2018 Clockwork & Cthulhu Campaign in Review

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Aww, The Vanishing Tower now has a holiday tradition! Reviewing the past year's blood-soaked saga of Clockwork & Cthulhu!

What were the top 5 hits of this past year for the longest running roleplaying game I've ever tried? There is so much to choose from, so much ground covered, consequences consummated and reckless adventure pursued... I'm just having a hard time deciding!

#5 You Tube! I know I am real late to the party here and this sure is some low-hanging fruit, but this is a recent development for my group and it has had an immediate impact on my enjoyment of our play. The live streaming and the resultant upload of the video for later review lets me remember important events, catch witty things my players are saying I otherwise miss and appreciate the effect of pacing on everyone's enjoyment of any given session. How else will I never forget -6 Hit Points is not considered being "softened-up" by the players?

#4 PC Death! Not once, but twice! The Scottish outlaw Creigh disappeared through a hole in the wall and Cousin Ralph Norton, a beast of a man, went down during a whirling knife and pistol fight. Player Characters can take more of a beating than the NPC's in my Renaissancegame but I am truly surprised this was the limit of the PC body count for 2018. Dice favored the players more than naught when life and success held in the balance. This puts two regular players on their third character each while everyone else is still on their original. In a long running campaign PC death changes the dynamic of the PC group. Comfortable niches are all but upturned and Players have to reinvent a game personality. I believe it is just enough work to make a player want to keep their existing character. I know as the Keeper I have to make not inconsequential choices on the fly for the introduction of a new character. It is important to not restrain from killing a PC when the dice roll against them just because I got invested in some story elements involving the stand out character. No plot armor allowed!

#3 Splitting the Party! One player went one way, one another, and still others clutched their wounds and looked for a place to lie low. The old OSR maxum of keeping your player group all together during the session must surely be tossed on the junk-heap of gaming history by now. 2018 saw the campaign enlivened with the players finding themselves making split-second decisions and getting cut off from one another. This spawned a couple of bonus sessions and overall made a greater campaign world. This doesn't mean a Keeper does not need to work extra hard on pacing and keeping everyone involved. I did have to schedule seperate sessions and find time for them, but it shouldn't be shied away from in session either. Zak's Frostbitten & Mutilated has a nifty adventure which gives any Game Master an example on how tension and interest can be maintained while splitting the party.

#2 The Birth of the Side Quest into a major Campaign Event! The PC's have gotten up in all manner of conflict with cosmic and local forces that the adventure ground literally squirms with the snakes of complications. Whether or not the PC's pursue their enemies, trouble with an agenda is sure to find them. The Keeper's most useful tool for handling PC's going in unknown directions are random encounter tables customized for the current adventure location. The running and gunning the players did in the streets of Old Yarmouth against alien antagonists and political rivals was all spawned from the fallout from a previous mission. The proper mix of success and setback with random encounters and prepared site locations gave the players complete agency against a backdrop of a responding campaign world. Did I say random encounter tables are essential? You know what fuels great tables? Great adventure content. Involved side quests come across better when you have interesting third party content to use. It is hard to constantly foster entertaining encounters so a smart Keeper will use quality content from others as solid footing to riff off of during live play.

And #1 is the Consummation of the Picaresque.  Sailing to the New World in pursuit of their ever-elusive initial adversary is kind of a big deal. Because it fit for the time period the voyage and the destination continued the campaign world-building. How the PC's arranged passage to the New World was an engaging adventure arc in its own right! The PC's jumped from Yarmouth, Norfolk, on to King's Lynn and then Africa. Each stop gave the PC's a chance to interact with the NPC's and they worked with their environment as they saw fit. Unique outcomes along the way, a hallmark of the picaresque,  will then plant the seeds for future, new adventures.

And that is what has stuck with me for this past year's play. There is one more session of 2018, this Sunday morning. No matter what occurs on the last day of this year 2019 feels like a year of reckoning. For the PC's, for the campaign long unanswered threads- some will be answered. This is right an just and the group has made it so. I wonder what this will bring the body count to?

A Vornheim Random Generator Page

I'm going to see how multiple pages on the blog work as a means to organize the random generators I'm making via Meander Banter's Automatic List to HTML Translator. This post over at D&Dw/PornStars helped crystalize the idea of using pages because, oh yeah, I use Vornheim the Complete City Kit in everything I run. 

So now I have a subject big enough to need its own page. I dove into Meandering Banter's HTML Translator and quickly broke it with the size of the file I was trying to create. Fortunately this blogger created version 2 which allowed me to create a generator with such a large combination set. This has the effect of a one-click generator for the interesting results which come from multiple random tables. I mean, if the online tool doesn't do anything different than the game book why make it? As I create more random generators from Zak's book I will add them to the separate page.

Scourge Books, the Royal Trux of podcasts

The anchor podcast party continues to grow and more and more episodes from anyone in the gaming universe are dropping every day. But the newest comer on this new block has got me out of the house and working on one of my game books in the parking lot where a lot of the local transients camp for the night.

Scourge Books has caught my attention with its glib attitude and basement living bombast which gets me thinking of overflowing ashtrays, empty liquor bottles and a corner of the room stacked with amps where the “band” practices. Where I’ve seen brevity reign (my podcast included) with gamer podcasts on anchor dropping in at fifteen minutes or less, Scourge Books plopped down an hour and half long first episode. A rambling bull session between “Scourge” and his “Woman”, keeping names and background absent, only revealing themselves through the dialogue; the gaming, video, music topics the two bounce through, the new show feels like a cut up four track mix reminiscent of DIY Heroin-Punk from the late eighties, except it is about table top gaming. And it is on the internet so immediately accessible. I’m sure someone can tell me in a red-hot minute who Scourge is, but for a brief moment the weird world of online content delivered me a dirty, underground thrill like reading Naked Lunch for the first time.

If Scourge and the Woman can keep it up, keep the topics revolving all hipster and eternally young and ultimately disposable Scourge Books podcasts could easily become a favorite listen of mine while I toil away on my own obscure DIY role playing projects. In a van. Down by the river.

Vornheim - My Most Used Game Supplement

I know I have droned on about this probably ad nauseum, but yes, Vornheim, The Complete City Kit by Zak S. continues to be the most used game product off my shelf during live play. I do use it sometimes for game prep, but, and I believe this is the point of the book, it works best for me when, midgame, I spin around in my chair and literally grab this small 64 page book off my bookshelf and put it  to use in the moment. 

Vornheim Commercial

My continuous campaign is set in 1646 England so the color, the fluff, of the book dovetails pretty seamlessly with this campaign world, but the nuts-and-bolts of the content, when stripped of the fluff, is a real honest-to-grimness Game Master/Referee tool I can use in any genre I'm running. The book has made a part of gaming I always found difficult to run a breeze and a joy. See, when I'm jamming a session there is a lot of noise going on upstairs in my head; what's around the next corner, what are the bad guys doing right now, how does the player's actions effect what is going on, should I arrest them... ? 

It may seem simple when a PC wants to make contact with their secret organization where would it be located, but it is just such tidbits I don't know which can bring my brain to an awkward stop, and worst of all, break the flow of play which most certainly is going on for the PC's. 

For example, today I only used the book once, but as I mentioned a PC wanted to make contact with their faction, a secretive organization which may or may not have a chapter in the current city. I called for a Streetwise skill roll for the PC to establish in a roll whether or not there was a chapter here for him to make contact with. If the roll fails then no luck. But the PC nailed it so I need to give him satisfaction. Go to the back of Vornheim, roll on the table and wala - Orphanage. It kind of bakes in what type of faction leader you are going to find. If I rolled a jeweler the location in the city, the contact's personality, all would be kind of different than the type of personality involved with an orphanage. Not saying the contact would be caring of the innocent, perhaps they hate kids with such a passion the orphanage allows them to enact their viciousness with no one noticing, but it does start the world building process right there at the table with credible elements. It is the English Civil War, there are going to be many orphaned and displaced children, who knows what they have seen... hooks just start mushrooming and all I have to do is sit back and wait for the PC to act. There is much more to the book than just building names, any of the numerous reviews out there can give you tons of detail. The big takeaway for you the reader is it is an in-play game tool which works!

This book is totally worth its weight in gold - highly recommended.

The Cursed Chateau and The Complete Strategist, a review

“Of all the game stores you've dragged me into that was by far the worse. That was gross.” the delightful Ms. Doesn't-Game-at-All announced when I debouched from The Complete Strategist. Not the esteemed flagship off Times Square, but its deformed clone down in Falls Church, Virginia. And she was right. I clutched The Cursed Chateau in my hand, my latest LotFP acquisition and purchased to conclude my latest game master mission. I've been on a haunted house kick lately because my Clockwork & Cthulhu game has swung in this direction for the latest set piece location. My first grabs were right from my own game shelf; Tegel Manor and Castle Amber. Two rpg classics from yesteryear. Not that I thought they are a best representation of such a setting for a haunted house background, but more to pick out fractal nuggets to give guidance for the next scene in the game. Anyways, this particular adventure arc was coming to its fateful conclusion, my gaming instincts served me well and I had some decent homespun horrors, but I still wanted to conclude my haunted house studies and The Cursed Chateau by James Maliszewski had made the list.

Truth be told the real horror of the day was the game store and not the purchase. 

“The floor was dirty, black mold on the walls. Every surface was sticky. But the bathroom,” here my lovely young companion visibly shook, “Pubes, there were pubes!” If she was one to shriek on a sunny southern street in public, she would have here, now, she was so unnerved. I couldn't argue the point. I've gotten used to the failed retail experience which is the usual FLGS but this was something spectacularly awful.

The Cursed Chateau gave me my vacation reading material and is a spectacular showcase of the design talent of Jez Gordon. The artist and graphic designer has done top quality work for Lamentations and his print publication chops are on unfettered display here. For myself this is the best I can say for the adventure as a whole. For twenty bucks I just got a tutorial on spot on game book layout and design. How to place your maps, how to write out your NPC's, where to place your random tables and how to add reference pages. Any DIY publisher or amature aficionado of game design should study this book.

I'm sure James is a marvelous game master at the table. From reading his old, voluminous blog on early game products I get the feeling he does what good game referees do; take a few fabulous bits and work off the actions of the PC's. But the haunted house content struck me as rather pedestrian. Maybe the “haunted house” set piece works best in play with player investment and therefore requires an extremely personal presentation. While Castle Amber, Tegel Manor and The Price of Evil can all give useful bits for the referee, I achieved my horror house building off inspiration created from the game to date. Find a place to use this classic trope in your game when you can, but I implore you embrace the loneliness of your task and rely on yourself.

Review Weapons Law, Solomon Kane, and Frostbitten & Mutilated for Utility

I went on Noble Knight to purchase Frostbitten & Mutilated, the new Lamentations of the Flame Princess hardback by Zak Smith. While there I took a peruse through the online clearance section. I have a serious gaming fetish for finding cheap gems of unforgotten, who knows what the fuck gaming lore which can be found in a bargain bin. This is because this is what I did at a game store when I was eleven. Generally you will be disappointed. Like scratch tickets. But there is a high achieved when you score. So I am told. Not surprising I find the dream of hotness usually comes from my own fat fingers. Actually it comes from online interaction with other table top role players.

So here is my breakdown; Weapons Law is old. It is nigh unusable because the type font is way too small. It shows its age with a ton of mechanical ambulations coupled with primitive production methods and making it all fit onto some format divorced from actual table top play. I guarantee  Rolemaster products came about through a competent game master in live play. A mushrooming of gamine thought. Pirate the PDF, much more useful. So early eighties game material is really only useful as a random table. That is if you know how to use random tables.

Savage Worlds Solomon Kane; how can I hate thee. Veryly much so. It retails for fifty bucks and I got it for fifteen. Graphic presentation plus volume makes any gamer willing to pay. Seriously, the cover is gorgeous.  I've read Kane for like real. Off the back of Howard's hot car interior pistol spray. I love me some REH. His vision of the character is not to be found within Pinnacle's paid for production values. I get it, the book opens right, no I don't get it. I know what I'm after.

So there I am left with Frost Bitten & Mutilated. Thumbing through the black and white pages rubbing off the failed silver embossing and enjoying the READ. I rub some more. I am a fidgety bitch so flaking off embossed script should only concern those who finger-nail chew. The art is savage. If you are going to do heavy metal sword and sorcery you better be savage. Just what I picked up from old original text. There is a reason Michael Moorcock lives in Cross Plains (he has cash) and I for the life of me do not know why he isn't  carried into North Texas Game Convention on the backs of broken thinking white dudes without  clue, lashing as a lightning Jesus...

Utility my friend. If you are a player well you are not my friend. I speak only to the referee, the game master, the keeper. Once again +Zak Smith provides a useful tool filled with content beyond what is usually available today. Seriously, it will take some time, sober time. to get your head around it. Patrick Stuart and Scrap Princess are the only ones who can keep up. Run it hard.

Norton & Goodman together again…

One of my regular players could not make last weeks regularly scheduled game. Going on over two years of online play he has never missed a session so he is involved in like everything which has happened to date. During the previous session when the good Dr. Thomas Norton last played he ended up getting separated from the party so being absent didn't force any hand-waving to explain his absence. Still, with vacation coming up here at the end of the week another regularly scheduled session was going to be scratched leaving the next live session not until February 18. Damn, just too darn long for my tastes. What to do, what to do…

I decided on an off week bonus game session. It would focus on the activities of the Dr. until he was able to rejoin the party proper. This would also give me a chance to let a previous regular player jump in for a session since, no fault of his own, he had to change his schedule like last year and could no longer make the live sessions.

Without going into a detailed session report, okay, a mildly detailed session report, I have to say I really like splitting the party and having action happen “off-screen” to the rest of the party. Time commitments are the only thing holding me back from doing this ongoing, but getting in another session covering mushrooming campaign action was a blast. First, I get a bigger game world with multiple courses of action occurring. Second, it gives me practice towards accomplishing my ultimate role-playing goal. I'm sure this has been done before, but I would like to have different campaigns with different players meet up in special cross-over sessions much like Elric would run into manifestations of himself in the multiverse. This means I would have tangential relations to the major world changing effects/enemies in each of the different campaign worlds and players who previously didn't know anything about the other game would find themselves face to face with PC's they've never encountered before, even possibly playing a completely different game system then the other party. Something uniquely doable with online play.

But on this night of January 19, 1646 in Great Yarmouth the gasping, spent Dr. is urged on by his old Puritan soldiering grognard companion Saul Goodman coming out of the gloom. Recently returned from a secret mission on Zeal's behalf he immediately searched for Dr. Thomas Norton when finished debriefing. Norton had split from his badly wounded companions in the hopes of keeping the escaping Xaxus/Martyn, the current villainous threat, and his loaded wagon in sight.

Random rolls established how long before the pair located the now abandoned wagon and we got underway. This is where I hoped to channel some of those great city pursuit adventures. A bit of Carlito's Way, The Matrix Reloaded, Collateral, Bourne Identity, etc. was what I had in mind for the session, but this is 1646. What kind of sexy, neo-noir, dangerous urban challenges does a cold night in the golden age of dysentery have to offer our ruthless duo? What would actually be interesting to encounter but not seem like utter rubbish? Going to the historical record has been really useful for my game prep. One, I know “bollocks” about this period of time, and two, +James Raggi has built his successful line of game adventures on this time period so this tells me there are plenty of real horrible tales to be told from such a record. Still the question stands, what is their to do in a town like Great Yarmouth when street lights haven't even been invented yet?

The abandoned wagon provided a rather staid opening for session start. I spiced it up with some hanger-ons drinking and fornicating among the ransacked goods. This gave the PC's their first chance to pick up the trail. Their target left with one of the locals and they got a direction. The next possible encounter was a Puritan mass for some of the destitute locals. While there target was not here I provided another clue from a parishioner. What made it interesting? I poached descriptions from the beginning of Moby Dick. Ishmael's night wanderings in Nantucket can provide great sights, sounds and smells of an active fishing town. Sexy? In the eye of the beholder. But its Melville, the guy can write. You would have to be one of Dr. Norton's patients not to respond somehow to what he is laying down. So this encounter gets the PC's some more concrete location information and they make their move. I couldn't find any “historical” record of my next location, I made it up, but it was time to put out my 1646 disco ball! An illicit “tea” shop serving up the new rage from the New World; coffee and cocaine! Complete with a tuned-up accordion player and upscale clientele. I'm a big fan of random encounters and I rolled a Doctor, a Dr. Howy Brass, as the random NPC the villain would encounter here. I rolled this ahead of time during my session prep. This gives me time to ask myself the usual questions; "Why would Xaxus find this person interesting/useful?", "What would such an encounter lead to?". This would be my plot hook to hang my alien god on so I wanted it to be satisfying, make sense and offer opportunities to kill PC's. Back to historical research. What fucked up things could your average Paracelsan physician get up into? I came away from google with Distillation Furnaces and Boyle's Law. Click, click, click. So we have coked out monied gentleman, one experimenting with purifying the mind of ill-humors and a desperate alien entity looking to convert as many people as possible to his cause as willing slaves, hmm….

I won't bore you with any more details. Suffice to say this provided plenty of activity and action for the PC's to engage with and let the bloody chips fall where they may. And it left me feeling, split the party? Hell yeah!

LotFP off the Shelf, again!

Today's game session had the PC's leaving the city proper hot on the heels of an adversary. I was prepared for the PC's to get bogged down in more street to street action but the random encounter I rolled gave them a slight advantage and they were able to allude the major confrontation which threatened them at session start. With increased freedom of movement the action quickly outstripped any prep I had done. Going on vacation soon so truth is I really did no prep for today's game.

We are playing Renaissance but I include many LotFP adventure modules in which to build my fantasy English Civil War world on. I'm not too worried about spoilers here because I chop up all the published materials I use to obfuscate what will come next. These are all seasoned gamers and have tons of time in CoC adventures so I know I have to work to keep things interesting. Including making encounters mysterious even if the players have read the material.

Saying I did no prep is not actually correct either. Because I like to purchase quality stuff that meant I had just what I needed on my shelf. Scenic Dunnsmouth was about to see its first game in live fire!

Now this adventure module by +Zzarchov Kowolski  is not one to use unread. But I had read through the module when I initially bought it and even used the built-in prep sequence to see what I had. Therefore I had some idea how I was going to use the content. I just didn't remember it all. What I did know was the module was filled with detailed NPC's and locations and should give me enough hooks and seeds to keep the hunt lively. The trick is what to cut away. Not every NPC can be a psychotic nut-job devil worshiping cannibal. Not every location can be fraught with danger, otherwise “suspension of disbelief” gets eroded and the campaign's uniqueness is diluted. This just makes the module the center of attention, not the PC's. The other trick is to deftly incorporate the ongoing game events the players are concerned with seamlessly with the written material in front of me. So the events don't seem forced or the PC's feel shoehorned into situations and their agency has been stripped away.

Scenic Dunnsmouth performed admirably. I was able to scan locations quickly and decide what would be encountered first. Followed by the laundry list of NPC's I could populate encounters with vivid personalities. This gave the PC's buttons and levers to push, get some environmental feedback as they figure out what to do. This also gives me time to make picks. Who is false, what are the dead ends, and where would the big bad go in this situation. I'm not saying walls of text and endless detail are what is found inside. No, just that Kowolski provides people and places which are interesting. With my random name generator I made earlier I was able to use the tried and true technique of changing names. But not always. Because in the rush of gaming I sometimes forget which name was assigned to which NPC. Peoples & Places and Miscellania were the two sections of Scenic Dunnsmouth I relied on the most. PC's got folks to interact with, their suspicious of everything which moves, I got only forty more minutes of game time to fill…

I don't want to make it sound like my whole game is one random table after another, but random tables are an essential tool to keep me from bogging down. Consistently LotFP adventures have given me these essential ingredients; 1. Interesting stuff for PC's to engage, and 2. Interesting stuff for me, the Game Master, to mull over and what it could mean for the PC's future fortunes.

I also don't want to make it sound that whatever comes off the LotFP press is useful to me. If adventure material does not fit my vision I'm not going to use it in the game. My players deserve more than just filler. But as I run more games not in the dungeon, without those reliable thick walls to contain a session's activities, I find this companies output gives me stuff to use immediately which interests me at the table as well as my players. This is also the easy part. Now things are set in motion. Now I need to drill down into my ideas and my originality to tie what was started by the PC's together into horrible climaxes where all hangs in the balance!

2017 Lamentations of the Flame Princess Clockwork & Cthulhu Campaign in Review

The shared campaign notes document is four pages long now. Player generated session reports are over 64,000 words. The campaign since it started covers five weeks of activity. This has taken 22 months of gaming with a live session every other week. Sometimes a month can go by without a game happening because of life. Either way the players have covered much ground and there has never been a let up on the action. The group of four core players is down to three with a fourth able to play infrequently. Sometimes we have five. There has been a total of three PC deaths, countless of NPC's of course.

The second year of BRP Cthulhu & Chivalry opened with the PC's trying to unlock the secrets of Constine Mallebench and ended with plans to storm a tavern to apprehend an alien god.

Here are the top five highlights of this year's action from your Keeper's perspective:

#5. Taking Advantage of Norton Manor: With the Senior Norton chasing his fancy back to Keswick and the Dr.'s bedridden mother laying close to catatonic the rest of the PC's did not let the Norton's crumbling fortunes deter them from enjoying the upscale digs. After the trail of gore and horror just endured, and more danger sure to be faced, the PC's counted a quiet evening at home a win. While typical wisecracks of using the “#1 Son” coffee mug, scraping blood and brains off their boots, using the monogrammed robes carried round the table made for memorable levity it was the indicated small release of tension among the Players which was most gratifying. This meant the game wasn't stale and there were still many more good adventures left in the campaign.

#4: To Kill A Mime: I love collateral damage. I like supers roleplaying for the implications of collateral damage at scale. Our Cthulhu & Chivalry world is but a background of literal collateral damage. War, famine, plague terrorize civilians country wide. Chaos and confusion are the order of the day. So it takes something exceptional to happen to make me notice any one death among many. Or just mimes. Are they the gnomes of seventeenth century alt-history gaming? When the PC's survived a street ambush and the smoke cleared we had mimes bleeding out and dying. The PC's promptly ignored their suffering and looked to the well being of other wounded bystanders forever establishing if “Street Entertainers” are rolled up for an encounter and they end up getting shot make them mimes if you want to hurry things along. My point is, what I find important about this bit of gaming goodness was that it was a procedurelly generated event. I enjoy being a game master because I get to world build and constantly pose the question of “What if… ?” to myself in fantastical context. But much of my enjoyment also comes from letting the PC's actions dictate what will be. Taking the great information being shared here in the Google+ OSR I've learned to use random tables for oh just about everything now. Name generators, encounter tables, reaction results. Published and homemade. Injecting random stuff and trusting the PC's will make something of it has been a real big learn for me. It gives me enthusiasm to muster more “stuff” for the PC's to do because I know each session is going to have as much surprise for myself as the players.

#3: Dr. Norton's Yarmouth Chronicles: I know it isn't great literature but the continued writings of the PC's of their trials not only is a fun read, but preserves vital world info I would otherwise forget. The in-game time has only been a month and a half. The voluminous testimony of events as they occurred reveals how chock full of “stuff” we cluttered the campaign with. Items or incidents which were thought of as bits of color now may be the source of entire adventure arcs. I'm sure our group has a better game as a result of these records.

#2: Inky Pete at the Asylum: Another randomly generated encounter which provided much more game than expected. Taking a cue once again from information and tips shared online I have a much better approach to making my own encounter tables. It basically boils down to a simple question; “If I roll it do I want to run it?” There goes all sorts of “normal” encounters I might reflexively generate for a game, or use from a published supplement. When I create a random encounter table for a session I now trust whatever comes up is going to be fun for myself as well as the players. If I don't want the PC's to encounter wolves in the woods don't put them on the random encounter table! And I don't mean every random encounter is pregnant with meaning or significance, but the idea is it is worth talking about and gives players “stuff” to do. This is a good place to point out how often I use Vornheim: The Complete City Kit. I did not know how to run urban adventures, at least to my liking. This book not only has content I find interesting and useful, the whole structure of the book is instructive on how I can make the same. This means Vornheim is probably the first truly “universal” game supplement I've used fulfilling on the promise.

#1: The Badger's Drift Bear Trap: Simple, effective and truly inspired from the roots of my early OSR upbringing. What I enjoyed most about this encounter was how ordinary items produced a harrowing, memorable danger. As any good accident points out it isn't just one thing that gets you. It is the layering of consequences from seemingly minor threats which begin to spell d-o-o-m in player's mind. When you can pull it off it is justly earned referee glory. Fantasy games accent the fantastical. So much so actually frightening your players can seem nigh impossible. The feeling of discomfort and disfunction sometimes has to be mechanically enforced on players because of the distance created by the game's fictional devices. Call of Cthulhu being an obvious, and successful, use of mechanically enforced fear. Therefore with the PC's unbalanced by a simple trap hidden in the snow and simple woodland animals (Yes, now wolves are interesting!) an ordinary skirmish quickly rose to deadly stakes at the same time confounding expectations.

There are many more, but I want to limit myself to just a few events which were a direct result of all the tips learned here on Google+ and the OSR online community. As the group closes out another year of entertainment I promise there is much more to come because there is so much more to come from the DIY OSR creators!

Two products deserving a second look; England Upturn'd, and Clockwork & Cthulhu

... or how I was wrong about two great game products.

I chimed in to Bryce Lynch's review of England Upturn'd  and agreed with many of his points sited. Then I found myself returning to England Upturn'd again and again during my Clockwork & Cthulhu campaign. Not only that, but I mentioned in game I thought the Clockwork & Cthulhu sourcebook from Cakebread & Walton was "a bit thin" in game to my players. I need to reassess these two opinions in light of the milage I have gotten out of these products for my BRP Cthulhu &  Chivalry campaign. 

England Upturn'd by Barry Blatt is still an adventure I would not run whole cloth, but very rarely do I use an adventure as presented so this should not be taken as a knock. The module does provide information on the political divisions found within English society during the civil war. As a "Yank" I am not well versed in the scope and sweep of the English Civil War and I think most people running a period piece game will find the description of the different "sides" in this complex and consequential war useful. Barry puts in enough to run you initial adventure. After this if your game continues you will want to pick up some real history. No adventure is going to give you, nor should it, a comprehensive view of this conflict. I believe some of my initial frustration with England Upturn'd was mostly my perturbation realizing I had to do some of my own research to run my campaign to my satisfaction. But what these 128 pages gives you are useful disease and weather tables, laundry list of useful NPC's, plenty of plot hooks and enchanted items, useful locations and maps, and art which puts forth the absolute brutal nature of the times. As a PDF the value is met and exceeded.

Clockwork & Cthulhu, yes it only clocks in at 159 pages but there isn't a piece of this book I have not used. My first impression of the three scenarios was meh, but I have gotten so much milage out of just one of the scenarios it is kind of ridiculous. Same for the mythos, bestiary and factions chapter. When you have had to tape the book together and it becomes heavily tabbed and highlighted, well, I find this the operative definition of "utility".

At the end of the day these two publications have given my campaign game an essential framework which I and my players have been able to embellish with our own ideas and given us all a "believable" world in which to run around in burning warlocks and demons and such. So if you plan on running a sixteenth century English campaign I recommend these two books highly for the Game Master.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess Interview

Just One More Fix posted a great interview they did with +Zak Sabbath , +James Raggi , and +Patrick Stuart . Episode 51 was recorded at GenCon50 and contains many good important points for those interested in publishing in today's RPG environment.

Savage Satisfaction in Indianapolis

I had made it clear long ago when Colorado made the heavy civil rights move it did in '14 I was not inclined to traverse state lines much anymore. I could see the eminent reason for sober, rational people to want to avoid the straight up scene GenCon50 actually is, or would become and counted myself as one who would not attend.

I had written it off as far as my attendance was concerned months ago. Not that I didn't want to attend a game conference and there was a lot to like about this one. Attendance records broken, more gaming available than ever before, an awful sprawling real dungeon crawl on a timer. It would clearly be an endurance test of monumental undertakings if I was to squeeze all I could out of the affair.

But there just wasn't enough going on weird. The idea of going to GenCon50 hadn't really gotten heavy traction in my head. Not enough to trigger action anyways. I've had my share of bloodless affairs, no matter how hyped thank you. An over-niter to Willow Lake is the better, saner choice. And it wasn't that there wasn't anything I didn't want to see or game at the convention center. I had a stack of LotFP books on my desk hungry for signing and as the roster of writers and artists who were making the journey mounted…. But still, could I take seeing the greasy wheels of commerce and the commodification of everyone's fun right in front of me? Could I leave my mountain fastness for sweaty transit and food deserts? I could shudder.

So this particular trip began mere weeks ago in my parents place back east. A good friend came over and he had gotten his game published. I play tested it like five years ago. In the loving, caring way only people with history have I told him “It's not fun, it sucks.” He thought I was wrong and he had a great game. Lo and behold he was right. He did have a great game in there and through continuous play test and design it was uncovered.

While watching the nerdfamous documentary “The Next Great American Game”; the story of my friends journey to gaming conventions on his quest to get published, we unpacked the Ultra-Pro produced product. “How'd you handle handing over your game to suits,” I inquired. Knowing Randall giving up creative control on his own art would be resisted. I mean he battles over fonts like they are living beings. “I was done, I wanted to see it published.” he said. “I've been working on this thing for ten years and someone bought it. If they want to call it Road Hog they can call it Road Hog. I'm going to run demos and sell it out of the Ultr-Pro booth at Gen Con. You should come.”

My friend is a clever bastard and the fascinating movie production was a nice touch. I was being expertly sold. I had just been trained as a booth monkey before I knew it. Over my mom's homemade Moroccan stew and fresh decaf he had me watch the game's story. There was one last hurtle though; how does it play? I'm not going to sell my ass on the convention floor for just any piece of Ameritrash. It better work. After a two player session and five player play with family it was obvious this wasn't the same game I demoed years ago. This was a real, complete game people could play and have fun with. I booked my ticket that night, the idea of GenCon50 just found traction.

Wednesday morning started out bright and crisp at eight with hot coffee and planned hike up Twin Sisters in RMNP. My flight didn't leave till just after midnight so ample time for another scramble up the high rockies and a bit of solitude. Collect my thoughts before the steep plunge. I had managed to purchase an event badge as well as schedule a game of Champions and Cyberpunk2020 and my ENnie tickets. The rest of the time was to push Road Hog, get my LotFP swag signed and otherwise let the con wash over me and see what it had to offer. I also needed to plan how I could introduce Randall Hoyt, my game designing friend, to James Edward Raggi IV, King of the North. See a month or two ago James posted interest in looking at graphic design/layout talent. Solid talent. The kind that could hit deadlines. No matter how my long association with Randall has colored my thinking he artistically is f#$ing amazing, a polished graphic design professional, into games, and has the only board game documentary I know of featuring actual description of body horror. When I first saw Raggi's post I knew I had his man. But would Randall be interested? Had his board game journey left irreparable scars; the cold corporate shoulders and the eventual shallow money trench of 6% royalties hardened his heart that there was nothing redeeming in this industry? That there was no art to be found in this joyous activity? Ahh fuss and bother. No use worrying about what is beyond one's control. Once he affirmed his interest in new, private design work I had informed consent all around. Just make the introduction, give the reason why I think it is a strong move for both of them and wash my hands of it. Its a part I can play in the revolution and now my adventure is more than hack 'n slash. Now it has intrigue! I did follow some modicum of standard business practice. No use pitching when no one is buying. I fired G+ missive to James if talent was still being looked at. When pursuing mad dreams I thought it best to tamp down the fact I'm fan-boy unhinged as long as possible.

Midnight came and nothing was left but to find platform 9-3/4. By five am I expected to be at Randall's hotel with mere minutes to shower. The enormity of my task, endurance-wise was now starting to fall in place. First off I made a real bad calculation on time. Indianapolis is East Coast time, not Central. Ultra-Pro in their ultimate wisdom had bivouacked their new hot game designer in the Red Roof Inn South forty minutes by the #14 bus from the convention center. My back of the envelope Jack Kerouac calculations had me on eight hours total sleep over a period of four days! Good thing I brought Purel. When the coffee starts to become ineffective the harsh sanitizing gel on open wounds can shock one alert. 

My Champions game was first up at 8am on the second floor of the JW. I arrived in Indy a sleep-deprived panicked man babbling incoherently about the “operation”. It had clearly risen to operational status as there were significant separate objectives to the campaign which all needed achieving if the adventure was to be counted a success. I was given a hand packed lunch as my good friend ushered my shattered soul on the morning bus. I had enough wits about me to include my LotFP books for signing and I raised logistical questions as they came to me. Randall confidently brushed them aside. “What we need to do is go straight to the JW and get you to your game. When you're done come find me at the Ultra-Pro booth.”

The packed lunch got me through the 28 hour mark and the Champions session folded up with the GM offering his own licensed Hero adventure supplements to us. It confirmed that, though I have a huge soft spot for the game, I would not use it to run supers games now. Combat takes too much time to complete RAW and there is sooo much more to role play in a supers campaign than boss fights. Champions crowds some of these opportunities out with the time needed for combat in real time. By now it was clear I couldn't do my 8pm game of Cyberpunk. I was running on fumes. I needed food and sleep before then. I was even concerned for my utility in the Ultra-Pro booth in the afternoon stretch. Tick tock, tick tock.

I took a seat at booth 709 right when another game of Road Hog was getting started. The enthusiasm of the players buoyed my spirits and I happily gamed several hours away while people snatched up copies at a regular pace. Zak S. listed brownie points convention goers could earn for super cool prizes so I started working on what I could while I played. I wore my LotFP tee over my Zak S. Red King/Flesh Golem tee so I could snap some photos. Randall's documentary “The Next Great American Game” from Grandfather Films established his nerdfamous creds so I felt my brownie point tally was off to a hot start. Earlier I had zeroed in the closest convenience store for the Cherry Dr. Pepper and sugar/caffeinated beverages so I had those points literally in the bag.

I wasn't going to get any fresher so it was time to get my favorite LotFP goods signed by the creators. It was time to see these wonderful creatives which gave me back role playing. Booth 2904 was a blaze of activity. People were listening and buying. Zak S. led the charge and easily swept up curious RPG'ers into looking at LotFP's books. Once looking, once holding these indie gems clever, sophisticated, fun loving gamers grasped Raggi's weird horror aesthetic with clarity and cash. It was truly moving.

I swept the booth crew of creators for my treasured celebrity signatures. Raggi, Zak, Patrick Stuart. I got to meet Jacob Hurst and listen to his wonderful pitch on his books. My budget was consciously constrained so Qelong was my “this is such a deal” buy and I had to make a decision between the badass LotFP tee or the Rules & Magic book. I went with the book. The only person I didn't see at the booth was Jez Gordon. But this was okay because I still hadn't purchased a silver sharpie. LotFP goods have many pages in black.

Closing up the Ultra-Pro booth just before 6 I couldn't believe I had made it so far. I was at the 36 hour mark and feeling every inch of it. Randall was assuring me I didn't fumble the last demo. He had stepped out for a smoke break just as two buddies from Iowa approached the table. They wanted to get one more game in before the Exhibitor's Hall shut down for the night. Words, I don't have my words! I thought to myself. Human speech at this point was a struggle. Whether Randall's sentiments were true or not I took satisfaction each one of the Iowans walked off with a purchased and signed copy of Road Hog first edition. I ascented to all my friend's suggestions on what we were now going to do. Somewhere I knew food and bed was at the end of the schedule so I was all on board. We shot b reel and monologue for promotional video as we meandered the vast convention hall. “I would have never found my game this morning, never made the bus if it wasn't for you.” I acknowledged. Randall nodded and said it was all because he had been here before. I was benefiting from his earlier explorations and he knew right where to go. We wrapped up shooting which all would eventually be posted on Grandfather Film's site touting the success of Road Hog and caught the 14 back out of town. Tick tock, tick tock.

Andy Ashcraft is a game designer from Los Angeles. He has a passion for supers role playing and has a pivotal role in the current success of Road Hog. While his work on Road Hog is well documented in the film what may not be apparent is how awesome and genuine of a person he is. I got to experience this first hand when he swung around to the Ultra-Pro booth to congratulate Randall on the success of Road Hog. He also has an opening in his Friday morning game “The Hero Instant”, his homebrew supers role playing game so I now have a four hour session first thing. Coffee and commute again to the convention hall. Splitting duties between face to face gaming and Road Hog demos, I'm excited.

But today is going to be tougher than yesterday. There is no way I can return to the hotel before the Ennie awards ceremony tonight. I'm committed to being a witness to gaming history unfolding over the next twelve hours at GenCon50. It is one of the important missions being pursued on this fast moving, messy operation. I would not see 146 Red Roof Inn South till Saturday. Stick deodorant will be the staff I lean on today. And water, lots of water. And gum. I have another packed lunch and I know where the cracks, the tension is going to come from between Randall and myself. I go a mile a minute with Randall, always have, and I never appreciate how he takes care of many details which need caring for. He always, and rightly so, takes it as selfish indifference on my part. Not that I don't thank him regularly for hosting me and hooking me up. Somehow it never is enough. Our personal, cultivated dysfunction will manifest I'm sure along these lines. Thankfully I have the mission. I can harden my heart to the work which needs to be done today and possibly avoid a messy emotional scene between us.

Charlotte Stokely surely bought me time before the brief restorative powers of sleep I captured leaked out of me and help me calm down before the Ennie award ceremony started. Patrick Stuart mentioned here Ms. Stokely has a Charisma 18. While indisputably correct, let me add my experience. Charlotte is disarming. I was pretty sure she was one of the D&D players as seen on “I Hit it with My Axe”. I managed to say as much. “Stokely,” she answered affirming she was indeed a regular player. “So what's your story?” she asked. Mercifully what follows is not caught on the Ennies 2017 live stream. I had managed to sit myself down next to Chris H. in the front row of the ceremony hall. He was the only person, outside of Zak, who I had gamed with on G+ who I met at the con. Any semblance of reigning in my raving fanboy enthusiasm is clearly dispelled by the video. There were sooo many accomplished artists who accepted my wide eyed adulation over the last 48 hours graciously. It got so bad I began hoarding napkins in my pockets so I could wipe off any spray I inadvertently let off.

But Stokely, yeah she had taken a seat in the front row. Zak had come past and just declared LotFP deserves a table up front with Chaosium and whoever else was up there. Fair point I thought. Don't sleep on the revolution, don't sleep on these girls and guys who make up the DIY OSR. They don't miss an opportunity to argue the merits of their work. “What's the difference in sales between a gold and silver ennie?” I asked Chris H. “Ask Raggi, he'd know.” and he was right. James would know. But I sure wasn't going to ask him. I had cashed my face to face time with the King of the North twenty minutes ago. Randall agreed to come over to Union Station Hall and meet James. His time was limited tonight and he wanted to catch the 14 before local transit closed for the night. “I'll take an Uber.” I assured him. It was a lie. I had arrived on the field of battle and I was not going to relinquish it until victory or death was achieved! The JW third floor lobby was what I had targeted for bed already. I'd hear about the hours I'd keep later. “Make sure you're quiet when you come in. You can be a talker.” Tick tock, tick tock.

James Edward Raggi IV was as affable as when I first met him at his LotFP booth, booth 2904, on Thursday. He appeared comfortable and confident in the well earned support of the talented writers, artists and production folk who surrounded him this weekend. LotFP was up for multiple awards again and the stakes couldn't have been higher. Veins of the Earth was a big project for LotFP and one they had to do. Patrick Stuart and Zak S. had shown they were not slowing down with high level game art so everyone, including the publishing house, needed to be prepared. Not that they alone were going to bury editors and publishers with appetite satiating adventure content gamers were ready to throw money at. No, they only represented the vanguard of many more behind them and the industry better suit up to meet the demand going both ways. Of stampeding fans for more and more creative content on one side and more and more artists offering up high level content which needs to be released. “This is the guy I was talking about...” I introduced Randall and James and I made my pitch there on the Ennie floor. “He sounds expensive.” grins James. “You do it for the love.” Randall rejoins. Corny as the line is Randall has his Ultra-Pro royalties contract to inform him of the nature of standard industry rates. Short and sweet. The light banter continued after the pitch as I hoped, nothing left but the follow up, the obligatory review of work, some contact information. “And you'll have to talk to Zak and Patrick. They are the ones most interested in graphic design and information technology” James says. Bampf, sales jujitsu. Just when I thought I had another mission wrapped up, done reasonably well without too much embarrassment to myself or others and I'm back at square one. I don't have time to set up another meet and greet. I can't scramble and put something together last minute without being a pushy bad bore. Not anything with any memorable or useful impact. If I had even achieved that up to this point! Rookie mistake threatened to unwind the operation in the end game. Tick tock, tick tock.

I was tearing my face a little. Randall bounced to his friends and corporate backers. He had no reason to think anything amiss. He networks and solicits work with the best of them in his field. There is so much networking going on during GenCon this was just one of many connections he would run through this week. I would get one chance, maybe, at the D&Dw/PornStars after party to close the loop opened up by Raggi which I now wanted to close. This would look all ham handed (cause it was) and no bets I could stay on my feet another 3 hours. Pitching on the floor was done. It was time now for the celebrants and LotFP's dogfight attack on top prizes. So I started tallying my brownie points. You can see when Zak comes in and generates the whole “Sean  Patrick Fallon” airport meltdown's genesis on the live feed.

As a Dungeon Master and role player there is one question I always have an answer for, trained to have an answer for and it is simply “What's your story?” Which one? I have so many! I think when Ms. Stokely asked me my favorite question I made some kind of gasping, wheezing noise. I was down to my last gulps of water in my bottle. But somehow I found my breath and plunged into a story. It was the only story I wanted to tell anyways and it was why I was sitting here in the front row at the Ennies. I must have done well because when my story touched on USR Sword & Sorcery and my own game design she asked if she could see it. Gasping and wheezing noises again. When the color returned to my eyes and I could verify the walls of Hogwarts still stood I pulled my copies of USR Sword & Sorcery and Horrors Material & Magic Malignant out from my pack. And I started to explain it and why I made it and how awesome the G+ community was in helping me get it done. “Are you going to let me touch it?” Next to any entry of zombie in any rpg monster guide you could place the look on my face just then. Pale, no colourless. I was discussing my game with one of my gaming culture's long time heroes and this queen of cool had given me three outs to save myself from the total nerf-fan-paralysis I was succumbing to and I was frozen up like a dead thing. I unclutched my books as she gently removed them from my hands and skimmed the rules. Oh I wasn't done embarrassing myself yet. I start something I finish it. Charlotte commented on the character sheet in the back. She approved of making a good sized section for adventure notes. “No its a character sheet.” I blurted out. I took her meaning different. I couldn't hear. I made another quick assumption on what someone was saying and I was wrong. Of course Ms. Stokely knows it is a character sheet, she's Ms. f$^ng Stokely! So her and the delightful Ella Darling signed USR Sword & Sorcery making my personal copy of the game the most heavy metal sword and sorcery game in existence!

I managed to chill out and start counting brownie points, soak in the moment. Up to this point I had run/played numerous games of Road Hog and and helped sell out the convention stock by the bell on Friday (They underestimated my game, Randall said to me.) with the crowds appetite far from satiated. I had gamed seven hours of supers as a player for the first time ever. All my books got signed, Jez Gordon and Ken Hite finished me off at the ennies. I wouldn't believe I relaxed through all that if I hadn't sat right in front of one of the ennies live stream cameras and can watch it anytime I want. Tick tock, tick tock.

The ennies after party for those on the right side of history was on the seventeenth floor of the Midtown Marriot. It was packed with wall to wall fans, industry heavy weights, jovial foreigners and one of the cleanest party vibes I had felt in a while. +Satine Phoenix was amazing and took my congratulations on her gaming projects as graceful as you would expect. All was well in the land of Oz and the munchkins dance on the corpse of the conquered! There was no chance a flame this hot would burn long so I turned from the crowd of party goers to buttonhole Zak. I asked for thirty seconds of Zak's time instead of 2 minutes before and this change of tactic worked. This was it. This was worse than the tongue paralyzed game demo yesterday. I was at the end of my rope and at the end of my mad adventure quest. His right hand started counting off one two three four five one two three four five. I'm seriously getting thirty seconds! I blather through, the pitch delivered. I may have gone past thirty. Zak cut me off around the right time saying “Sold, you sold it!” It was over. The kid in the Captain America shirt telling the room to rock on was worth all the money spent to get here itself. The raging after after party in the Marriot lobby was almost anticlimactic if it wasn't for its brute force awesomeness. +Ken Baumann polymorphed in front of me out of a fourteen year old boy. As genuine, smart and as inciteful a person as you would want to meet. +Mike Evans was justly thumping his chest for his ENie victory. My attempts at photographing the happenings experienced strange anomalies so I later tossed the shots as unusable, as somehow wrong. The geometry was never quite right.  Only a selfie with Jez Gordon survived the arcane energy which wrapped us all. Tick tock, tick tock.

I woke up on a couch in the JW around 8:30 Saturday morning to the bustle of hotel staff and early morning gamers. One was sitting on the end of the couch I crashed on. +Dennis Sutherland was going to play his first ever face to face game of D&D with a real live DM and other players and everything and he couldn't wait. “What edition you going to play?” I asked. “Fifth Edition.” He fired back beaming. “Good version of the game. I've looked at it. Really slick. You're going to have a great time.” “Yeah I can't wait.” He said for the third time.

“You don't have a home game?”

No, no one in my town games. I tried but they would rather play video games.”

“Have you tried online? Getting into a game online?”

“No, no I haven't.”

“Can you play Sunday mornings twice a week?”

“Well yeah, sure.” With Dennis' eager interest I had him lined out on G+ and part of my community for my regular game. I gave him the link to the free PDF rules and we parted with the assurance he had a seat at my virtual table anytime. All the while I unpacked what my phone had to tell me of last night. It was still early for my second round of “The Hero Instant”, but I still shouldn't have been feeling as crushed as I did. It was because I crossed another mission off my list for Operation GenCon50. It didn't take long when I was packing for the trip to land on what game I was going to bring to GenCon. If given a chance to run a game at the convention it was going to be my game; USR Sword & Sorcery. Fortuitous choice as not only is my rule book now blessed by actual Valkyries it was the only thing I could possibly run at 2 am when I came across three teenagers still up and goofing. They had cards and game boards strewn on the table and furniture. “You guys want to game? Conan flavored rules lite rpg?” I don't know how I sold it, but cocktail napkins in hand I had a mutilated sailor, merchant who had angered a king and a city guard plumbing the depths of the intro adventure included with the game while the night turned to day. They were just at the point when the plucky adventures, blades wet with cultist gore, debated stealing some valuables and fleeing or delving deeper when the wisest of the group cried “Its five in the morning we're going to bed.” Tick tock, tick tock.

Andy's second session of “The Hero Instant” went off without a hitch and I gutted through a three hour game with two other fine role players. Amber was fascinating. She had something. She said what it was in a rapid fire breathless voice. She had Andy explain the nuts and bolts of her pregenerated character by the numbers. Once she grasped all the numbers she was able to breath life into Animus, the ice shifting animal spirit and her strange way of relating melted away. Bill was a software developer I think and he could game the shit out of his pregen. I was lucky to get to use my same character again and we rocked it. Andy is a great Game Master and I thank my girlfriend's granola and Randall's fresh seedless grapes in my pack to give me the fuel to keep up with all the action. The Hero Instant had quick character generation and was able to pull all the super hero styled action I could want. Not running the game I wasn't sure how the initiative system was working, but I did like that the PC's do all the rolling. If attacking you rolled to hit. If you are being attacked you roll your defense to see if you are missed. Smart trick offloading all the rolling on the players. Another GenCon50 mission had now been achieved. Close friendships formed around a three hour game session played to the best of everyone's ability. 

I stumbled back to the Ultra-Pro booth trying to grasp it wasn't morning anymore. My flight didn't leave till 6 the next morning, but I still had to make it to the hotel and put myself together before then. Sleep, while desired would be hard to have. I knew I would be electrified by recent events and my mind would bubble and boil till I flat out shut down.