soon as Tom could get home from work and get the car loaded, picked up Christy pretty much on schedule, and made it to the Stone Soup Inn (after stopping for Mexican food in a generic Ohio freeway town) by mid-afternoon. Then we hiked over to the convention center and shuffled through the line to pick up our badges and swag. The heat and humidity were abominable. Tom's Cthulhu Mansion table, for which eight tickets had been purchased online, was empty, so we had some drinks at Olives (in the Omni Hotel), then at The Ram, and finally hooked up with (Yog)Paul and headed over to Scotty's to meet Caed (the other Robin), Jeff (from Troll Hoot) and other people whose names always slip away from me. One of them was Australian.

We had some D&D-themed food specials (the waitress did an excellent job of explaining Otiluke to Tom) and chatted. I got a strange compliment on my hair: "it blows in the breeze even when there's no breeze." Maybe that means I'm a gorgon.

Thursday
It was probably Wednesday's combination of multiple forms of alcohol with the delicious and very spicy "Elder Dragon Chicken" that led to my digestive issues. Whatever it was, it kept me in the room most of the day and I had to cancel both of my Peryton RPG Fiend Folio Frenzy sessions. So much for showing off my game. Late in the afternoon, I wandered downtown, ran into Mandy in the Crowne Plaza lobby, and did some shopping. Got a couple of cool metal six-siders with blue pips.

After wandering around a bit more to check out the new convention center, I grabbed a quick bite to eat and sat down for a few minutes. I wasn't there very long before Ken St. Andre, his son James, and a guy named Brent drifted by and shanghaied me into a game of Magic: The Gathering. I hadn't played in a long time and it was fun to get back to it, although I had no cards of my own with me and had to borrow one of Ken's decks. I won the round but, not having built the deck, can't take much credit. This is one of the things I love about Gen Con: you never know when a game is going to just drop into your lap.

After a bit more wandering and a brief exchange of text messages with Tom, I led Ken and James to Acapulco Joe's for dinner. I found Paul on the way and dragged him along, because that's what I do when I find Paul. When we finally got there, I took a picture and told them to look exasperated because of the long walk, but only James played along. Inside, we found Tom, Scott (Sligo), Caed, Jeff, Colman, and... uh... I think maybe some other people. I'm not sure. It was a big table.

Everyone straggled back to The Stone Soup Inn for a private session of Tom's Cthulhu Dawn adventure. I think we did more damage to each other than any of the monsters did to us. We ended up staying on the boat instead of exploring the blacked-out city, which caused us to miss most of the plot. I think there were too many players for a serious Call of Cthulhu game, but it was still a good time just because so many people were hamming it up and Paul's roommate kept accidentally blasting our characters with his shotgun.

Friday

I tried to sleep in because of the upcoming Apocalypse All-Nighter, but I guess I just didn't stay up late enough the night before. Anyway, when I got to Crowne Plaza for my 2pm Aqua Teen Hunger Force and the Book of Beards session, I found only two players and this thing just doesn't work without at least four. Even though he had them to spare, Tom rudely refused to kill off any of the players in his T&T game for me, so I had to cancel.

Before I wandered far, Tom reported to Mike (Monk) and Kelly that I might be bored, so they found me and we hung out for a while. I got to see character sheets for the stuff Mike was running, including a Beavis and Butthead one which, even after pasting the time and date into this very blog some time ago, I had somehow not known he was doing. Kelly and I wandered around a little while Mike worked some more, and then we had a pre-apocalyptic dinner at the Crowne Plaza bar.

I didn't have anything scheduled for the seven o'clock slot, so I sat between the tables for Tom's Cthulhu Over Casablanca and Mike's Drag Racing Zombies from Beyond the Moon events and worked out some last-minute details for my upcoming Doctor Who adventure, Web of Light. At some point during these events, zombies attacked, diverting through our room from Caed's popular Zombie Walk. Hopefully the other gamers (who were not actually part of the Apocalypse event but had been stuffed into the room with us anyway) weren't too annoyed when people dressed like zombies staggered around their table and pawed the character sheets.

Not long after a chicken finger run to a very crowded Steak & Shake, my Web of Light event got started. The heroes were searching for the Doctor in a haunted (?) house. After deciding not to split the party, the insatiably curious reporter and a rock star from the 80's still went off to explore the house's alternate incarnations while the rest stayed in their own version, only occasionally meeting walking skins and ghostly figures while the others confronted faceless cultists and soul-sucking televisions. In the end, they hopped across worlds so many times (yes, I kept count) that nasty flying spider things appeared to clean up the timeline. They did all have the sense to flee at this point, getting out of the house just in time to watch the whole thing get sucked into the void. It was a fun bunch of players and an entertaining show for me.

At some point in that paragraph up there, it technically became Saturday, but, to me, the whole Apocalypse All-Nighter was Friday night, so it's all staying under this header.

Next up (at 3am) was Aqua Teen Hunger Force and the Book of Beards. A few of the best Aqua Teen players from last year's opening session showed up again and had recruited friends. It was, predictably, an amazing session. We had Frylock, Shake, Meatwad, Carl, The Cybernetic Ghost of XMas Past from the Future, and the Love Mummy. Meatwad was infected by the proto-super-corn Frylock was growing in Carl's pool. Eventually, it started ordering him to kill. The Love Mummy was used as an improvised steering device on Frylock's moon rocket. The adventure finished a little early, so we worked up a sequel, "The Search for Shake" (because Shake had been lost in space). Everyone switched characters and they proceeded to track Shake to Ceres, where a cult of space trees ("we don't know - WE'RE TREES") had propped up his algae-encrusted body as a totem. The session ended at around 5:30 when Frylock's attempt to revive Shake using the cloner resulted in the entire house animating as a giant algae-Shake-cornborg.

Tom's game was wrapping up at about the same time. It turned out that no one showed up for his 3 AM game, so they had just kept running with the one before it (The Horrible Fate of the Haunted House Hunters - the same scenario I played in at BASHCon). Caed suggested we all go to Steak & Shake for breakfast, and Tom's ghost hunters jumped right on that. Yes, I still consider this to be Friday night. One mediocre cup of yogurt and "fruit" with gigantic OJ later, we said our good-nights and Tom & I were marching back to the Stone Soup through almost tolerable weather while the sun came up.

Saturday
I slept through a lot of Saturday. Tom wandered off some time before I did. Eventually, I hacked my way through the steamy jungles of Indianapolis to meet the gang at Claddagh. After thinking of nothing but the joy of air conditioning for miles, I found the bastards eating outside. Out. Side. Tom's survival that day was a narrow thing. Four quick glasses of ice water later, though, I was comfortable and enjoying myself. I caught up with several people I hadn't seen much of, including but not limited to Jordan, Todd, and Christy. The ever-enigmatic Christy disappeared pretty early, though.

That was pretty much it for Saturday. Mike & Kelly were heading back and it seemed like my best chance to make it to the room in a group before the bars kicked Tom out at midnight or whenever. I had an event to go to in the morning anyway, and still wasn't sure I had recovered the fortitude to drink heavily. Apparently, I missed quite a party. If my extra sleep contributed as much to the quality of the next day's game as I think it did, though, it was worth it. Anyway, I like this picture even though I wasn't there when it was taken:

Sunday
Tom & I grabbed some quick breakfast stuff and crossed the Venusian lowlands to run Lilith Be a Lady Tonight and another Aqua Teen Hunger Force and the Book of Beards session. Having already played with my crew from last year, I was all set for this one to be just okay, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Everyone got into their characters, and the guy who played Carl did a great impression. Scott was there and, even though he had never seen the show, he got it right away and gave a nearly spot-on performance as Frylock. Some of my own ideas had taken a more useful form as well. This time, I remembered that Les Barbes Bizarre was written in hair and read with the tongue. Carl got clowned and lost his skin in a botched attempt to adapt him for life on the moon. Rather than destroy or guard the book, they sold it back to Future Wolf, who gave them a ride home in his "believable hair ship" but otherwise paid in IOU's based on the success of the screenplay he was trying to sell.

I finished quite a bit before Tom, so it was time for some last minute shopping. I ended up making all my purchases from the Who North America booth, grabbing a "You Never Forget Your First Doctor" t-shirt, a TARDIS handbook, and a DVD. I had been meaning to pick up Destiny of the Daleks or Vengeance on Varos but, when it came to it, I went with Kinda (the first syllable is pronounced like "kin"), which I had never seen, on a whim. It just seemed like more fun to see something new than to simply build my collection, even if it was a bit of a gamble.

We met at Champions for the victory dinner. That would be Tom, Mike, Kelly, Scott, Ken, James, and... maybe that was it. A guy called G'noll and his wife showed up to say hello but didn't stick around. Tom hit the exhibit hall and bought novels from all the booth writers who had successfully guilt-tripped him earlier. We also spotted David Nett from GOLD and chatted with him for a bit.

Scott took us to over to Arsenal, his gaming hangout, and then we went over to Jordan's neighborhood to eat, hang out, and play more games. I'll let you decide which of those locations the picture at right belongs to. Monday (no, Monday doesn't get its own header), we packed up and checked out a bit late, then went to Acapulco Joe's for a farewell lunch with Mike & Kelly before (sniffle) taking them to the airport. From there it was on home to Cleveland, where we were greeted with weather that was actually pleasant, and some happy cats.

I watched my Doctor Who DVD and quite enjoyed it. In the end, it was revealed that, "there is great danger in dreaming alone," which made it a wonderful epilogue for this year's Gen Con. So, while I could never entirely give up the indulgence of dreaming alone, I mean to bring along a few companions as often as I can. I'm thinking anywhere from three to 35,000.

As for next year, role-playing Aqua Teen Hunger Force has become one of the great joys of my life. I'm not sure what that says about my life, but the game is definitely on my schedule, probably with the show's new title, Aqua Unit Patrol Squad One. My modified BEAN rules worked really well, so I plan to stick with that. Staying closer to the convention center is a possibility. Finally, I mean to do a Micronauts scenario using a modified Peryton RPG system (much like what I'll be testing at Carnage this winter) and borrowing not only from that comic book, but also from Rom and other Bill Mantlo tales.

And, as always, there's Tom's blog, Part 1 and Part 2. Don't believe his lies.

Gen Con Gen Con Gen Con!

2011-08-02T09:29:00.000-04:00

One more day! (cue music)

Tomorrow morning, if all goes according to plan, we'll be on the road to Indianapolis for Gen Con. I'm really jazzed about my events for this year, especially the Aqua Teen Hunger Force one (yeah, I know the title has changed - I'll catch up next year), for which I've practically written my own game. I did not, of course, invent the core mechanic, or the idea of using food as a randomizer, which seems tailor made for a show about animated fast food products. Anyone who's interested, please do bring some generics by even if the event is sold out. People often don't show, and there may be room to squeeze in one more even if the official slots are all filled.

I'll be sure to post a travel log with pictures when I get back. Hope to see you there!

Kidney Bean

2011-07-07T22:13:00.000-04:00

What I should do here is write a review, but I hate reviews so here's what you get instead. The game you see on the right is "Bean!" and it's awesome. No, I didn't design it or have anything to do with designing it. I'm using it as the base system for my Aqua Teen Hunger Force adventures at Gen Con this year, though, and lots of other people play Bean and love it. You should buy yourself a copy just because you'll enjoy it and it's ridiculously cheap.

There's another reason I'm bringing this up, though. The guy who created this is a nice guy who has had some amazingly bad breaks in his life. Rather than go on about that, I'll just give you the link here. So, check out Bean. If you don't want it, but would still like to help, look at what else he's got for sale or just send him a donation.

This blog will return to its usual self-obsessed blather in 10, 9, 8, 7...

Suburb of Horrors

2011-06-29T09:21:00.000-04:00

Somewhere under a lost and lonely utility hutch of grim and foreboding aspect...

Eventually, I may have to use this. I've always suspected that there was something sinister under this place.

(Hint: Click the picture and look at the yellow letters in the middle of the box. If it still makes no sense to you, oh well. It won't be funny if I have to explain it.)

Space Disco

2011-06-28T11:43:00.000-04:00

Unsure what kind of music I was in the mood for today at work, I opened up Last.fm and stared at the blank "station" field. While I was trying to figure out what I should put in the search box, some mad voice whispered "space disco" in my ear.

Awesome. Totally freakin' awesome.

A Wedding With Style

2011-06-23T00:28:00.002-04:00

Now this is a cool wedding cake topper! Click the picture to enlarge it and take a look at the sort of beige book on the bottom left. Pity we had to be next to Orson Scott Card, though.

Dreams of the Cybermen

2011-06-21T19:49:00.003-04:00

The Mystery Machine
Session 1: Dreams of the Cybermen

I ran this adventure at Troll Hoot IV, kicking off what I'm going to optimistically describe as a campaign. Shut up. It could happen. With the character generation, I decided to have them not only come up with their own backgrounds, but the story behind their being in a time machine together, and the nature of the time/space capsule itself. Here's what they came up with:

Merwyn Harkness: A descendant of Jack, but from the mid-21st century. She's a Torchwood agent, generally sort of a test pilot for weird junk that the agency appropriates. In the course of poking around in a new time capsule, she found a sonic screwdriver and discovered a temporal anomaly which led to an unstable bridge between 2040 and the 1970's. At this interface she found...

Ramsey Walker: A scientist who is generally altruistic but has somewhat questionable ethics. As a contractor for Torchwood, he had stumbled across a time corridor experiment and used used it to try out some new enhancement drugs on an ambitious athlete in 1976. Merwyn caught up to him, tagged him with an ankle bracelet, and was about to take him home along with...

Dallas Rugby: An American pro football player from 1976. He was the beneficiary of Ramsey's drugs which, so far, don't seem to have had any serious side effects. Nevertheless, Merwyn tagged him as well and was taking him back to the future for testing, concerned that whatever Ramsey did to him might unduly disrupt the timeline. Like any good sci-fi football hero, he brought his cleats and pads with him. In Merwyn's time capsule, he met and attempted to converse with...

Brock Snow: Technical assistant to Merwyn. Never developed much because his player was sleepy, unlike...

Doctor Wyman: Wyman putters around, stumbling into and narrowly avoiding danger like Mister Magoo, and wears the same glasses. Merwyn chose this man to accompany her because she hoped his divergent mind would have some luck deciphering the arcane technology of their not-technically-stolen time capsule...

The Mystery Machine: On the inside it's kind of TARDIS-like, but the outside is the Scooby Doo van. Torchwood "recovered" this device under ambiguous circumstances and they have yet to master its quirky, quasi-sentient controls, a situation which draws us tumbling through the time vortex with Merwyn, her crew, and her prisoners, when...

The communication panels started beeping and flashing. A communication from Torchwood was coming through simultaneously with some other kind of alert with a weird symbol from the Mystery Machine systems. Merwyn kicked the console and lost the Torchwood message completely, but cleared up the other one. The beacon was directing them back to 1976, a circumstance strange enough that Merwyn felt it was worth turning back to investigate.

After some more fidgeting, Wyman was able to pull up a map that led them right to an abandoned house in Dallas's neighborhood. There, they found signs of an explosion, radioactive particles, and several patches scattered around the walls that looked conspicuously untouched and even differently decorated, like pieces of the house from different times. In the center, in a small hemispheric indention, they found a piece of a mask that looked similar to but not quite the same as a Cyberman's faceplace.

The Cybus Industries Cybermen of the alternate Earth were familiar to Merwyn and Wyman. Ramsey and Brock only knew what the public knew: these metal men had appeared one day out of nowhere, clearly favoring Torchwood facilities for their HQ, abducted people, converted them to Cybermen, and then abruptly disappeared. Most people, Ramsey included, believed that Torchwood was responsible for creating the Cybermen in the first place. (Nobody is supposed to know about Torchwood but, come on, everyone does.) Dallas thought the Cybermen were a disco band, although when someone mentioned the Doctor, he revealed that he had a big fat book about Doctor sightings throughout history and various conspiracy theories revolving around him.

Before anyone could stop him, Dallas picked up the mask and pressed it over his own face. The mask sparked and hissed and Dallas could feel it twisting its sides towards him. The weird patches of other-time around the building flickered and shifted to other viewpoints and then the mask fizzed out and went dead. Merwyn scanned it with her sonic screwdriver which, when plugged back into the Mystery Machine, revealed that there had been a momentary time-corridor into the future, although the readout was maddeningly vague.

So off they went to what they would soon discover to be the planet Sarkis, orbiting a red giant star in the year 3073. They stepped out among the blue scrub plants to find a lumpy landscape with a cliff and a waterfall in the distance. Closer by, across a shallow, rocky river, was a sleek black landing pod with a stylized "GCE" logo prominently displayed in chrome.

Three people were setting up camp outside the lander, while Zora Trask, a thin older woman with short graying hair, supervised. Tasseker Zal, a weathered man wearing body armor and carrying what appeared to be a Dalek gun adapted for human use, stood idly by and looked around. The three who were actually working were Rick Janneks, a young man with a blond ponytail, Minsk Curran, a big bald man with a bushy beard, and Alice Unwin, a petite red-haired woman with pale skin.

Rick immediately waved to our heroes and went out to meet them, to Trask's obvious disapproval. Trask nevertheless took charge and made the introductions, noting immediately that Ramsey and Dallas wore radio devices that marked them as criminals and requiring that Merwyn sign several forms (on a data pad) acknowledging her responsibility for their behavior. GCE, it turned out, stood for Gnumetis Consolidated Enterprises, a corporation with controlling interest in a number of companies, which Trask listed proudly.

Rick and Dallas hit it off immediately and, while the others discussed the reason GCE was here, Dallas, discovering that Rick was a technician from a society far in advance of Merwyn's, asked for help removing his ankle tag. Meanwhile, the others (and of course Dallas' player too, because I wasn't about to have people leave the room or start passing notes) were learning that there was supposed to be an ancient cryogenic facility with, possibly, some operating Cyberman units preserved inside. Trask offered to share information with Merwyn and her crew if they wanted to help out, after signing the appropriate waivers, of course.

Merwyn agreed to cooperate, secretly planning to destroy any Cyberman technology that was uncovered to prevent it from being reactivated, and the rest of the team followed her lead. Everyone started setting up for the search. Wyman helped with the dig coordination system and took the opportunity to scan and study 31st century technology. In the midst of another conversation, there was a flash and a high-pitched noise and Zal said, "Ha! Got the little bugger!" as the seared corpse of a long rodent-like creature tumbled down from the ridge. Minsk was terribly dismayed and complained to Trask about the hired security man killing off the local fauna.

Also during the day's work, Rick managed to surreptitiously disarm Dallas's security bracelet. (Okay, I passed one note.) Dallas left the device behind at the site, going back and later making the point to Merwyn that he could have escaped, but he's not a criminal and shouldn't have to be shackled. Everyone went back to the Mystery Machine for the night rather than hanging out at the GCE camp. Somewhat frustrating, but I suppose I should have come up with a way to separate them from the thing if I didn't want them using it in what's really a perfectly sensible manner.

The next day they resumed searching and, again, in the middle of a conversation, Zal fried a creature, this time an odd sort of hyena-like ape-creature. No one, including Minsk, paid much attention beyond the initial startled look. They found a skeletal hand with cybernetic support structures holding the bone together, and it looked like much of the circuitry was still in good shape. Wyman was eager to help examine it and stayed at the GCE camp well into the evening.

Later that night, Minsk was seen leaving the camp. Wyman called the Mystery Machine to let his friends know and Merwyn and Dallas followed him and found him digging at a previously uninvestigated location. I don't remember why they left (maybe to go get Ramsey?) but they came back to find Minsk dead by a now-empty hole with his neck broken. Following a set of obvious tracks, they caught up with an old-series Mondas Cyberman (which none of them had ever seen before) staggering into the wastes with a crazy Frankenstein walk. They made several attempts to stun or restrain it, but the encounter ended with Dallas spending a lot of story points and crushing its head with a rock.

I'm getting a lot of this out of order. I started compressing events as I realized that the original build-up was going to be too slow and some of the more complex details were never going to be explored, and I've lost track of exactly how it played out because I was getting a little punchy too. Maybe they were split up. It would explain why so many things happened that don't seem to fit together. It's also possible that this stuff happened over two nights instead of one.

At some point they were attacked by cyber-masked hyena-apes and they found some odd crystals which Wyman discovered to be almost life-like in their complexity, but clearly inert, like some kind of petroleum product.

Back at the hole, they found that Minsk's body was missing, and had been dragged away by someone who didn't leave tracks.

They also spotted Brock wondering off and, noticing that he was acting strangely and had acquired an earpiece like a hand-free wireless phone gadget, subdued him. They then discovered that it was wired into his brain and couldn't be pulled out without killing him. I don't remember what Brock was trying to do. I think he was going to work on the headless Cyberman.

Later still, Ramsey managed to disable the earpiece and remove the external part, leaving Brock with wires dangling out of his now-deaf ear. They discovered at this point that the earpiece had little tentacle-legs so it had probably been able to move around on its own.

They found Minsk's body being operated upon by an egg-shaped techno-organic creature with five faces. It hovered a few feet off the ground and had a ring of metallic tentacles dangling from its lower body.

They were able to stun the creature with a sonic blast and haul it back to a cell in the Mystery Machine. Once it woke up, they tried to interrogate it. It communicated oddly. While the five faces and voices were clearly just masks for one personality, it would rotate a different mask to face the person it was addressing at different times.

The Quintesson at first attempted to negotiate for its freedom, but all its offers were rebuffed with "no, you were turning people into Cybermen." It then became rather sullen and started telling them that their actions were irrelevant and could not impact the project plan. Then it started smiling at Ramsey. At about this time, Trask and Zal showed up, demanding that the Quintesson be turned over to them, as all cybernetic organisms discovered on-site were considered part of their defined scope of work and therefore property of GCE.

When it became clear that our heroes would have none of this, Zal started to draw his pistol but was tackled by... I keep thinking it was Ramsey, but it would seem to make more sense that it was Dallas. I'm not sure. Whoever it was, he spent a ton of story points to pull this off so that he not only tackled Zal, but made him crack his head on the wall and fall unconscious.

After thinking for a moment, almost seeming to be listening to something, Trask offered a tight, insincere smile and agreed to leave the Quintesson with them. "Be advised, however, that, by the end of this quarter, our action item list will be updated."

And that was it. Questions were left unanswered, but it was a bit after midnight and it seemed like as good a stopping place as any we were likely to reach.

One Night in Upper Sandusky

2011-06-20T20:25:00.045-04:00

When you play at this level, there's no ordinary venue. It's Toledo, or Indianapolis, or Vermont, or – or this place...

Okay, okay. It was really two nights. Fine. Just ruin the whole gag, why don't you? However you count it, we just wrapped up Troll Hoot IV (click away to find out what a Troll Hoot is) in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. It was two nights and a day of good solid geekery, and a great weekend away from the same old sights.

We got off to a good start straight from work and arrived early after an uneventful but somewhat interesting trip through the not-very-wilds of middle Ohio. It was a road we hadn't taken before, so there were some new sights to see. Different hills, other towns, sluggy brown Ohio rivers, stuff like that. I spent a lot of it scribbling notes for my event. Finding no one else there, we poked around the area on foot, ate lunch, and stopped by a convenience store for some snacks.

Trevor showed up, then the other Robin (Caed), Jeff, and Jerry. We milled about, trying to decide on place to have our kick-off dinner until Caed thought to ask the desk clerk at the hotel. She suggested M.J. Mugsy's downtown, which turned out to be an Italian restaurant with a great atmosphere. Oddly, we had the place almost to ourselves. One tasty meal and one snack/booze run later, we were back in the hotel and ready to start our first event.

The Null Queen
Traditionally, the Friday game at Troll Hoot has been more of a hypothetical construct. Seems like we've always had some people show up late and then, eager to reconnect and hang out, decided to skip that event. This time, we had it all together and were ready to start Trevor's Quantum RPG playtest scenario. We made our own characters, fidgeting over the unusual attribute generation system and the wide choice of exotic races. We ended up with a human, two bird people, a goat-man, and a cyborg in our party. The adventure started with a bang when a crazed robot burst into the bar and, upon being subdued, declared that he had been sent to fetch us for The Null Queen. After a sort of Keystone Cops road trip to the ruins of Hollywood (now ruled by machine people) we shot up a few robots and a lot of scenery, installed new parts in our cyborg friend, and discovered that the Null Queen was a giant mantis who didn't like us (possibly because we blew up her house).

Journey Through a Strange Valley

Saturday kicked off with Tom's Tunnels & Trolls adventure. My wizard, Jerry's dwarf, and Trevor's troll shaman picked up after their last adventure while Caed and Jeff rolled up a couple of goblins to join us. As you might guess from the name, this was a wilderness trip through a geothermic nightmare where we were plagued by invisible steam sprites and poor navigation. Climbing out of the sauna, we spotted a dragon flying away from the peak and just had to check out its lair. More climbing and ice-walking fun followed, with Jerry finally hopping onto his shield and almost snowboarding to his doom in a frozen cave. After escaping the dragon, we were out of time, so we wrapped it up there and had some lunch.

On the way back from lunch, while Jerry and Tom were talking politics and everyone else was busy with other chores, I poked at the weird rock some more and took pictures of the hotel. Anyone reading this who knows something about geology, please tell me what this rock is. You can get a better view by clicking on the picture. Caed and I were thinking it must be some kind of fossil, like petrified seaweed or something. Where those wormy shapes were broken, I could see differently colored core, and there were little iron nodules scattered about the boulder.

Feast and Famine
Jerry's d20 Game of Thrones scenario was next. We had pre-generated characters, but still had to digest quite a lot of the setting's complex medieval hierarchies before getting started. Jerry got us into the action smoothly, and had everyone's full attention as we escorted our not-quite-dead dude-of-high-social-standing through the bandit-ridden countryside to a castle where sneaky bastards were already plotting to make his return irrelevant. Once exposed, the head bastard demanded trial by combat, and Jeff's character (the now-famous deserter-turned-hero, Brock) stepped up to bisect his champion in one chop. I've since heard that Jeff is particularly eager to play this game again, but all of us had a good time, and the story was interesting enough to make me want to read more of Jerry's campaign blog.

Dreams of the Cybermen
Thank Grodd for night people and the semi-employed. After a full day and night of gaming and alcohol topped off by a delivery from A.J's Heavenly Pizza (another excellent local suggestion from the desk clerk), it was their unorthodox sleeping patterns that saved my game from total oblivion. As it was, we completely lost Jeff, and Jerry had to struggle to keep his eyes open. I was a little punchy, myself. I suppose there could have been a more proximal cause for all this lethargy, but let's not go there.

I've described the session in detail in my next post, but basically we had Caed's Torchwood agent (Merwyn Harkness), Tom's 1970's football player (Dallas Rugby), Trevor's Magoo-dude (Doctor Wyman), Jerry's scientist and supplier of questionable medicines (Ramsey something), and Jeff's ... I don't remember what Jeff was supposed to be, but his name was Brock. Jeff fell asleep pretty early, so his character didn't play much of a part until I had him zombified by a robot spider later in the game. They were in a time machine with a TARDIS-style extra-dimensional interior that looked like the Scooby Doo van from the outside (Caed's idea). Anyway, I had a great time, and I'm pretty sure Caed, Tom, and Trevor did too. Jerry was engaged at least enough to make his character fun.

After
Trevor vanished into the night. The rest of us had breakfast together (waffles!) the next day and headed home. Tom and I took a drive around town, then meandered home by the back roads, stopping close to home at El Arriero, formerly El Castillo Grande, and still a great Mexican restaurant with style and a view of the lake.

And then there's Tom's summary. Don't believe his lies.

A Dalek in Love

2011-06-07T17:32:00.001-04:00

Gather round, folks, and let me tell you about the worst Styx song ever, "She Cares." It starts off fine, telling a nice little story about... well, apparently about a sniper who can't bring himself to finish off his target. It's possible he still wings her, though.

I tried to be the perfect soldier

I tried to be what everyone said was expected

Somehow I was selected

Well, my hands were steady, my aim was true

But deep inside of my heart I knew

That I lacked the will

I just couldn't shoot to kill

Or maybe it's just a trite metaphor for baggin' a piece of tail. Either way, after a sweet courtship like that, she's bound to fall in love with him too, and a hideous chorus emerges in which we learn that she treats the speaker, "like a human," with the back-up voices echoing soulfully to the syrupy tune, "like a hewwwmaann." Touching, right? If only we could all find someone willing to go that extra mile and treat us like humans.

In the next verse, he's psychotically jealous and unfaithful to her at the same time. While his amazement at her continued affection is becoming easier to understand, the notion of treating someone like a human (like a hewwwmaann) still fails to awaken any emotion whatsoever in me. After all, if the guy's that much of a dick, I'd rather he be alone and miserable than singing perky songs about the one girl who treats him better than he deserves (like a hewwwmaann) after he ruined her life.

But I thought, you know, maybe I'm not giving this song a fair shake. Maybe it's about someone who really should be surprised to be treated like a human (like a hewwwmaann). Maybe he's a Dalek! Thinking it over, I realized that you really wouldn't have to change much for that to work.

It was all downhill from there.

So come along, boys and girls, go get the song playing on YouTube or something and then pop back over here to read the revised lyrics along with it, 'cause there's no way I'm ever gonna sing for you.

She Cares (Dalek Version)

Designed to be the perfect soldier
I only knew that I was what Davros created
Somehow I was mutated
Well one arm's a plunger, one arm's a tube
Inside the armor, I'm squirmy goo
And I lacked free will
I only knew how to kill

And still she treats me like a human

She says she'll still be there

I may be truly evil, but I'll be there
'Cause I know she cares

I exterminate the lesser species
I'm programmed to ensure that mine is the only one
That's how I thought it was done
But I went to far, forgot my place
My scheme to launch Earth deep into space
Seemed a sure-fire win
Oh what a fool I've been

And still she treats me like a human (like a human)

She says she'll still be there (that she'll be there)

I've just killed all her family, but she's not scared

'Cause somehow she cares

I guess that's the way it goes, the way that it goes

And nobody knows what compels her

She's seen my highs and lows and never let go

Oh yes she treats me like a human (like a human)

She says she'll still be there (that she'll be there)

I can't process these feelings, my heart's impaired

But somehow she cares

I guess that's the way it goes, the way that it goes

And nobody knows what compels her

She's seen my highs and lows and never let go

And when the Doctor kills us all again

I won't have to feel alone

'Cause I know she cares

The Evil Dead Party

2011-05-31T09:41:00.000-04:00

Are you saying there's a difference?

Cool Stuff from the Mail

2011-05-18T16:23:00.001-04:00

Okay, Tio was already here, but he's cool too.

Lost in Vicksburg

2011-05-18T09:18:00.000-04:00

I dreamed I was traveling, catching buses in the rain and rushing through crowded airports. Naveen Andrews was in one of the airport bars telling stories, but I couldn't follow the plot because the bartender kept grabbing me to natter on about the flooding in Vicksburg. My clock radio may have been to blame for that last part.

CSI: Transylvania

2011-05-17T11:21:00.001-04:00

Warning: this post has nothing to do with CSI anything. Not even Transylvania.

I recently finished reading Dracula (yeah, somehow I never got around to it before, but the magic combination of public transportation and Kindle has me catching up on a lot of reading) and noticed a couple of things. Lots of people whose jobs depend on reading books and saying clever things about them have read this book, so I don't really expect that I'm the first to make these observations, but hey, I've never heard them before, so maybe you haven't either.

The first is that I was kind of surprised to see Dracula described by Van Helsing as brilliant, but with a "child's brain." The explanation given is that this is a consequence of his transformation to a vampire and the condition is slowly fading, but his general description of Dracula's thought process is not a bad one for psychopathic serial killers in the real world. I wasn't expecting to see this in Dracula.

The one I found really interesting, though, is that Stoker seems to have gone out of his way to create a villain whose most fearsome natural enemy is the accountant. The Count has this grand plan to come creeping out of the darkest pits of the Old World and drag the people of London back into fangy serfdom, but he's got some issues. He has to sleep in his own special dirt, and he needs a place to hide while he's in a torpor. He even needs special transportation arrangements because he can't cross water unless somebody carries him. So how do you fight this dreaded monster from the past? You collate your documents. You make charts. You call up realtors and travel agents. Dracula may be more afraid of crosses and holy crackers, but what really kills him is modern bookkeeping.

So, you know, if you run into a vampire these days, don't bother making the sign of the cross; flash your smartphone at the bastard and watch him slither back into the Cold War.

Keamy

2011-05-17T09:18:00.000-04:00

Getting near the end of Season 4 in Lost (yeah, I can't believe I didn't get into this while it was on TV) and damn, that marine is an asshole! I guess it's sort of a "boy named Sue" effect, though. I mean, Keamy? Makes me wonder how bad his first name must be, to drive him into a field where he's called by his last.

"Hey, Wiggledog, come here and help me out with-"

"Shut up! Just shut up, damn you! It's Private Keamy now!"

"(chortle) Seriously? Okay, fine, Private Keamy."

"Graaaaaa!"

Troll Whoot

2011-04-27T13:25:00.001-04:00

No, that's not "woot;" it's "whoot," as in "who" grafted into "hoot." You know, all with the puns and stuff.

So, with the Beta City story done (a while back, actually, but then I got sick for like two weeks), I'm ready to move on to other projects. The adventure I'm planning to run for Troll Hoot is not next on the list, but that's what's been on my mind. And hey, I've gotta do it eventually, right?

Aaand I just realized I can't say much about it because some of the players will read this. I can say I'll be running it with Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space, it's called, "Dreams of the Cybermen," it uses - sort of - the classic series cybermen (for which I don't even have to come up with stats thanks to the nifty Aliens and Creatures set) and it cobbles together a bunch of threads from the show with, of course, my own additions. One of the things I'm enjoying about watching the Sixth Doctor episodes is that, so far, they seem more interested in the larger universe and how the pieces interact. I'd like to capture some of that here. I'm planning to have the players make their own characters. It'll delay the start a bit, but I can provide templates to help and I think it'll be worth it.

Okay, so apart from gushing over that game and its supplements again and telling you I'm excited about an adventure I can't describe, what's the point of this post? I have to admit that I don't feel much obligation to provide a point. If you don't like aimless meandering scrawl, why are you reading blogs in the first place? However, there's also the Troll Hoot itself (which I've written about previously) to talk about. Troll Hoot IV is going to be in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. Kind of a central location for our group, and it was generally agreed that there's no point in looking for an interesting town when we're mainly there to play games in the hotel.

And, oh yeah, the Friday Creature Feature might resume this week, but more likely next. I keep coming up with stuff I want to reserve for surprise effect in adventures and can't just toss into the web.

Friday Creature Feature: Pig-Leg

2011-04-01T10:55:00.003-04:00

Okay, this one is a bit silly (not like the completely serious "bloodbeard" from last time) in honor of April Fool's Day, but it's still a perfectly functional Peryton RPG monster. It was inspired by a misspelling of "peg-leg" (among other things) by students reading Treasure Island.

Since this critter has a punny name, it seemed almost criminal not to include Tunnels & Trolls stats as well. They're under the description.

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Adult Gaming Products

2011-03-31T23:49:00.000-04:00

I'll have a new critter up for the weekly feature tomorrow, but there's some news from Peryton Publishing that I thought I'd go ahead and share. Here's a quote direct from the web page:

This week, Peryton Publishing will be releasing its latest role-playing innovation, the Adult Series: RPG scenarios for the Pathfinder RPG and FUDGE rules system for unadulterated mature entertainment. Authors Ken St. Andre, Tom "Kopf" Loney, Hugh J. Hefner and Christine "Columbo" Crabb have thrust their long pens and juicy creative fluids into these tightly written portals to steamy, titillating adventure. With the art of S.Z. Crompton, Marcus DeParamour and Nigel Lowslo, we're proud to bring you some of the the finest R-rated and X-rated D&D scenarios ever designed.

For the full story, click here.

Reanimatrix Redux

2011-03-24T13:37:00.005-04:00

Wayback Machine to the rescue! The years-dead Dunwich Herald site is now undead, allowing me to link to a couple of the old articles listed on my freelance writing page. Others were buried too far under the Antarctic ice for even Wayback to retrieve, and of course there's no help for the deadbeat Book of Exodi, but hey, check out the "Cup of Happy" article. I'm still kinda proud of that one. And of course I can't help but pat myself on the back for the line, "Wal-Mart, like most corporations, has been accommodating hairy toad-beasts in its offices and meeting rooms for a long time," in the Wal-Mart article.

Friday Creature Feature: Bloodbeard

2011-03-19T15:37:00.001-04:00

Here's another critter from Qalidar converted to Peryton RPG as part of my slow progress towards restoring that setting to the game for which it should always have been written. And hey, special bonus, I've added the never-before-seen beard fungus mechanic to make it new and improved. See, sometimes you do get good stuff for free! Well, fungus anyway.

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About That Doctor Who Campaign

2011-03-16T12:50:00.003-04:00

We're still playing. Not as often as I hoped, but just the fact that we've managed to get together on something approximating a monthly interval is good news for this group. I may start doing regular session logs again. Or not. Haven't decided. I've been kind of busy.

In case you were wondering, our heroes discovered that the Editor probably is a Time Lord, although Alan is convinced that he's from an alternate reality. He lost "the greater part of [his] past" when the Time War was locked, but was not fully trapped because of his "temporally distributed" cybernetic consciousness. How this might fit in with the story of the near-identical guy from "The Long Game" has yet to be addressed because the characters didn't see that episode.

They have since foiled the Editor's attempt to punch a hole through a string of alternate realities with a zygma (yes, that's how it's spelled) beam, commandeered his time capsule (yeah, I tried - unsuccessfully - to fight the inevitable tendency to call it a TARDIS) met my version of the cybermen and helped them defeat some of the walking tank cybermen from the show, tracked down a criminal from the group they were helping, and they're in the middle of trying to stop multiple Editors from constructing a "temporal lynchpin" which would cause a-bad-thing-that-hasn't-been-fully-revealed.

One thing I've discovered: the trick to making adventure after adventure feel more like an episode of the show, and avoiding the dungeon-crawl-ish sequence of "explore maze, find bad guy, kill bad guy, collect treasure, repeat" seems to be non-player characters - lots of quirky, chatty, non-adversary (although often morally ambiguous) NPC's with stories of their own. I'm finding that this is where most of my prep time goes anymore, and it seems to be a good investment. Once the extras are introduced, the story sort of twists and turns and solves itself in all kinds of ways that I couldn't have predicted. I suppose this wouldn't work so well with crappy players who just want their non-player allies to carry the lantern, but luckily I haven't had that problem.

Anonymous TSR Employee

2011-03-08T13:39:00.000-05:00

I came across this little bit of gaming history from 1997 on the Wayback Machine. Never mind what I was doing.

Hi. I'm a TSR employee. At this time, I wish to remain anonymous. I have a few things to say about the possible upcoming buyout of TSR by Wizards Of The Coast. For the most part, I and the other TSR employees think that this will be a good thing. Many of the WotC staff members are AD&D gamers...

Click here for the rest.

Did it ever came out who this was? Or, for that matter, was it a single person at all? Don't get me wrong; I find it easy to believe that TSR-staffers felt this way. It's just that this wasn't something that popped up on a forum or a blog comment or even got mailed to a newspaper (Or was it? I suppose it's possible that they clipped it from some other publication after the fact.). It was posted on the company website, presumably with the knowledge and approval of lots of other people.

So anyway, I was thinking that maybe several people got together and wrote this up as a group, or maybe that it was just a public relations release, or maybe it really was just one person who wrote this up and gave it to the webmaster or whoever. Anybody know?

The Rosicrucian

2011-03-02T20:10:00.002-05:00

I was poking through bits of Shelley's work earlier today, mining the web for quotes, when I came across an interesting piece of information about my favorite poet: he wrote a couple of Gothic novels early in his career. Why didn't I know this? The first one, Zastrozzi, didn't really grab me, although I may come back to it later and give it more of a chance. The second one, though, has an alchemist! It's called St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian. I looked around and, sure enough, the book was available cheaply in electronic format. Check out this opener:

Red thunder-clouds, borne on the wings of the midnight whirlwind, floated, at fits, athwart the crimson-coloured orbit of the moon; the rising fierceness of the blast sighed through the stunted shrubs, which, bending before its violence, inclined towards the rocks whereon they grew: over the blackened expanse of heaven, at intervals, was spread the blue lightning's flash; it played upon the granite heights, and, with momentary brilliancy, disclosed the terrific scenery of the Alps, whose gigantic and mishapen summits, reddened by the transitory moon-beam, were crossed by black fleeting fragments of the tempest-clouds. The rain, in big drops, began to descend, and the thunder-peals, with louder and more deafening crash, to shake the zenith, till the long-protracted war, echoing from cavern to cavern, died, in indistinct murmurs, amidst the far-extended chain of mountains. In this scene, then, at this horrible and tempestuous hour, without one existent earthy being whom he might claim as friend, without one resource to which he might fly as an asylum from the horrors of neglect and poverty, stood Wolfstein;--

Even if you're one of those shriveled snobs who titters at "dark and stormy nights" like Beavis and Butthead upon spotting a fragmentary curse word, you've got to admit, this is the kind of language that transforms ink on a page into free-based fantasy. Okay, okay. I realize that, if you're one of the aforementioned snobs, you won't admit anything of the sort, but you should.

Anyway, finding an unknown novel by an author I love about a topic that fascinates me - that's like something out of dream! I've got some serious writing to get done, but I allowed myself a couple of hours with this fantastic new toy to warm myself up. I always do better work after I've been reading thick and chewy old school prose anyway.

Oh, and then I did some blogging, but now I'm going to get to work! Really!

After dinner. I mean, I gotta eat sometime, you know?

Friday Creature Feature: Shock-Hopper

2011-02-26T13:51:00.003-05:00

So, here's a cutie for Peryton RPG. It's a little late but, hey, they're cold-blooded. They like to sleep in.

Read more »

A Daydream of Justice

2011-02-23T12:59:00.002-05:00

In an online chat while at work, I mentioned to Tom that I'd been called for jury duty next week and...

Tom: My woman's going to be a judge! big bucks!

Me: lol. No, nobody wants that to happen.

Tom: Only the guilty don't

Me: I am Robin the Judge and I sentence you to FIRE!

Tom: 12 ppl were sentenced to be burned outside of cityhall today for repeated parking violations

Me: That's what you get for besmirching Robin's New World with your petty crimes!

Tom: And a convicted double homicide suspect who looked a lot like Stringer Bell on the TV show the Wire was sentenced to comunity service for a week.

Me: Well, sometimes you have to show mercy.

Tom: All hail Robin the merciful.

Me: Am I not merciful? AM I NOT MERCIFUL?

Tom: (room full of ppl wearing burlap yell "Yes!...?")

Me: Now there's a justice system I'd be proud to support.

BASHCon 2011

2011-02-21T17:06:00.002-05:00

...also called BASHCon XXVI. Lately I've been waffling on how to identify these things. Anyway, it's BASHCon, one of my two favorite small cons (the other being Carnage). Of course, as I've said before, nothing compares to Gen Con, but that's a whole other category.

BASHCon is hosted by the University of Toledo's BASH club at their student center. While there are drawbacks to not having the con inside or adjoining the hotel, the campus is a pleasant and somewhat nostalgic environment. The university I went to back in the 90's had a pretty sorry excuse for a student center (a pool table, some vending machines, and one medium-sized empty room), so I'm always appreciative of schools with a nice one.

We arrived in Toledo mid-afternoon on Friday, checked in to the hotel, and drove over to UT to slog our way through the registration lines. I got done first and wandered into the exhibit hall while Tom tried to figure out whether or not he had pre-registered. I wasn't planning to buy anything right away, but I was ambushed by a new supplement for the Doctor Who RPG, at a discounted price, even, and couldn't resist. I mean... Doctor Who, right?

I was signed up for Tom's Tunnels & Trolls game instead of running one myself Friday night. Whatever you think of Tunnels & Trolls (I like it, but I know lots of people don't), Tom's T&T sessions are the kind of adventure no gamer should miss. Jerry and (wow, I just noticed that: Tom & Jerry) another guy joined us and our crew of wizard, dwarf, and troll shaman took off through the Desert of Sulta with our less than modest goblin guide to find a lost pyramid.

The game came to a sudden stop when, at 11pm, the lights went out. Tom was convinced that the janitor just wanted to go home early. Maybe he's right. I dunno. Anyway, we all agreed to get back together tomorrow and finish the game, packed up our stuff as best we could by the light of our cell phones, and left.

We were back Saturday morning for my "Fiend Folio Frenzy" (Peryton RPG) and Tom's Glow (post-apocalyptic TAG variant). Not many people made it in that early, so when nobody showed for Tom's game, he jumped in on mine. Given the late start, there wasn't much chance of finishing the scenario, so I just let go of the steering wheel and watched the templar, orc fighter, and halfling berserker/wizard go wild and explore whatever nooks and crannies caught their eyes. I had a great time and I think it went well in general. Also, I noticed several small things I could change so that it'll run more smoothly in the direction it was meant to go when I do this at Gen Con.

We popped over to Phoenicia, a middle-eastern restaurant in the student center, for lunch and then found a table to finish our Tunnels & Trolls game from the night before. Everybody showed up on time and our characters successfully completed their mission. I had signed up for a different game (a rather interesting-sounding Aztec mystery), but Tom's Call of Cthulhu session was sounding better and better, so I canceled. After a short nap, we packed up again and returned for the evening session.

"The Horrible Fate of the Haunted House Hunters" kicked off at 6pm with a full table (not a surprise with Call of Cthulhu). Our characters were those ghost hunters who have a pro wrestler go around provoking the ghosts. You can imagine how that went. Jerry played the wrestler and was hilarious, especially when, as things got weirder, his character slipped into his "real voice," with a whiny east coast accent instead of his usual wrestler-growl. My character went insane, but not as insane as the research consultant, who eventually lit himself and our van on fire and crashed it into the haunted house. Top it off with tasty treats from Del Taco and you've got a heck of an evening.

Sunday morning, Tom & I found only empty tables for our events, so we jumped in on Jerry's 2nd Edition AD&D game instead. Tom grumbled occasionally about the evils of AD&D, but I was happy to play a bit more of the game that shaped most of my role-playing history. It was a fun scenario about some frog demons (slaad) kidnapping an entire village (incidentally spoiling the wedding plans of one character's daughter) and implanting their eggs in them. I thought it was cool that, in addition to us old timers, there were two kids in the group who were eager, attentive participants. A reporter for the local paper came by, took a few pictures, and asked Jerry some questions.

And that's pretty much it. Oh yeah, it got cold again.

Tom's write-up is split across several pages. Here's Part One and Part Two. Here's the long-awaited Part Three. Don't believe his lies.

Yeah, Again

2011-02-19T09:12:00.000-05:00

Sorry, no critter this week. I'm at BASHCon. Bought the new (well, new to me) Doctor Who aliens supplement which looks awesome so far, and had a great T&T game last night, although it was cut short by a mysterious late night power outage. We're going to try to get back together and finish it later today. I've got a Peryton RPG session to run in a few minutes.

Friday Creature Feature: Malicious Marauding Pyramid Heads

2011-02-11T21:58:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I feel like being original and creative, sometimes I feel like converting one of my old monsters, and sometimes I just feel like ripping off one of Tom's (literally) pulp villains. Guess what this is.
Read more »

Friday Creature Feature: Piping Spider

2011-02-04T08:45:00.000-05:00

Fans of Qalidar will already be familiar with the True20 version of this monster, but hey, we have to consider the poor grubby masses who don't own that book, right? The funny thing about putting this out as a Peryton RPG monster now, is that this is its original form. I created the piping spider for a scenario I ran back in 2008 called "Escape from the Artificer," which included all sorts of hideous patchwork critters. As a matter of fact, even the player characters were hideous patchwork critters. Seems like there was a reason this monster didn't make it into the revised rule book, but I can't remember what it was. Anyway, here's the spider:
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Roadside Ice

2011-01-31T15:08:00.000-05:00

Nope

2011-01-29T02:55:00.002-05:00

No creature feature this week. Just not feeling it for some reason.

Gen Con 2011 Events

2011-01-25T09:36:00.004-05:00

My events are submitted! Be sure to check out the Apocalypse All-Nighter event on Facebook too. Nothing's been officially approved, but here's what it looks like so far:

Fiend Folio Frenzy
It's the Frankenstein's monster of gaming! I'm going to take a bunch of monsters from the original Fiend Folio, come up with a reason to use them all in the same adventure, and, on top of my own stuff, maybe throw in some bits and pieces from old AD&D modules. (Peryton Fantasy Role-Playing Game)
RPG1118885 - Thursday 2011/08/04 09:00 AM (4 hours)
RPG1118886 - Thursday 2011/08/04 02:00 PM (4 hours)

Aqua Teen Hunger Force and the Book of Beards
Future Wolf is back in his Believable Hair Ship to warn the Aqua Teens of an otherworldly tome even more terrifying than the dreaded Necronomicon, and a cult more insane than Cthulhu's Cowboyz: Les Barbes Bizarre! (BEAN! The D2 RPG)
RPG1118876 - Friday 2011/08/05 02:00 PM (4 hours)
RPG1119567 - Saturday 2011/08/06 03:00 AM (4 hours) (we like to think of it as Friday night)
RPG1118877 - Sunday 2011/08/07 10:00 AM (4 hours)

Apocalypse All-Nighter: Web of Light
Following traces of the Doctor, a group of paranormal investigators stumbles into a nightmare. (Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space)
RPG1118306 - Friday 2011/08/05 11:00 PM (4 hours)

Here's the list of Tom's events as far as I know:

RPG1117874 Cthulhu Mansion III: The Burning Paperbag of Fear Wednesday at 06:00PM
RPG1117877 The Wrong Side of the Fuse Thursday at 09:00AM
RPG1117879 Gotterdammung in Rotterdamm Thursday at 01:00PM
RPG1117881 Big Sky Friday at 09:00AM
RPG1117883 The Bubble Pit Friday at 01:00PM
RPG1117884 Apocalypse All-Nighter: Cthulhu over Cassablanca Friday at 07:00PM
RPG1117886 Apocalypse All-Nighter: The Haunted House Hunters Saturday at 12:00AM
RPG1117897 Apocalypse All-Nighter: Cthulhu Dawn Saturday at 03:00AM
RPG1117900 Attack of the Androids Saturday at 02:00PM
RPG1117903 Rat-Pack Vs Cthulhu: Lillith Be A Lady Tonight Sunday at 10:00AM

And here's Mike Larsen (Monk)'s list:

RPG1117896 The Diary of Casanova
You and your team of intrepid adventurers have been recruited by SEWA, to obtain the Diary of Casanova. as always time is of the essence (a steampunk adventure)
thursday 2011/08/04 01:00 PM 3.5 hours

RPG1117904 Apocalypse All-Nighter: Drag Racing Zombi's from Beyond the Moon
First the saucers appeared,then the zombi's started terrorizing the good folk of Willow Grove Do you and your friends have what it takes to take care of these otherworldy menaces (a 1950's adventure)
Friday 2011/08/05 07:00 PM 4 hours

RPG1118588 Apocalypse All-Nighter: Zombi Double-Header
First up is a Zombi The earth won't hold the Dead adventure in real time called "The Eagle is Leaving" after that wind down and get your toon on with Beavis and Butthead and guests in "Punks down on the Farm"
Friday 2011/08/05 11:00 PM 2.5 hours

RPG1117908 A Soul Murder of Crows
Just another day in Willow Grove, except where did all these crows come from?,who's that hooded person skulking about at night? and why do some of the townspeople look pale almost death-like? all good questions, that need to be answered! (a 1950's adventure)
Saturday 2011/08/06 10:00 AM 4-hours

RPG1117930 The Blood Stone Quarry
The sheriff walks into a bar and starts talking to a wizard, a fight breaks out and now the wizard,the sheriff and Jesse James are now missing
Saturday 2011/08/06 02:00 PM 4-hours

Friday Creature Feature: Speed Demon

2011-01-22T01:06:00.000-05:00

Okay, so technically it's Saturday. Sue me. Here's another spirit you can use for those concentration failures.
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Friday Creature Feature: Nautilus

2011-01-14T17:34:00.000-05:00

Okay, so here's something a little different, a unique named spirit. You could also call it a demon or even a god, if that sounds better.
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Philosopher's Heart

2011-01-10T19:43:00.000-05:00

Like I said before, I figure I'll make up for missing last Friday's monster by tossing something completely different into the mix. So here ya go, a magic item for all those wanna-be alchemists in your campaign. For bonus points, tell me what happens if somebody eats it.

Philosopher's Heart

No one knows what a philosopher's heart would grow into should the strange seed ever fully germinate. Some say they are embryonic stars, others that they are the eggs of titans. More sober-minded scholars say they are simply tools created by ancient alchemists, with no larger destiny of their own. The seed looks somewhat like a large peach pit with a clingy olive-colored dust lining its crevices, and is warm to the touch.

The dust, if extracted from the seed and mixed with alchemical salt, will grow into a brown mold. If similarly removed and mixed with blood and ash, it becomes green slime. More of the stuff will form on the seed overnight, even if the entire surface is cleared. Using a philosopher's seed for a heart will reduce the cost of creating a golem or homunculus by 500gp, and the construct will have 1d4 more HD than it otherwise would have.

If the seed is kept in warm brine sprinkled with quartz dust for several days, it will begin to extrude spiny tendrils which will grow 1-6 inches (or to the walls of whatever container the seed is in) and stop. The seed cannot be grown beyond this point by any known means. The tendrils, however, can be detached and used for a number of purposes. In conjunction with an entangle spell, a full batch of the tendrils can be used to create the same effect as black tentacles. If ground and burned as incense, the tendrils can be used in place of the standard material components of the astral projection spell. Grafted onto another plant, the tendrils will grow into an assassin vine.

The seed itself burns as readily as any piece of wood, but cannot be destroyed in this way. Those looking into the heart of such a fire will see a mesmerizing sight as the seed comes to life, twisting and sprouting and subsiding with the entwining flames. This will continue for an hour if no other fuel is available, leaving the seed looking fresh and green for the next day. If the seed is cut apart, all but the largest (or, if all pieces are identical, one random piece) will crumble into gray ash. The one remaining piece will grow into a full-size philosopher's heart in one week.

Oops

2011-01-10T09:33:00.000-05:00

Sorry, I totally forgot about the Friday Creature Feature last week. I was off on a road trip celebrating Elvismas (and, coincidentally, Tom's birthday) with good friends who I don't get to see much. Tell ya what: I'll put up a cool magic item or something tonight or tomorrow to make up for it, and we'll be back on the regular schedule for this Friday.

It was a great trip, despite the fact that our destination was northern Indiana. I'll probably say more about it later, but I want to get this post up pretty quick.

Friday Creature Feature: Blood Spirit

2010-12-31T03:26:00.000-05:00

There's no vampire listing in the Peryton RPG monster section. That's because I was picturing a more medieval folk tale version of vampires and werewolves, primarily a manifestation of possession by certain kinds of spirits. It's pretty easy to do that with the tools provided in the game, but, to speed up the process and maybe spark some inspiration, here's a more firmly defined vampiric spirit.

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The War on the Friday Creature Feature

2010-12-22T18:21:00.000-05:00

I won't be posting a creature feature on Christmas Eve, even though it's Friday. Sorry. Okay, actually I'm not sorry at all; live with it. I'm planning to start up again the following Friday (yes, New Year's Eve, but that'll be before the partying starts).

Happy Holidays, everybody!

Friday Creature Feature: Dryx

2010-12-16T23:39:00.003-05:00

I was going to write all about how spirits are responsible for the concept of vampires and werewolves, but I got kind of busy with other things this week, so that story and the associated stat blocks will have to wait. Here's something freaky to keep you occupied in the meantime.

Oh, but before we dive into the monsterness, let me plug another creature featurin' blog, Paul Ingrassia's Troll Hammer. I didn't do it consciously, but it seems pretty likely that I accidentally swiped the name from here. As he pointed out, of course, we both swiped the name from so many other places that "swiped" isn't really the right word anymore, but hey, it's a cool blog so I wanted to give him a nod.

Anyway, even though it's technically still Thursday, here's the dryx:

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Friday Creature Feature: Silver Song

2010-12-10T09:19:00.003-05:00

SILVER SONG

Tiny Outsider (Spirit)

Hit Dice: 1d6

Speed: fly 30 (perfect)

Armor Class: 20 (+2 natural, +2 size, +3 dexterity, +3 spirit)

Attack Bonus: +5 melee

Damage: bite 1 + draining touch

Special Qualities: Draining Touch, Telekinesis, Manifestation, Rejuvenation

Saves: Fort +4, Ref +5, Will +5

Abilities: Str 4, Dex 17, Con -, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 17

Environment: green places

Silver songs resemble silvery snakes, generally around fifteen inches long, with prismatic dragonfly-like wings. As they fly, the droning of their wings seems to dance between tones with purpose, sketching the outline of a song that can just barely be heard. They are curious, mischievous spirits and enjoy encouraging these traits in others.

Detect Thoughts: A silver song can continuously use detect thoughts as the spell (caster level 18th; Will DC 15 negates). It can suppress or resume this ability as a free action.

Suggestion: The music of the silver song can influence listeners who aren't even aware of what they're hearing. The ability functions much the same as the spell, requiring a DC 16 Will save to resist the compulsion. Generally, the silver song will use this ability to nudge people into action when the spirit feels they're being overly cautious.

Other Spell-Like Abilities: (at will) color spray, silent image, any cantrip. The more powerful silver songs have additional spell-like abilities like major image, hypnotic pattern, and levels in character classes like wizard and mystic.

Snow!

2010-12-03T13:02:00.004-05:00

I've been dreading it, but I have to admit, now that the winter weather is settling in (or maybe I should say "Christmas weather" so I'm not accused of persecuting the poor helpless teabaggers) it kinda feels like coming home.

Friday Creature Feature: Golden Roar

2010-12-03T00:43:00.002-05:00

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm going to put up a new monster for Peryton RPG every Friday. Since a lot of the game's magic involves spirits, I thought some more of those might be useful to start with.

GOLDEN ROAR
Large Outsider (Spirit)
Hit Dice: 10d8+10
Speed: fly 30
Armor Class: 20 (+2 natural, +3 dex, +5 spirit)
Attack Bonus: +9 melee, +6 ranged
Damage: bite 1d8+5, claws 1d4+5
Special Qualities: Damage Reduction 10/magic, Frightful Moan (roar), Malevolence, Manifestation, Rejuvenation
Saves: Fort +8, Ref +7, Will +12
Abilities: Str 21, Dex 17, Con -, Int 10, Wis 17, Cha 20
Environment: Mountains

The golden roars are celestial spirits, beings of order. They live by an inflexible, inhuman philosophy, and can't even comprehend why others don't do the same. A golden roar's usual form is that of a towering humanoid with a lion's head.

Smite: Once per day, a manifested golden roar or one in possession of a material body, can make a normal melee attack to deal an extra eight points of damage.

Reintegration: As the templar ability of the same name. Golden roars can heal the living, or damage undead, for forty points per day by touch.

Tomorrow: Friday's Fiend

2010-12-02T11:25:00.000-05:00

Or, I dunno, maybe, "Friday Creature Feature"? What do you think? It won't necessarily be fiendish every time.

Anyway, I was going to go ahead and post another Peryton RPG monster today and then I thought, hey, why not make this, you know, a thing? As in a reliable, scheduled, thing. I don't think I'd keep up with a monster a day for very long, but I could manage one a week. And, if I'm going to do that, why not wait one more day for Friday instead of Thursday, a day no one will remember?

So there ya go. Tomorrow, a new monster. Be there or... I dunno... It would kind of hurt my feelings, I guess.

Tentacles from the Treetops

2010-11-29T11:07:00.000-05:00

Still haven't finished the Carnage travel log or posted anything substantial about the Doctor Who game from over a week ago, but hey, here's a monster for the Peryton RPG:

TREE CUTTLE
Large Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 8d8+11
Speed: 30 (60 brachiating)
Armor Class: 22
Attack Bonus: +10
Damage: tentacle 1d4+5, bite 1d8+2
Special Qualities: 8 attacks
Saves: Fort +7, Ref +8, Will +3
Abilities: Str 20, Dex 15, Con 13, Int 5, Wis 15, Cha 15
Environment: warm forest

The tree cuttle is an arboreal cephalopod that lurks in trees and ambushes prey from above. In addition to its fearsome tentacles and spiny shell, the tree cuttle possesses a startling glimmer of intelligence, building elaborate nests and occasionally even going so far as to set snares.

Psychic Camouflage: The tree cuttle also has rudimentary psionic abilities which it uses to emit a kind of psychic static that keeps people from thinking to look for it. Apply a secret -6 penalty to any search checks or other rolls to detect danger whenever a tree cuttle is nearby. A side-effect of this ability is that it sometimes creates minor hallucinatory effects. A fire might seem to have a oddly-colored halo, or a rustle of leaves might seem to carry an undercurrent of bells tinkling.

Yeah, sure, I posted this on the Peryton Publishing forum a while back, but it's new here. I'm thinking of doing more like this every now and then.

DW Snippet #1

2010-11-20T18:56:00.002-05:00

Tom (as Rick Waters): Well, it looked like a door!

Carnage the 13th

2010-11-10T20:41:00.001-05:00

Sick as I was for the first part of last week, I never stopped looking forward to Carnage. Last year's hastily thrown-together expedition and the drive home had been one of my favorite trips in a long time. This year I was taking extra time off to make a good long weekend of it.

Wednesday
We took off after work with the intention of driving as far as we felt like, stopping for the night, and going on in the morning. Somewhere along the way, I realized that I had once again forgotten my good camera and would have to rely on my serviceable but flash-less phone for all our pictures. Mavis, our trusty GPS gizmo (so named because the voice somehow sounds like a "Mavis" to me), guided us right to a cozy, relatively cheap motel in Syracuse (which, in the native tongue of the Onondaga Injuns, means "place of stopping for the night" and, despite what some pernicious liars would tell you, has nothing to do with any place in Sicily).

Thursday
Mavis took us over hill and dale (mountain and gorge, more like) to the shores of Lake Morey, where I was practically jumping up and down with excitement over the pre-con game we were about to play. Before that, though, we said hi to some friends from last year and met a few new ones. Tom, Christy, and I went out to an excellent Greek pizza place called Leda's with Tyler Dion, another of the Carnage organizers. I had somehow pictured Tyler as being angry and intimidating (maybe because his name sounds like Tyler Durden, or because he runs GURPS) but he was actually quite agreeable. He had a scarf like Tom Baker's in Doctor Who and he didn't burn my hand with lye even once.

Done with dinner, it was time to get back to the resort for The Andre Experience. Andre runs his games in a dark, closed-off room which he decorates with props appropriate to the scenario and tricks out with a professional lighting and sound system. Combined with his intense storytelling style, some great players, and creepy scenarios (okay, I can really only speak for "Incident at Owl Lake"), this gives you the kind of powerfully immersive gaming experience that might just make Tom Hanks think he can fly. It totally lived up to my expectations.

Friday

I slept in on Friday, partly to make sure I was over my cold and partly because I expected it to be my only chance to do so. Once I got out in the halls, I wandered around, picked up my con badge, checked out the somewhat spare but interesting exhibit hall, and finally found Tom hanging out with some friends because nobody showed for his game. Throw in a few more impromptu gatherings, a Spacers game, and a few trips to the conveniently-located lobby bar for bourbon & Coke, and you've pretty much got the flavor of Friday. I did some final prep work for my game ("Beyond the Caves of Chaos") the next day and went to bed early.

Saturday
I had to be up early because I signed up for the eight o'clock session. I don't know why I did that, but I did. Anyway, I had a nice little trip to the Keep on the Borderlands set up using the Doctor Who RPG rules. Player characters included a psychic agent, a wizard, a thief, an ill-tempered robot, and a flamethrower-wielding ewok based on my sister-in-law's character from our Star Wars campaign. Tom played too. I was pleased to see that the magic rules I grafted onto the game worked well, and everyone seemed to enjoy slipping between fragmented realities, evading pyramid-heads and robo-apes in addition to the usual Gygaxian fauna.

After lunch I got drafted into a game of Witch Hunter, in which I took the role of Sister Agnes of the Ashen Cross, a perpetually depressed nun with magic prayer powers. We rampaged through the seventeenth century world of the Dark Providence campaign digging up graves (although Sister Agnes opted to wander off and pretend that she didn't know this was happening), tying up rogue priests, delivering stern lectures, and picking up owl-demons & bonking them on the head. Neat game and a fun bunch of players. The "sin points" mechanic that makes misbehaving both a temptation and, ultimately, a bad idea, was cool.

After a quick dinner downstairs catching up with friends, I found out that the event I had signed up to attend early Sunday morning was also being offered as a midnight game. This sounded great to me, so I wandered about in search of registration options and, failing that, the guy running the event. Finding neither, but having been advised that it would probably be fine to just show up, I wandered off and took a nap while Tom ran his massive Call of Cthulhu event.

Showing up worked just fine. "One More from the Vault" was listed as a nostalgic trip through a yet-undetermined 1st Edition AD&D adventure. The group gathered somewhat slowly while Tom's Call of Cthulhu game was still in full swing across the room. We ended up settling on Tegel Manor, a trip through a suspiciously dungeon-like haunted mansion. I got out my very first set of polyhedral dice (not counting the crappy ones that came in the Basic & Expert D&D boxes) for the occasion, and they served me well. We played until four o'clock in the morning and nobody really wanted to stop, but we had slain some monsters, rescued some captives, and come to a good stopping place, and several of us had to travel the next day.

It was, as promised, a really fun old school romp and the nostalgia is still clinging to me. It was also the only time this weekend that I stayed out later than Tom. And, really, the game as we played it may be superceded, but it still works admirably well for its intended purpose. I think I'll hold babbling about the relative advantages of different D&D editions for another time, though... if ever. If you're interested in that topic, you can find enough to make you wish you'd never asked, just by browsing the Internet.

Sunday
I didn't have to get up early after all, but I didn't feel any great compulsion to sleep in, so I was up and about fairly promptly and packing up while Tom was... I'm not sure what Tom was doing. Anyway, we caught up to each other at one of the gaming tables surrounded by friends and then wandered off to the exhibit hall, where Tom bought some C.J. Henderson books and then was cleverly maneuvered into buying a Dark Magic and Donuts print. I didn't leave with any new goodies this year, but I had daydreams of running some kind of Ravenloft II based event (which I'm fairly certain will never happen) to entertain me.

And then there's the trip home, which is going to be worth a whole blog in itself.

Oh, and here's the link to Tom's write-up. Don't believe his lies.

Halloween, Rings, and Solo Things

2010-10-21T13:30:00.004-04:00

Two things. I finished re-reading The Lord of the Rings, and I played a Tunnels & Trolls solo.

There's not a lot to say about The Lord of the Rings. It's still Tolkien: fascinating world-building, moldy old morals, fun travel & exploration, some poignant scenes, some eagles ex machina, and a huge nostalgia trip. It's been a long time since I've gone all the way through the series, although I've re-read the first one several times over the years. This may, in fact, be only the second time since I was nine years old that I've read The Return of the King.

The T&T solo was "The Farmer's Daughter," one of the entries in our Elder Tunnels Halloween Special. Since I didn't have to edit this one, I had the luxury of not reading anything but my own scenario until after it was published. Apart from a Longest Night special by Ken which was more of an imaginative multi-page Christmas card than an actual adventure, this is my first T&T solo. I had always enjoyed the Endless Quest books and kind of liked the crunchier D&D solo adventures with actual dice-rolling that followed, and I adore Steve Jackson's disturbing Sorcery epic, so I was curious to see how this would compare.

The adventure is well done. The writing is moody and atmospheric without dragging, and the twists and turns are exciting. I thought the zombie scene was especially creepy. (I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying that, somewhere in the story, there are zombies.) Still, maybe I can't help a certain amount of bias towards anything from Peryton Publishing, so I'll keep the praise to a minimum. On to the downside of my solo experience:

The T&T community loves its solos, so you'd think the rules would be really well adapted to that style of play. In some respects, they are, but T&T combat is kind of depressing when you have to take both parts yourself. Calculate dice+adds from monster rating, roll monster dice+adds, roll your dice+adds, subtract, apply difference (minus armor) to constitution score, blah, blah, blah. And if it's not really one-sided, it takes forever. At least, it seems like forever. It's fun with someone else taking half (or more) of the burden and facilitating unexpected ideas. Not so much when you're huddled over a book alone and you just want to get on with the story. The drag is compounded when you're doing high-level combat. Even with dice-reducing formulae in play, the eternal grind of those enormous numbers makes going to bed early sound better and better.

So, yeah, I sort of cheated. I scaled everything down to a lower level, called the fights early when the direction seemed clear, and had a good time.

Elder Tunnels Halloween Special

2010-10-18T14:13:00.000-04:00

My horror adventure, "The Ephemera Furnace" is in this one, along with three others by some other people, edited and laid out by somebody else, with some art by... I dunno... artists. Did I mention that I wrote one of the scenarios?

http://perytonpublishing.com/elder_tunnels.htm#Halloween2010

Rogue Weekend

2010-10-11T10:10:00.000-04:00

No Doctor Who game this weekend. We were all too busy with the City of Heroes reactivation fest. I've tried a few MMO's that I thought were cool (and some that I didn't), but none of the others ever hooked me and kept pulling me back in like that one does.

Dear Cleveland

2010-10-05T09:15:00.000-04:00

I'm thrilled that you're looking out for the roads in my neighborhood. Seriously, the city is looking much better these days, and I'm grateful. I was just wondering, though, if you really think FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING is the best time to be firing up that jackhammer.

Just, you know, something to consider.

The Return of the Editor

2010-10-01T19:38:00.002-04:00

So, with everybody's character made, a bit of scenario-tinkering done, and a quick side chat with Shelly about Mr. Tripp's background, we were ready to get started.

After a quick CGI zoom from space, the camera settled on Angelo's Pizza in Cleveland, where Sally and Rick were just closing up for the night. On their way to the car, they heard glass breaking in the vintage record store across the street. While they discussed whether they should call the police, investigate for themselves, or some combination of the two, Alan Tripp came dashing out of the store, followed by two clockwork robots disguised as parking attendants. Sally screamed (Jack had been itching for the chance ever since he saw that "screamer" was a useful trait) and they all ran away while the robots were looking around baffled.

Once they got a couple of blocks away and there was no sign that the robots had followed them (Sally and Rick having made a point of following Alan). Alan asked if this was Cardiff and Rick said, "Is that in Pennsylvania?" Alan introduced himself as "Mr. Tripp" and explained that he was pursuing a fugitive named Harkness but some kind of feedback had damaged his vortex manipulator and dumped him in the room with two hostile robots. The readings suggested that a zygma beam device had been activated here, but he had never heard of such a device actually being used. In response to his query about possible temporal anomalies (apart from the robots) in the area, Sally said, "Well, the record shop does sell vinyl."

Rick wished Alan luck and was eager to get home, but Sally, already swooning, insisted that they couldn't just abandon this poor, time-lost peace officer, who didn't even have a place to stay.

Since they had to pass the record store on the way to Sally's car, and everything appeared to be calm again, Alan decided to check it out, suggesting that Sally and Rick stay clear. Of course, they went with him anyway. It was immediately clear that the robots were still inside, dragging a fancy oriental wardrobe with some kind of intricate device, possibly a lock, in the middle. A frosty-haired guy who looks like Simon Pegg was supervising.

Despite their attempt to be stealthy, he saw our heroes right away (Sally's a bit clumsy and has no points in subterfuge). "Ah," he said, smiling, "They told me I wouldn't have any help from the Agency until the cabinet was secured. Well, what are you skulking around for? Let's get to it."

"Yes, well," Alan said, "Mister Tripp, Time Agent, very pleased to meet you." (wink)

The stranger frowned but took Alan's hand, "You already know who I am. I'm the Editor, last of the Time Lords, and I'm here for the same reason you are."

And it was getting late, so we stopped it there. I'd love to explain all this, but my players read the blog sometimes, so you'll just have to find out when they do.

Mister Tripp and Company

2010-09-30T00:14:00.003-04:00

This past Sunday we kicked off my new Doctor Who campaign. Shelly and Jack came over, and, since we moved it to a day he wasn't working overtime, Tom decided to join in. I had a nice little low-key introductory scenario in mind where a group of present-day Earthlings are amazed to discover that there's a great gonzo Doctor Who cosmos out there. I was putting some last details together while they passed around the Player's Guide to make their characters. Then Shelly asked me if she could play a 51st century time agent.

Technically, it's one of those special options that the GM can freely rule out, but - come on - how could I ever show my face at a convention again if I told a player in a Doctor Who game that she couldn't be a time agent? And what kind of GM can't work around a little surprise? Also, I'm trying to win over a bunch of hard core T&T fanatics to a new game, so I have to use all the enthusiasm I can find, right?

So here's what we ended up with:

Alan Tripp (Shelly): a time agent who looks like James Marsters but isn't the same character as the one he played in Torchwood. Alan grew up in a colony on Skaro, an attempt to re-settle the planet at a time when the Daleks were thought to have been destroyed. Alan likes to be called "Mister Tripp" and has a broken vortex manipulator (basically Shelly can spend story points to make it do stuff, but it's otherwise useless).
Sally Kingfisher (Jack): waitress at a pizzeria who would shortly develop a crush on Alan. Sally wants to be a veterinarian.
Rick Waters (Tom): manager of the same pizzeria and Sally's jealous boyfriend. Fairly clever but a bit oblivious and flighty. Although not technically adept himself, he always seems to have the right thing in his pocket.

Everyone took their time on the characters (except Tom, who always breezes through that stuff) partly because I was the only one who had played the game before and partly because it's a point buy system, so it's never going to be one of those "roll up a character that you'll most likely kill before morning and rock on" games. Still, with attributes on a point-for-point scale, only twelve skills, and traits that only get complicated if you want them to, it's a quicker start than a lot of games I've played.

Anyway, the point is, this wasn't going to be a long session. Aaaand, I think I'll go to bed now and finish this later.

Strange Morning

2010-09-29T09:01:00.002-04:00

I hope to put up the summary of Sunday's Doctor Who game soon but, for now, I just wanted to say what a weird day this is. Woke up around four in the morning to a blacked-out house, found out later it was all over Cleveland and nobody seemed to know why. Walked to the bus stop in a cool, peaceful fog with no street lights. Whole thing has a very otherworldly feel to it. Latest thing I've heard is, "a preliminary investigation shows a protective relay sent an incorrect signal to a major transmission line, shutting the line down."

When the fog rolled in and the power went out, I was sure I was finally going to have to pay the price for Grandpa burning down that leper colony on Lake Erie.

Oh, and here's a link: http://www.wcpn.org/WCPN/news/32258

Prophet Crash

2010-09-24T10:01:00.001-04:00

I occasionally check my horoscope for the same reason I read fortune cookies or listen to Rush Limbaugh. It's fun and sometimes the inkblot of untethered assertions makes me think of things I wouldn't have otherwise. I must admit, though, that today's horoscope almost has me worried:

Scorpio
Sorry an error was encountered while loading your horoscope.

Did my future just blue-screen?

The Secret History of Troll Hoot

2010-09-21T13:02:00.005-04:00

No one can tell you what the Troll Hoot is, Neo; you have to see it for yourself.

A few years back, we got the idea that we could get together with some friends scattered about the Ohio area for periodic gaming. Nothing too serious, just every few months. We started out with a trip to Columbus for some Call of Cthulhu at the Red Roof Inn. That was fun, but we never really followed through. A fair bit later, Tom started announcing an upcoming "Troll Hoot" in Dayton with an open invitation to not only our current friends, but the whole Tunnels & Trolls (hence the name) community.

I thought it was a bit crazy, announcing this like a convention when it clearly was not, but Caed-Robin, always up for a party, signed on, followed soon by our friends-to-be, Mandy and Steve (and their dogs). We gamed and ate out and lurked in the gloomy bar and generally had a blast. So, there it was, a weekend of Tunnels & Trolls (and one of those trendy card games which I slept through) pulled off with no regrets. Even the run-down hotel was good for a laugh. We all agreed to do it again in a nicer place next year.

In the midst of all this, we met Monk at one of Tom's Gen Con events and they started chatting online. When we announced Troll Hoot II, Monk said he would be flying in from Arizona to attend. I kept asking Tom, "Does he realize it's just us?" Apparently he did. This Troll Hoot began the tradition of people running games other than T&T, with Monk adding some TAG to the mix and Steve introducing us to Rifts. Troll Hoot II also began the tradition of Caed promising to join in but ditching, and me scheduling a Star Wars event and then canceling it. Robins are fey and unpredictable creatures.

We skipped a year because 2009 was kind of crazy but, in 2010, with a lot of help from our friends, another Troll Hoot fell together, with a new player at that. I really couldn't complain anymore; the silly name worked. The non-con lives on.

So far, I've always left it to Tom to write these things up, so the summary blogs listed here are all his:

Troll Hoot I (2007)

Troll Hoot II (2008)

Troll Hoot III (2010)

Web Page
Summary
A more detailed summary from the forum (without pictures)

Troll Hoot IV is in the planning stage (update: see here instead). We're thinking downtown Mansfield in late April or early May, and I'm giving up on my old Star Wars event (which I did finally run in Arkansas, inadvertently kicking off a campaign that went on without me) in favor of the game I'm currently infatuated with, Doctor Who.

Allons-y!

2010-09-14T10:44:00.001-04:00

Looks like my Doctor Who campaign with Jack and Shelly (and Tom?) is a go for Saturday the 25th. I'm planning to have them make up their own characters rather than play the Doctor and companions. As much fun as it is to run the familiar stars in one-off sessions, I think the focus on imitation would stifle any kind of character development in a campaign. Besides, I'm always eager to meet the new faces that my friends put on at the game table, and they wouldn't be new if they all came from the show.

Already got some ideas for hurling them into the Time Vortex, but I want to see their characters before I set it in stone. I'm putting together a some details of a setting and some creatures & NPC's for a first adventure, which hopefully I'll be able to arrange on the spot for our first session. Jack & Shelly don't have the books, though, so we'll also be making characters at the table, and I suppose it's possible that they'll come up with something that'll require more detailed adaptation. We'll see. One of the things I love about this game is that it's really easy to improvise with.

The Top Secret Project

2010-09-05T20:19:00.002-04:00

I just got started working with my new collaborators and I'm pretty excited. As you can see, Antigone here has worked her paws to the bone this weekend and finally collapsed over the keyboard.

Unlike some cats I could mention, who just play on Facebook all day.

Gygax Speaks

2010-09-04T09:12:00.001-04:00

"Oh, mighty statue of the Most Holy Creator, we high priests of the Old School have come to make this offering of polyhedra and to seek any new wisdom you would offer us."

(and the sound you just heard would be the entire Order having a heart attack at once)

Einstein Will Burn Your Bible

2010-08-27T10:40:00.001-04:00

Wow.

E=mc2 Is a Liberal Conspiracy Against Jesus
By Max Fisher | August 10, 2010 10:13am

Andy Schlafly, son of controversial conservative figure Phyllis Shlafly and founder of Conservapedia, the ideologically oriented alternative to Wikipedia, has found a new bugbear: the theory of relativity. Shlafly insists that Albert Einstein's world-changing idea, elegantly expressed in the equation E=mc2, is part of a pervasive and long-held liberal conspiracy to make people have abortions and stop believing in Jesus...

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/features/view/feature/Emc2-Is-a-Liberal-Conspiracy-Against-Jesus-1788

House Condemned

2010-08-25T14:21:00.001-04:00

(with apologies to Langston Hughes)

What happens to a house condemned?
Does it bleach out
Like old paint in the sun?
Or shelter angry thugs--
Just for fun?
Does it slouch over sidewalks on the street?
Or feed the hungry termites--
with its starchy treats?
Maybe it stays up
till its nails corrode.
Or does it explode?

In reference to:
http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/08/save_the_langston_hughes_house.html

Edmund Fitzgerald Mural

2010-08-15T13:48:00.000-04:00

9+1=GenCon2010

2010-08-10T12:27:00.005-04:00

So... I'm back from another Gen Con. I suppose I should start with getting there. Monday and Tuesday were spent sleeplessly scrambling to get all the stuff ready that I had been not quite getting ready for a long time. Somehow this led to Wednesday morning, when I woke up in a culvert leading down into the Flats. More disturbing than this, perhaps, is the fact that Tom already knew where I was and came to pick me up on the way out of town without being called. Another stroke of luck was that I (or perhaps the person or people responsible for leaving me in that ditch) had, at some point, made all the character sheets and props I was going to need, and written down enough notes to get me through the games I would soon be running.

Wednesday
On the way in, we stopped for lunch across from the site of this year's Troll Hoot. For possibly the first time ever, we were able to move along without having to spend much time glowering at Columbus, and there were no construction projects on I-70. WAHOO!

After checking in at the Looking Glass, we set out through the hundred-degree steam-bath of Indianapolis to the convention center. Tom stopped along the way for an impulse haircut, which gave us a nice air-conditioned respite midway. First sight of the Fabled City of Nerds is always an emotional experience, and this one was no exception. The fact that downtown Indy is such a pleasant and welcoming hang-out is definitely a part of it. There's just nothing else like Gen Con.

The lines to pick up our badges looked pretty scary at first, but actually moved along with impressive speed. I had some trouble getting my free swag, as you can see below, but other than that it was cool. Another problem is that Tom somehow created some disturbing butt-related illusions when taking the picture. I'm not claiming to be thin, but the inhuman badonkadonk depicted here is mostly a trick of draping and photography. I promise.

After drinks and a snack at the Alcatraz, Tom started up his Cthulhu Mansion adventure, while I tried to get in touch with Mike (Lea, not Larsen - let's just call them Carl and Monk from now on to avoid confusion) and wandered around Union Station sticking my nose in whatever strange stairwell or tunnel presented itself. I was rewarded with this tidbit, a hotel connected to the station in which some of the rooms (no doubt the really expensive ones) are inside old train cars that line the halls. I also bumped into Caed and recovered a wandering YogPaul, which I captured and led to the Cthulhu Mansion game to fulfill its duties as co-keeper.

The good news is that the sauna was about to blow away and leave us with much cooler and dryer weather. The bad news is that Carl was cruising right in on the crest of the storm that was clearing it out. He managed to arrive without any clear idea of where he was or how to find a parking place, obliging me to sprint through the rain in a twisty multi-block path until I finally caught up with his car in order to guide him back to the Looking Glass.

Thursday

Tom was out the door before I was up, but eventually I got out there and helped Carl get his badge and stuff. The policy towards cell phones seemed to have changed since last year, but luckily I was able to hide mine from the murderous mobile-manglers long enough to get clear of them.

We had a big welcome to Gen Con lunch at Champions with everyone we could find (Me, Tom, Carl, Caed, Ken St. Andre, Monk, Kelly, and Zack (a new one for me). I opened my big mouth and quite possibly got myself roped into a non-paying writing gig, and there was much rejoicing. Then we broke off to dig into our various events.

Carl followed to watch my first session of Aqua Teen Hunger Force at the Mountains of Madness. He was scheduled to play in a later session (as -you guessed it- Carl), but didn't have anything else to do and there's really no spoiler that's going to matter in an Aqua Teen story. Two guys, who I now remember only as Meatwad and Travis of the Cosmos, were already waiting, and a full table settled in shortly after, including Carl, who sat in on this session as Mothmonsterman. This session may well be the most fun I've ever had a gaming table. Several players did first-rate impressions of their characters, and even the ones that weren't stunningly on-target were exceptionally good. The best compliment I got was "it's just like a new episode of the show." I can't take all that much credit for that, but hey, I made the thing happen, right? The session ended with a giant Old One (a mass of cardboard tubes and angry Meatwad-faces summoned "accidentally" by Frylock) destroying Australia while Meatwad found the secret of cosmic power and became ruler of the world, or at least New Jersey... or at least Shake.

Jerry from BASHCon was running Game of Thrones at the table next to me, so I invited him and Carl to come down to the nearest bar (Level One in the Hyatt) for drinks with Tom and whoever Tom was buying drinks for today. It must have been my psychic powers that told me where he would be. Tom's companero turned out to be John Kennedy, of the non-famous Kennedys. More happy milling-about ensued. Somehow we ran into Monk and Kelly and ended up eating at Claddagh (minus Jerry and John) and then lounging on the steps of Union Station, where we were joined shortly by Sligo/Scott of Trollhalla and Indianapolis. I tried to hang on for Tom's late night Cthulhu game but gave up and went back to the B&B to crash.

Friday

My first event of the day was my Beyond the Caves of Chaos True20 adventure (using extra rules & creatures from Qalidar). That one went well. I had a good group and I'm still liking True20, especially since I started using cards for the damage conditions. The Pyramid Heads (a menace I stole from Tom) were great fun with their knockback/stun-only kazap pistols. I was somewhat disappointed that my other main villains kept getting staggered so that the players never got shot by their bee guns. Ah well. Next time.

My next event wasn't until seven, and Carl was finally up, so we stopped at the Red Dragon Inn (which is normally the Circle City Grille in the Marriott) for some fantasy-themed drinks and snacks, then took a turn around the exhibit hall, which was dizzying as always. I wandered over and chatted with Ken & Rick (mostly Ken because Rick was really busy) at the Flying Buffalo booth. Shortly after, I'm reminded that Tom was planning some sort of dinner tonight. Since Carl and I (for those who've lost track, "Carl" is actually my brother, Mike) have an Aqua Teen game at seven, I decide to remind Tom of this. Well, Tom is in a game (I later found out it was T&T) that was going just swimmingly. "No time for chit-chat, old girl. You can sort things, spic-n-span, eh? There's a good lass."

Never one to disappoint a Victorian gentleman, I returned to Flying Buffalo with my trusty sidekick and set about sorting things the best I could. Ken and Rick would meet us all by the stage outside the exhibit hall and we would go to Champions from there. Mostly, it worked fine, but here's the problem. Ken and Rick were joining us at the most convenient dining spot after all the exhibitors were released from their cages in the exhibit hall. All at the same time. So, even when we switched over to Red Dragon, there was no way we were getting a table and moving on before the Aqua Teen game that Carl and I had coming up at seven. So, sadly, we had to bow out on what looked to be a fun dinner and go on to our game. I can lead my people to the Promised Land, but I must not enter.

A group of boardgamers had settled on our table, apparently having been told that it was an open gaming location, but they were very polite and even apologetic, so that was no big deal. Then a strange cult of uniformly tee-shirted gamers asked us to switch tables so they could all be together, which was fine as well. We got started with a much smaller group than before, featuring only Carl, Shake, and Frylock, with Meatwad as an NPC. Carl, of course, played Carl. With less frantic player activity, I had to provide a bit more plot to keep this one moving along. Instead of re-building the fish-bot to fly to Antarctica, Frylock invented a matter-transmitter which, of course, left them no way to get home after confronting MC Pee-Pants (reincarnated as an Elder Thing wearing a diaper). Another player showed up really really late and took over the Meatwad role. It got a bit of a slow start and it was never quite as insane as the first one, but it did evolve into lots of hilariously surreal Aqua Teen fun.

Tom was off on his own doing something for the rest of the night, so Carl and I found some comfy chairs with a table in the hallway and tried out his newly purchased card game, Timelines. Or Timestream. Or something like that. It was a fun game, and it's just so totally Gen Con to be out in some random convention hall nook playing a game you had never heard of until that day.

Saturday

Saturday's first game was at nine in the morning. Crazy, I know. I was almost on time, greeted by a table full of Aqua Teen fans who weren't going to give up that easily. They were funny in their own right, but not as dead-on with the Aqua Teen style as the others had been. Still, Shake tried to become a heavy metal rock star named Ingmar and Carl was used as a human landing cushion by Travis, only to be re-built by Frylock with mechanical penguin parts. Everyone but Frylock and Meatwad died when they brought down the mountain and ignored it.

My next game was at two, so I found Carl and we did some more shopping. I bought Eclipse Phase (I want it on record that I saw it and thought it looked cool before I knew about the awards) and we joined Tom at Acapulco Joe's, which is a bit of a hike from the convention center but, hey, it's pretty good Mexican. Tom regaled us with the story of how some twit in his game was not only surprised but actually outraged when his Call of Cthulhu character died. It's a horror game. What else is gonna happen?

Stuffed, we waddled back to the convention center (the long hike not seeming like such a bad idea anymore) to get our next events going. Tom had his Wrestlers vs. Dracula, Carl was off to try and get into a Star Wars Saga game, and I had another True20 Caves of Chaos session. This team stealthily avoided the pyramid heads and staged a pretty clever ambush to nab the high priest so they could interrogate him. One of them did walk right into my bee guns, though, and got stung to the point of incapacitation. Yay, bee guns! Neither this group nor the other one did much with my sub-plots, though. I suppose that's to be expected.

We were occasionally interrupted by the joyous war-whoops of the unruly mob next to us, which turned out to be Tom's wrestlers. I watched a bit of the end. Tom would later downplay his own performance on several occasions, but I saw him brilliantly hamming up the announcer role, surrounded by guys who were having (and making) a resounding blast.

Tom and I hooked up with Carl (who had succeeded in getting to play Star Wars), Jordan, Monk, and Kelly at the Level One bar. Kelly seemed to be enjoying her first Gen Con, mostly engaging in dark Victorian fairy-centric games, which is not surprising because Monk loves that stuff. Monk & Kelly had other things to do, so Tom, Jordan, Carl, and I popped over to Champions.

While we were having dinner, Tom got a call from Todd Rooks, a friend and fellow Gen Con aficionado. He plays in a group that meets at Gen Con for a once-a-year ongoing dungeon crawl campaign called the Short Nine. The name comes from the fact that all the player characters are dwarves, halflings, and gnomes. Thankfully, I didn't get a dwarf. I hate the dwarves in fantasy games. I think they were experimenting with 4E D&D last year, but this year it looked like pretty much straight Pathfinder.

Anyway, they had a couple of open slots, so Carl and I jumped right on that and joined in for a great game that ran well after midnight. Carl's chipmunk-voice singing (he played a bard) and a few lucky contributions on my part apparently distinguished us enough to earn us entry into next year's game, "The Short Nine Plus One" (my character had been an NPC rescued by the original gang prior to my joining, and Mike's had been played by someone else).

Having totally played through my scheduled midnight game without realizing it, I was pretty much done for the night. Tom suggested that Carl and I take a cab back because he wanted to walk, believing that this would somehow help his aching ear. Although his walk took a detour through the new Scotty's Brewhouse (which I never got around to visiting), he eventually made it home.

Sunday

Ah, Sunday. Generally pleasant, but in a bittersweet way. All my GM'ing events were done, so I had only a visit to Tom's Rat Pack Cthulhu game (Fly Me to the Moon, this year) and a final round of shopping on my agenda. I was thrilled to see that the guy who had so brilliantly portrayed Frank in the original Rat Pack Cthulhu event was back for another performance. We split up to drop off our collected event tickets and scour the exhibit hall on our own. I picked up a Star Wars book (the Saga Edition sourcebook for Rebellion Era campaigns), a shirt that says "strike him down and take his place at my side," and a copy of that "who's a werewolf" party game (called something else officially, but I can't remember). Tom got some Stackpole novels, a Delta Green book, and maybe some other Flying Buffalo stuff. Carl picked up a shirt for Amy, some miniatures, and maybe some more Star Wars books. I saw YogPaul, who was entangled with a vendor, and we lamented never getting a chance to hang out. Guess where the rest of us met up for the after-party.

Back at Champions, we got a back room for myself, Tom, Carl, Monk, Kelly, and our new friend Diogo from Brazil. We toasted New Khazan and Gen Con and new friends. Carl left early because he had a longer drive home. Not too long after, the rest of us took off as well. I spent most of the trip home reading Eclipse Phase. It's such an intricate world that I'm reading it pretty much straight through like a novel, and I haven't even gotten to the rules yet. It's an amazing setting, though. Can't wait to read more.

I'm thinking it would be easier to just do one scenario every time for next year's Gen Con, but it's hard to rule out so many other ideas. I want to do another True20 one with the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (or maybe Tharizdun) instead of the Caves of Chaos and of course there has to be an Aqua Teen sequel. I'm thinking, Aqua Teen Hunger Force and the Book of Beards, centering on the discovery of the long lost mythos tome, Les Barbes Bizarre. Maybe I'll just end up doing two again. And maybe something else will captivate me between now and registration time.

When we got home, I found this picture in my email box:

For an alternative (don't believe his lies) perspective on the event, check out Tom's blog.
For previous Gen Con posts, click here.

Fly Me to the Moon

2010-08-08T13:57:00.000-04:00

Extracting Milo

2010-08-07T21:42:00.000-04:00

The Short Nine

2010-08-07T21:16:00.000-04:00

Later Doctors

2010-08-07T12:07:00.000-04:00

Classic Doctors

2010-08-07T12:06:00.000-04:00

Heavy Metal Shake

2010-08-07T10:50:00.000-04:00

aka Ingmar

Cardhalla

2010-08-06T17:59:00.000-04:00

Sitting On The Porch

2010-08-05T20:12:00.000-04:00

.. at Union Station. Just had an awesome Aqua Teen game and dinner with Guinness at Claddagh.

Phone Killers

2010-08-05T18:22:00.001-04:00

Gen Con Street

2010-08-05T18:18:00.000-04:00

Level One

2010-08-05T18:04:00.000-04:00

Train Hall

2010-08-04T20:12:00.000-04:00

Found this by poking around Union Station while Tom set up his Cthulhu game. There are hotel rooms in the train!

Insert Eye Joke Here

2010-08-04T17:29:00.000-04:00

Gentlemen, Behold!

2010-08-04T16:26:00.000-04:00

I never get tired of saying that.

Getting Closer

2010-08-04T16:02:00.000-04:00

Quick Pit Stop

2010-08-04T11:20:00.000-04:00

..at a familiar site. Troll Hoot was here.

Updated Gen Con 2010 Events

2010-07-28T11:44:00.003-04:00

So here's the link to an old post about my (and Tom's) upcoming Gen Con events. I edited it to cross out some canceled events and change POW events to Villains & Vigilantes or Lucha Libre. Many of the "slots remaining" entries are now wrong. Even if it's full, you've got a chance with the equivalent number of generic tickets and a bribe. People often sign up for events at odd times (early morning, for instance) and then don't show, so that's always a good target.

http://www.christinalea.com/2010/04/gen-con-2010-events.html

Also, there's talk of an invite-only game of Villains and Vigilantes to be run back at the Looking Glass or in the open gaming area.

I'll probably be uploading pictures to this blog occasionally while I'm there. They may or may not appear on Facebook. The Facebook importer seems to get crazier and crazier as time goes on.

Under Pine

2010-07-27T08:02:00.000-04:00

Bomb Threat!

2010-07-21T13:09:00.001-04:00

How many times have I dreamed of this happening at other jobs?

edited to add:
Okay, this is funny. One of the biddies upstairs called the bomb squad because a man walked in, left a briefcase in the lobby, and left. So while we're all outside, jokingly accusing each other of masterminding the incident, coming up with ever-more elaborate schemes to explain why someone would blow up a building in Independence, Ohio, the squad is executing what must have been a hilariously dramatic briefcase-opening procedure. Turns out that the offending accessory belongs to the semi-retired consultant who shares our office. Most likely scenario seems to be that he forgot what he was doing and left it there by mistake. Another terrorist threat neutralized thanks to the vigilance of the people!

Quote for the Day

2010-07-17T09:56:00.002-04:00

Been watching Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix lately:

Sokka: Look! Can your fortunetelling explain that?
Villager: Hfft! Can your science explain why it rains?
Sokka: YES! Yes it can!

Yes, I'm still in Book One. Haven't seen the movie, either.

Salieri Sits in the Old Gum Tree

2010-07-09T09:15:00.002-04:00

Go on. Mock me. Laugh, Kookaburra! Laugh!

That was not Kookaburra laughing, Father. That was God. That was God laughing at me through that obscene giggle. Go on, Signore. Laugh. Show my mediocrity for all to see. One day I will laugh at you.

Before I leave this Earth, Kookaburra, I will laugh at you.

Sunset Storm

2010-06-27T21:09:00.001-04:00

That creepy gold sky after an early evening storm:

West Side Market Tower

2010-06-19T16:47:00.000-04:00

Killer Bees with Leprosy!

2010-05-20T12:02:00.000-04:00

Desperate to not be working, I wandered off to this list of dangerous home-invading wild animals. It starts off as you might expect: snakes, scorpions, alligators... Wait. Alligators will go into your house? Okay, I guess there's no reason they wouldn't, and I'm sure it would be a pretty bad thing if one did, once it woke up.

Between four and five is a John Deere ad. That makes sense. Don't want one of those monsters getting inside. Moving on, we have our traditional black widow warning, and a rabid bat. Rabid bats seem to be stretching the theme a bit, but I know it's a legitimate threat and something a lot of people don't think about, so okay. Next, mice infected with hantavirus. What? When did this turn into a Michael Crichton novel? I half expected to click the "next" button and be confronted with a picture of a dinosaur labeled, "genetic engineering."

But no, the next entry is just some kind of ceiling mold that will sneak in and eat your baby if you somehow fail to notice that all your plaster has turned black. Then - you knew it was coming - we have the brown bear. "Never intentionally feed a bear," we are warned. I'm actually more worried about unintentionally feeding a bear.

And finally... KILLER BEES! This is cool because it has a picture of some honeybees, which are about the most beautiful animals I can think of. No sarcasm there; I really love bees. And jellyfish. Trilobites are pretty darn cool too but, despite my childhood attempt to re-create them by selectively breeding some roly-poly-looking things I found living in a stream, they're extinct.

Number eleven appears to be a man with a mummified thumb. Or Santa Claus with a broken hip. I guess I should get back to work now.

Go to the Window

2010-05-18T20:35:00.003-04:00

What, geeky observations about beer taps don't interest you? Fine, here's a different view.

Two-Hearted Ale

2010-05-18T20:09:00.004-04:00

Suppose this is what the Doctor drinks?

The Beast Below

2010-05-17T10:46:00.002-04:00

Yes, I'm a little behind on my Doctor Who episodes. I could catch up, but I think I'll just stay behind, do one a week, and savor every episode... unless there's a cliffhanger I just can't stand, which is actually another good reason for staying behind. ;-)

Anyway, I know the terrible secret of Spaceship UK and I know who's behind it. What I don't know is, who hired that little girl to read a creepy poem every time somebody gets dumped into the pit?

Still loving the new series. Matt Smith and Karen Gillan are great, the writing is spot on, and the new opening credits are growing on me. I love Smith's gotcha laugh, "ha-HAAA!" Seems very Doctor-ish. Amy Pond might be my favorite companion of the post-millennium show, but she hasn't surpassed Ace yet.
.

Alas, Poor Nagin

2010-05-14T07:47:00.000-04:00