OSR Wilderness Fundraiser Delivers, again (cont.)

Continued from this initial announcement, that is. 

Mission OSR II can be reported a success. This "ascent" is happening much later in the hiking season than should be attempted for the seriousness of the mission so I do not feel bad about just getting to the Highlands Center at the Zealand Trailhead. This time of the year the actual trailhead is gated. This has the effect of turning a 5-1/2 mile hike into an 11 mile hike. In icy snow with higher than usual river crossings. The weather on Wednesday was for shit too. Whiteout conditions closed in on I93 just as I hit my old hometown and punched through Franconia Notch. My brother took the right onto Route 302 towards Bretton Woods and pointed the way to the AMC Center's dusted lot. The wind was fierce and icy blasts bit hard into my face as I hustled across the snow-drifted entry into the massive conference center. My triple layer of base layer, fleece, and down sweater were pathetically inadequate for any real hiking on a day like today.

Luck was with the Irish though. The caretakers for Zealand Hut Croo were scheduled to attend high-level meetings the very next day. The front desk receptionist was sure to make sure the game kit got into their hands and into the cabin. I was too tired to take any photos on site, but here are the photos of the finished product which was delivered. 

The Press on Nerd’s Variety Cast

 I get interviewed by Jason on all things USR and then some!

Nerd’s Variety Cast

Who Killed Wargaming?

 This article is written by Greg Costikyan. The opinions expressed are his alone, and no other person or organization should be deemed in any way responsible for their expression here.

Opens this gem of an article. Appears to have been written in 1996. Packs much history in a short read. I found nothing in the article I could disagree with. Here is a direct link to his home page. 

My only knock I can give him is he is responsible for the original Paranoia roleplaying game. Fucking hate that game. But, being a wargame designer first, maybe it his middle-finger to the roleplaying hobby?

There are further articles (and books) he has written on gaming on the site and they all are thoughtful and steeped with actual experience in the whole hobby. I recommend any fanatic gamer/wargamer read everything he has on his site.

Fantasy Adventure Journal Red Now Available

 Besides now having the correct cover illustration, the Fantasy Adventure Journal is now available in two sizes; original 115 pages and now the new jumbo 206 journal. I found the 115 page journal is ideal for players, but as a Crypt Keeper I find I want more pages for additional story threads and plots which are sure to develop during any one of my games. At 206 pages I've got room to add session prep to the journal. I used my green-covered copy, the original proof copy, as my sole play aid

during the last session of my supers campaign and it worked as well as I hoped. I'm going to want to jam all my session prep from any one of my games into these nifty adventure journals so additional pages is a requirement to achieve this. 

The journals are hardcover, of course, with Drivethru's "best" paper option selected, and a custom cover illustration completes the deal. 206 pages does come at a cost. Believe it or not, my profit on the larger size is less than that of the 115 page book. Still, my take is minimal, so the price tag on these books reflects production and shipping costs. Like 93% of the price, actually. But, once again, the service I get from Drivethru makes it the only realistic option to self-publish game products. Any money I make on the sale of these journals will be used to buy more for myself. After all, I am the intended audience :)

Madison Hut Received BFRPG

 It was wet, it was steep, it was a typical hike in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I started out like this, 

under some sun and 80% humidity on the valley floor. And then you end up here,

After the slog I collapsed in my bunk at Madison Springs Hut and surveyed the map for on the morrow we would assault the summit of Mount Washington.

But till then there was coffee to drink and spaghetti to eat and an evening cigarette to smoke. When the Croo finished the dishes and the thru-hikers fought over the left overs before they had to camp on the sodden ground I presented the Hut Master Trevor with the hand made slip case containing BFRPG, Castle by the Sea adventure anthology, the Field Guide to Monsters, and of course Purging Woth N’Rld Oakwyn’s Muddy Hole.

Trevor was taken aback but quickly grasped the nature of the gift. When I showed him the Dice bag tucked into the slip case he thought the whole package was an amazing gift for the cabin and its revolving Croo.

 Thanks to all the donors who helped fund this dream of mine. Only seven more remote mountain huts to go!

Hardcover Fantasy Journal Now Available

on Drivethru RPG. [Update: Attached are pictures of the initial product. Please note currently the journal is with the depicted green cover with a wizard. I'm going to update Drivethru to reflect this and add the red cover edition as a separate title.] 

These 10" x 7" hardcover journals are customized for use as a "living document", chronicling the feats and fates of your favorite characters. Inspired by day planner formats, the pages provide an elastic document which capture game-relative "focus" items.

Pages in the Fantasy Adventure Journal are arranged in a Three Act structure, with a cover page.

As a Character evolves over time, so does a campaign world. Writing prompts steer your adventure chronical into a coherent narrati
ve, with drive!

For Players and Dungeon Masters alike. These journals come in a red cover and original art from Vanishing Tower Press! The current illustration is Martial Order of Ghouls known as the Order of the Maggot. They prefer to fight with weapons and feel defeating their foes through paralysis is dishonorable.

New Big Dragon Games Released CC2 Creature Cache

CC 2 Creature Cache comes a full 7 years after CC1 (PDF is PWYW),  the bestiary I used to stock my OSR adventure AA01 Purging Woth N'rld Oakwyn's Muddy Hole. If it is half as intriguing as CC1, the list of 200 monsters boasted between the pages of this new release will be well worth the price of admission. Look, Richard LeBlanc is successful enough he can drive traffic to Lulu. You know he puts out quality stuff if he has that kind of power!

Besides new monsters which every DM needs in spades, LeBlanc is always kind enough, and industrious enough, to include a drawing of each of the creatures. Mandatory, I know, in any monster book,  but you don't always get. I like he doesn't shy away from depicting adventures being slaughtered by his monsters. I love that throwback to old school printed materials which usually had one or more pics of some nameless adventurer taking it in the shorts. LeBlanc captures this feel in his drawings and adds to the appeal of the overall package. Black and white, 2-column as god intended. 

First Unit Completed and Ready for Shipping!

USR Sword & Sorcery Reaches Electrum Best Seller

 USR Sword & Sorcery notches another medal achievement at DriveThru! We've gone plaid! No, I mean Electrum! USR Sword & Sorcery is now an Electrum Best Seller. 

The little game which launched a thousand and more unpaid hours devoted to learning Scribus, Indesign, Photoshop, Live Streaming games, podcasts, blogging about games, going to game conventions and getting suicidally drunk, etc.

I have a return date expected for work on Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery (title is still in the air). It is August. This is predicated on my DC Heroes 3rd Edition retro-clone manuscript being complete and sent to the editor. This is looking good so I might even be able to return to the Word of Xoth setting guide even sooner! 

Even Heroes Bleed #26, the Life Form released

 Now we got the crew back up to 3 PC Heroes; Mettle, Bug, and Olympian confront what lies beneath the Pawnsville Mine.

This episode features a monster unlike any they have yet fought. It will take all their ingenuity and dramatic run of 18's to survive the initial onslaught. 

I used to be able to publish

 The fucking twelfth time I've done this. I think I will just make an indesign document to drive thru specs with no content. Just a one page document with all the specs dialed in from the instructions from the publisher page so I can see the same error message and frame it on my wall so when I wake up in the morning and need a dose of existential absurd I don't even need to get out of bed. grrrr

OSR Wilderness Gaming Fundraiser

GoFundMe has been set up to make this project see the light of day, please read on what and why this is for. 

I was back in the White Mountains of New Hampshire three weeks ago and on the many miles I hiked I passed once again through the Greenleaf and Zealand Falls huts. The AMC hut system is a real treat along this eastern mountain chain and allows those who can pay hotel rates to grab bed and board along this northern section of the Appalachian Trail.

The heart and soul of a hut system is the army of young volunteers which work the huts during the winter and summer. Maintaining the individual huts and servicing the guests, these seasonal kids are energetic boot campers having a unique wilderness experience which... (insert early 20’s shenanigans here).

Point is, year in and year out all the groups who have spent their time working and living out there, smoking cigs, drinking some wine round the fire, the Croo has played games. Cribbage, Chess, Yahtzee. Settlers of Catan has been the only new game in rotation and that came out in the late 90’s?

These kids need some god damn DnD! 

So at the Zealand Falls hut I purchased the obligatory endless cup of coffee and the homemade carrot cake just out of the oven and looked over the row of guest books stretching back to the 70’s and the game shelf with the Croo’s worn out Settlers, etc. How cool would it be after the work is done to bust out a ttrpg instead of fucking Yahtzee. Just think of the friendships you crafted with strangers when you were young. More to the point, didn’t you get to know the people you gamed with regularly just a little more deeply than you did over a game of cribbage? These kids are stuck with each other anywhere from 3 to 6 months and getting along with your fellows is a pretty big deal. They share a bunk house, they hall out the feces from the pit toilets and the supplies get packed in on their backs twice a week. 

The young woman in the kitchen broke my reverie asking if I new how to light the pilot on a commercial range (the thing is old as shit). I said certainly (because I do) and asked what the problem was. You’ve been lighting the thing all summer, haven’t you? Yeah, she said, but one side is not going, and she had to get started on the evening dinner spread. This does not sound good you know I said, flashing my daisy of a smile. So, I busted out my head lamp (never go into the backcountry without a headlamp) and went down on the greasy pig. No, the stove you leches. I think it was a Dixie. I performed the rubrics and gave my verdict. No gas is coming in. You either have no pressure or, well you have no gas pressure so a valve on the stove or the tank is shot and needs replacement.  

By the way, if I wanted to mail something to the hut how would I do that? Here eyes lit up, who are you trying to reach? No one in particular, I just want to gift some games to the huts here. She gave me the PO Box for the Pinkham Notch AMC HQ. Everything goes through there and from this location mail for the Croo is dispatched to the high, remote peaks. 8 huts, all spread out along the Presidential Range. Mount Washington is such a beast it actually has two, Madison on the north shoulder and Lake of the Clouds on the south.

Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game is by far the cheapest hard-back rules set by far. Their line of modules is not available hard-back, but at least four of them are saddle-stitched. AA03 Purging Woth Nrld Oakwyn’s Muddy Hole should be in the mix to. Each separate kit will need a set of dice and these days a bag of 100 random dice mix is available online for twenty – twenty five bucks. I was really stuck on packaging, what kind of box is available to keep a kit together and survive an active back country life? My Google Fen-Shui found a Youtube video on how to make custom slip cases. The main ingredient is old hardback book covers. I have an unlimited supply of these nearby at the landfill. There are container cars to receive old books, carpet, and clothes.

Carter Notch Hut – Fortress, Tomb and Tower $6.50 SS / $18 HC RB 

Greenleaf Hut – Morgansfort $6.50 SS / $18.00 HC RB 

Galehead Hut – Fortress, Tomb and Tower $6.50 SS / $18.00 HC RB 

Lake of the Clouds Hut – The Chaotic Caves $6.50 SS / $18.00 HC RB 

Lonesome Lake Hut – Adventure Anthology 1 $6.50 PP / $18.00 HC RB 

Madison Spring Hut – Adventure Anthology 1 $6.50 PP / $18.00 HC RB (included AA01)

Zealand Falls Hut – Adventure Anthology 2 $6.50 / $18.00 HC RB (included AA01)

Mizpah Spring Hut – Monkey Island and The Laughing Dragon $8.00 / $18.00 HC RB                                                       

$ 144.00 Book Costs BFRPG RB HC (8)                                                                                           

$ 56.00 Module Costs BFRPG PB (9) 

$ 60.00 AA03 Cost (8)

$ 25.00 Big Bunch O' Dice

$ 30.00 Shipping to AMC

$ 20.00 Sticker Paper (for the slip case)

$ 30.00 Shipping Books to me for packaging

$ 25.00 Big Bunch o’ Dice

$ 365 minimum, $400 total to cover shipping costs and anything else I get wrong.

 

And this is why I’ve setup a GoFundMe page because while I have the time, ability and interest to do all this I do not have the $365.00 to pay for it.

 I can’t use Kickstarter because there is no actual product going to backers, so GoFundMe is the most sensible option to campaign for support. 

That is it. If you have stayed with me so far you must be intrigued by this idea. It is a novel way of introducing new young people to the hobby as well as bring OSR play to the wilderness. Any guest passing through who are gamers will notice immediately what the Croo is up to when they gather around the evening game table and start talking hit points so another possible dynamic between guests and staff. 

If this doesn’t sell you on the idea, how about the scaled back winter Croo who stays out there when the place is closed to visitors.

Winter nights are long in the North Country and the weather can get life-threatening nuts. Mount Washington still holds the worlds recorded wind speed record and getting a gig at the weather station on the summit is a meteorologist’s wet dream. What would you give to be in a place like this with some friends, hooch, and a game of DnD nightly for a month or more?

So please kick down a few bucks and if this mad scheme funds I’ll post updates on the production of the goods much more regularly than LotFP and that fucking ref book.

 

Anvil of the Sun Belongs in Gamma World 1e

 Michael Gibbons has a great blog called Metal Earth and it is chock full of his delightful thickly inked line drawings for his games and books. I fell in love with an evocative map he published early in the blog's history, a map I like to refer to as Anvil of the Sun. It screams 1e Gamma World and my favorite post-apoc comic from the seventies, Kamandi, Last Boy on Earth. Now that I am playing in a Gamma World 1e/2e campaign (as a PSH called Kamanja) I had a terrible jones to world build on the old blank United States of America map which was included in the original game.  

Many a wee lad had trouble like I did when first exposed to this vast blank map. While the outline of the USA was lovingly tortured by the early age of the global devastation which besets the campaign world, the map was empty. Where and what should middle-school kids put in this future earth? Where to start? DC, New York, Miami? I played the great module The Albuquerque Starport but never connected it to a greater Gamma World.

Metal Earth solves all this, for me. Last night I reviewed Anvil of the Sun and contemplated where I should set it on the original 1e map. The important feature of Anvil is that there are large bodies of water on either side of the land mass. This being the Atomic Ocean and the Stained Sea. A quick search of  the US map gives me only one logical place for this Metal Earth map and that is the Baja of Mexico, Baja California, which once enclosed the Gulf of California and the Sea of Cortez. Now I'm going to set up a scale to interpose the Anvil map onto the new and reduced Baja.

I've chosen 16 kilometers per hex on the Anvil map and extrapolated this to the 43.7 kilometers of the greater US map. I've actually changed the official Gamma World scale to 48 kilometers per hex because this neatly conforms to a 3x3 hex area on this new campaign map.

Here is what it looks like: Now I only need to populate the radioactive sandbox with my own original details as suggested by Michael's great map. I've decided Shaft 17 is home of a large PSH colony of Restorationists (I do love PSH's it seems) determined to restore their world into a New Earth akin to the past world which has been lost. The Tower of Zola has been tagged with being the shrine of the dominant religious belief on the Anvil with the Priests of Zola residing in the fascinating city Skull. Skull and the Priests of Zola are the dominant power of the region with the small nation-state of Szan and the Shaft 17 colony the next legitimate recognized powers of note. Notice the hex labeled "Ghostland" just east of Shaft 17 standing in the poison waters of the Atomic Ocean. What exactly is these water-based ruins and its relation with Shaft 17 is the first mystery of the campaign world I wish to resolve before I move on to the Tower of Zola. A forbidden, taboo site for the average Shaft 17'teener is my first obvious leap, but the devil is in the details they say :)
 

 

How to find out if you are cut out to be a GM

 I know, sounds like I'm being a blowhard asshole. We are all good Game Masters if we have been at it enough and are willing to learn from our mistakes and you remember everyone else is there to play a roleplaying game also and don't want to be railroaded.

No, I'm talking about reaching back in time and figuring why when I first heard someone describe a roleplaying game to me (1976?) I had no idea what they were talking about and at the same time I knew I had to get down on this roleplaying game stuff. And why did I go straight to Game Master without considering being a player? What is burnt into my synapsis which makes me think about gaming and the games I'm involved with ALL THE FUCKING TIME? Even when I wasn't gaming from 1993 till 2012 I had a Elric! always by my side and I would rather speculate on what adventure to write as opposed to reading all my fantasy books again? Like for realzies. Not, "oh I'm a creative person, that's why". Everyone is a creative person. Even the ones who say they are not. 

This past weekend I was at a dinner party and the four of us, and this was not my idea, completed the Briggs-Myers personality test. A coupley thing to do with your coupley friends. I'm sure this has been done as a party game like a bagillion times and I was familiar with this test in a pop-culture sort of way. Never took it though. I did take an ADHD test years ago, but I knew what the results were going to be before I took it. Off the charts (passing?) grade! So the test is supposed to identify what of 16 different personality types you are. That is all I knew about it, don't know what the types are, don't know what the definitions of each type are. I was intrigued immediately. You mean I have a class? I love classes. I'm even fine with race as class. Except I don't want to be pigeon holed. I got to be free man, I'm not one thing. This has got to be a crock of shit. 

I landed on ENTP, the debater. Per the game rules, once you came up with your personality from completing the test you turn the laptop over to someone else and they read it out loud. Then you talk about why you think so and so are together. Lot of oohs, awws and of course laughs. 

If you are looking for someone to be game master you might want to ask them if they are ENTP because there is a shit-ton packed into this type which make for excellent traits in a Game Master. It also answered for me my speculations on why there are far to few Game Masters out there compared to players. Or why there are more folks looking to be players as opposed to being a Game Master. One, it is a never ending thankless task of staying in genre and put forth interesting and original ideas for people to dig into, give back and complete the circle. Second the ENTP represents only 3% of the population! We are rare birds indeed. 

I also found out why my wife will never be interested in playing rpg's. She landed on ISFJ, Defender. Protective, warm and caring is not what you want in a Game Master. 

Anchor Update

 

Leave a Message for the Press!

 I never considered the anchor app for the VTP's podcast had a link to record your message to the crypt below the tower found next to the ragged mountain. Yes, I do get messages on anchor from podcast listeners, but there is a direct link to the record function. 

This means you can have fast, direct and personal connection with everything Vanishing Tower. Any game question, and product information or wanting to get into a game or talk about the latest shit move your DM just pulled, whatever. The Vanishing Tower is here for you!

Online Campaign Managers

 I have found myself crawling into an online campaign manager and am surprised how it has captured me completely, enthusiastically as the new way to chronicle my campaigns. If you would have asked me would I use a digital record for campaigns let alone think it could be used in session I would have said no. I would wax on how the physical journals with homespun maps and weird characters was all part of the creative process, blah, blah, blah. The fall was swift and rapid. I was looking for a way out of my three ring binders, that is for sure. But my quest had only progressed as far as trying different types of notebooks and drawing pads. Part of the quick commitment came from my noodling with Roll20. I hated it. I could not see how it was going to help me run the game I want to. So, when I started banging away on my new kanka account writing up session notes from the latest run I went fuuuuuuck. I am going to throw out a bunch of old thinking.

Specifically, being unwilling to see the benefit of online tools for my online games. Because I was not getting any with virtual tabletops. What I like about the campaign organizer, the campaign wiki I think it is called, I don’t have to search through a three-ring binder to find shit. Cause it piles up and the binder gets thick and becomes horribly inefficient in session. This is the virtual note board of interlocking world-building pieces and I’ve so far found a spot for everything. Cutting and pasting in stats and details from PDF content makes these things at my fingertips. Only redundant task I have found slightly wearisome is attaching pictures to entries, but I can not do it because the return on investment, the visual payoff is high.

So, I get all the things in the wiki set for the current session coming up and take a look. Start at the Dashboard and drill down into the data I am going to want in game. I like how it works. I see myself running a session from its screen. I think it is going to give me a bit more focus on the situation at hand and roleplay more before a calling of the die.

Oh, and now my game is on the cloud. I can pop in and tinker on the game wherever I am. So my favorite materials, maps and images are all at my beck and call when inspiration strikes!

 

Anchor Podcast Question & Answer

 I've been receiving questions on the VTPs podcast from long time compatriot from across the pond, Mark Grehen, on how we been running games here on the Press. Specifically, we have been talking about what we have seen in the many different playbacks available at the VTP YouTube Channel. 

I've got more questions to go through from Mark, but here is our latest exchange on Anchor, the simplest way to do a podcast! :)

A Caller Questions the Conversion Guides; previous post addendum.

One of my players poised a question on the podcast recently on some of the wherefore and why's of my 1e ADnD adventures fascination, specifically what was the genesis behind the DM Guild's 5th edition conversion guides, and perhaps what new found appreciation I may have uncovered. You can listen to the episode here - What is up with the 5e Conversion Guides?

So the game didn't happen but here is this cool video on styles for inDesign!

Rom'Myr Dying Earth game, last weekend didn't have enough players available so one of the players rocked out and demonstrated mechanics on your inDesign software and fielded some of my dumb questions...