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. 

Taking Traveller Encounter Tables to Heart

I rolled a "2" for one of my stats creating a new Classic Traveller PC and an extremely poor attribute roll (in this case DEX) got me thinking about how to incorporate the low stat into the overall character concept. I was also hankering to use Classic Traveller to game out baroque Space Opera styled adventures and using extreme ability rolls as a jumping off place for creating alien characters seemed like a way to go. But first I decided to finish out enlistment and background skills before I came down on some type of new alien species.

The character failed initial enlistment and was subsequently drafted into “Other”. After surviving an initial term of service this new character failed a reenlistment roll and entered the campaign world with the skills Mechanical-1 and Medical-1.

So a Saroid Priest-Scientist from a planet of primitive mystics travels to a mining colony looking for help in reaching the Vault of the Stars. His mission, reset a celestial machine to protect the universe for the next ten thousand years.

This is all tangential to the meat of this post, wilderness encounter tables in Traveller, but here we go.

With my adventure idea writ in broad strokes it is time to fill in the details, to key the dungeon. Classic Traveller relies on Encounter Tables to drive the action during a game. I believe the LBB's encourage the referee to create their own specific to the adventure worlds. So I took the plunge and started drafting encounter tables for the world where the adventures would occur. 

The randomly generated World Profile gave me a thick jungle planet 80%-85% water covered with a tainted atmosphere. Mining outposts with a total population of 50,000 live high in the mountains while native tribesmen keep to themselves in the toxic jungles below. The adventure should lead a group of PC's to penetrate the planet's jungles in search of a lost city. As you can see one table sometimes sprouted another and in no time I had a satisfactory adventure setting for the PC's! In writing these up I'm just following the LBB's suggestions. There are no hard and fast rules on why the tables are the way they are. Each creature will still need its own stat block, but at least with a good set of tables I know what is actually there. One thing for sure, tread the jungles of Ramea with care!

Adventure Encounters

Daily Encounter Chance is 50%. If an encounter is indicated roll on the following appropriate Encounter Table for terrain type.

Ramea Jungle Encounter Table roll 1d20

1 Raccoon Men

2 Insect, Giant

3 Sauroid, Giant

4 Cat, Giant

5-7 Wilderness Hazard

8-10 Weather

11 Snake Men

12-13 Insect, Swarm

14 Dangerous Plant

15-20 No Encounter

Forbidden City Encounter Table roll 2d6

2 Sauroid, Giant

3 Insect Stinging Flyer, Giant

4 Plant Barrier

5 Raccoon Men

6 Snake, Giant

7 Spider Men

8 Herd Animals; Stampede Check

9 Equipment Failure

10 Intact Structure

11 Water Feature

12 Other Scavenging Party

What are the Natives Doing? roll 1d6

1-2 Establishing Territory

3-4 Hunting for Food

5-6 Traveling to a place of Worship

Insect Type roll 1d6

1-2 Trapper

3-4 Pouncer

5-6 Flyer

Sauroid Type roll 1d6

1-2 Aquatic; Single, Large

3-4 Tree Dwelling; Herd or Single, Medium

5-6 Ground Dwelling; Herd or Single, Large

Wilderness Hazard roll 1d6

1-2 Groge/Crevase; delays travel and forces another encounter check.

3-4 Water Barrier; lake, mire/swamp or river. Delays travel and forces another encounter check.

5-6 Tectonic Activity; volcanic, geothermal, quicksand.

Weather roll 1d6

1-2 Driving Rain; stops travel for 6-12 hours.

3-4 Corrosive Cloud; atmosphere is much more corrosive than normal. Piece of equipment fails.

5-6 Thick Clouds; low light and decreased visibility.

Swarm Type roll 1d6

1-2 Ants, mobile.

3-4 Termites, stationary.

5-6 Aquatic, during water crossing.

Dangerous Plant

Uses vines to grasp and strangle prey.

Plant Barrier roll 1d6

1-2 Blocks Progress; delays travel and forces another encounter check.

3-4 Attacks!

5-6 Has Scientific Value.

Intact Structure* roll 1d6

1-2 Creature; roll for Giant Slug, Carnivorous Swarm, or Giant Spider.

3-4 Tribesmen; roll for either Raccoon, Snake, or Spider.

5-6 Empty

* Further 50% chance a tradeable good will be found.

Water Feature roll 1d6

1-2 Blocks Progress; delays travel and forces another encounter check.

3-4 Provides subterranean access to the wormhole.

5-6 Others present; roll for either tribesmen, predator/prey stand off, lurking predator.

Other Scavenging Party roll 1d6

1-2 Pirates hiding out.

3-4 Scouts surveying.

5-6 Scientists on expedition.

For the map of the lost city I plan on using I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City, and the machine to repair there is The Puissant Machine from the Dread Machine adventure module. It would work excellent here and is free. Game on!

[Edit: 08-08-17]

Here are the stats for;

Ral Al'Neon (a priestly Sauroid) 8286A5 Age 112 1 term

Cr25,000 

Fixing B4 The Lost City

B4 The Lost City was my favorite classic TSR Dungeons & Dragons adventure module and another one (much like B3 Palace of the Silver Princess) which vexed me to no end. See, the problem was for this eleven year old was the upper tiers didn't make any sense. How the different factions lived in an uneasy alliance within its halls, and how the traps all remained unsprung, and what the hell are a bunch of Sprites doing hanging out in the fireworks closet?

But the whole package of buried pyramid and underground “lost” city and its mysterious inhabitants was just magnificent. I thought if I can figure out how to run this adventure I would be a true Dungeon Master!

This week I sat down with my PDF copy of the module and decided to solve the problems I had with the upper tiers once and for all. And it didn't take much.

First off, the whole upper tiers as the Old God factions personal club house just had to be chucked. If there were going to be cultists on the upper levels they were going to be groping around blindly just like the PC's, almost. Here is the set up I used to justify the various cult member's activities in the upper tiers; a search for a McGuffin. In this case the McGuffin is an artifact, a magical weapon which can slay Zargon. Say a “Flame Sword” capable of sheering off the monsters horn and destroying its regenerative properties. It will naturally be buried somewhere in the upper tiers. I'll make the Magi of Usimagaras and the Brotherhood of Gorm collaborating on the search. The Priests of Zargon suspect its existence but have never found a way into the upper tiers. They anxiously search the city for evidence of the Old God factions and its members.

For example; in the module the PC's find entrance into the pyramid because a Hobgoblin was shot down opening a trapped secret door. This has no rhyme nor reason. But replace this corpse with that of a Cyndecian and put the bolt in the victim's back. Struck down just when uncovering a great secret, of a portal to the outside world! Perhaps he still draws breath and carries a piece of parchment with ordered pairs of symbols? The fact that the unfortunate cultist triggered the door trap it is no small leap to decide now all the traps are now armed in this room. That the cultist was unaware of the proper sequence needed to perform with the doors to pass through safely. With just this simple musing the rest of the upper tier now starts to snap into shape. The Old God cultists are attempting to deceive the Priests of Zargon. While one band leads the Priest's loyal acolytes on a merry chase through the upper tiers another group penetrates the tombs of Alexander and Zenobia to secure the legendary sword. So I replace any of the other dead bodies found on these levels with Gorm, Usimagaras and Zargon cultists. The bees are not guarding any treasure on the second tier, no they are a clever trap uncovered by the collaborators and used against the acolytes. Perhaps these cultists fight a desperate battle on the second tier against the acolytes while their companions are dying beneath the traps found in the hidden tombs? Ancient plans exploding into action and the PC's stumbling into it all.

I've changed the Wandering Monster Tables to reflect my preferred assortment of crypt vermin and the cat and mouse game being played out by the warring Cyndecians. The temple on the fifth tier needs to opened up as well. While the statues of the Old Gods have been pulled down and many of the corridors are still neglected, the Priests still bring sacrifice to Zargon and hold worship in the horrid lower tiers. This is also how the Old God cultists penetrate the upper tiers. They know of secret doors which lead to the upper levels. They have secreted their agents among the acolytes and travel to these entrances under darkness and stealth.

So I included only two of the Old God cults as being involved in the search. The Warrior Maids, while the strive against the power of Zargon, are not in others confidence. This can help illuminate the mistrust and infighting among all the factions. This will require the emptying of the Warrior Maid's club house and restocking but much of the other rooms on this tier, tier 3, can be left as is. Oh, and those lycanthropes running around secretly living in the upper tiers. They got to go. Another nonsensical addition to the antics of the dungeon.

For me this set up creates a world pregnant with possibilities. At the end of the day the PC's need to secure enough supplies to escape the danger of the desert or secure long term lodging in the city below. How they can leverage the goings on in the upper tiers to achieve survival and eventual securing of loot in which to enrich themselves now has a handle. A DM's deft handling of the cults, each with a clear mission being attempted at the outset of the adventure, will create a much more dynamic dungeon environment. This approach also helps me envision the lower tiers which the priests of Zargon continue to use. Not only are these crude lower chambers the source of the Priest's power but of their greatest fear. They sit on a literal powder keg of evil. They attempt to keep the terrible creatures inhabiting these lower levels in check with sacrifice and magic. In this role the Priests of Zargon are not insane bloody zealots, but wise stewards protecting a deranged populace. Ah yes, the rabbit hole goes deep on this one.

Anthropomorphic USR Session Report #2

I had a chance to run another session of Anthropomorphic USR this morning when the full game group could not suit up and show up. When we last left off with Yak 'n Ape they were still in the lab fending off security robots. And another one showed up. Fortunately another of the players was able to eventually make the game session so the party was now up to one Yak, one Ape, and one Badger. The combat encounter took place in an equipment room and the Yak tried to operate some of the gear lying on the racks. He managed to discharge a “smoke fountain” which obscured vision for the PC's. I levied a -2 penalties to attacks because of the thick black smoke. The robot of course is unaffected by the discharge. The Ape evens the odds with a well aimed fling of poo and blinded the security bot. The battle seesawed back and forth for a couple of rounds. I then remembered I was playing the USR rules relatively straight, not the simultaneous combat method I use in USR Sword & Sorcery. The PC's got the upper hand on this third robot and than began to fool around with more of the equipment and the defeated robot. The Ape decided to bath the Yak's wounds in the brain fluid from the robot. This triggered a random mutation and the Yak was endowed with bulging chest and neck muscles. He will now receive a +2 on any strength related Action test as long as the condition persists.

Further exploration of the lab reveals equipment monitoring all sorts of media and radio communication, laser scanners harmlessly strobing the PC's in blue light, a fluid bath which heals enhanced anthropomorphs and a room with strange wired instruments mounted on a pulsing purple jell. The Badger decides to chew on the purple stuff and gets electrocuted for his troubles. The party picks up the fact that the Capitol City Zoo is wrestling with the bizarre and mysterious disappearance of four zoo animals; a lion, snake, yak, and silverback gorilla. This was squawking out of all the comm equipment alcove. 

All the while the rooms and corridors of the complex are getting extremely hot and start to cause the PC's heat damage. Not finished with their investigation they stumble upon the power grid for the lab. Utilizing their homemade battery grenades they toss them into the machinery and flee to the last room they haven't explored hoping against hope for a way out.

They do manage to leave the lab complex emerging into a dank sewer tunnel. They also feel a deep shuddering through the earth as if terrible explosions were occurring underground. The sewer tunnel eventually leads to a subway tunnel and the party decides to scurry up onto the busy metro platform. This has the predictable response of freaking out the crowd in the station waiting for the next subway. While people flee for the exits a transportation cop steps out to confront our heroes. The cop draws his gun on the Yak (he is carrying an alien laser rifle) and orders the anthros onto the deck with their hands up.  With a well directed fling of poo the cop was gagging and incapacitated. The PC's take advantage of the horrible distraction reigned down upon the poor civil servant and duck onto a subway just pulling out of the station.  At the next stop scared patrons flee the car and other passengers are hesitant to get on, except one hippy looking woman. She gives the party a thumbs up and compliments them on letting themselves be themselves. Show their true identity. Not the social masks we are all trapped under, you dig? And yeah, she knows which stop the zoo is.

So there we ended the second ever session I am aware of of Anthropomorphic USR. We are now at a classic, and formative event of fuzzy animal comics; the heroes first encounter with the real world! What started as a side game for when our regular session can't run has now sprawled into a full-fledged comic book adventure! Time to start creating the principle hooks and adversaries found in Capitol City. We know it has cops and hippy chicks.

The session also helped motivate me to finish the POD of the Anthro core rule book. The only section of the rules which now need a rewrite are the damage and healing rules. I am modifying the straight USR rules as written to better represent four-colored comic book action.

Some Helpful Tips for POD Self Publishing

Here is  link to a useful article. I don't create enough content to always remember how I did it last time. I'm also too lazy to write down all the steps I take to make a PDF print ready.

Horrors Material & Magic Malignant Proof is in...

[EDIT] 08/20/17: New proof is in and the book looks great. Order away!

and there are some errors with the art. Looks like any graphic I saved as a PNG file prints black.

There are also some typos uncovered during my initial hard copy review, but overall pleased with the product.

If you are planning on ordering this POD format wait until I update the files at DriveThruRPG.Com. The PDF obviously downloads and prints correctly. The update will only affect the uncovered typos for the PDF and can be easily printed later.

Here is a look at the new book alongside USR Sword & Sorcery. 11" x 8.5" format, black and white interior.

This book, unlike the basic rulebook, has a table of contents and page numbers to aid in thumbing through. But really, the book is only 31 pages of content so navigating the book is easy.

Cthulhu & Chivalry NPC Deaths of Recent Note

The players of my Cthulhu & Chivalry campaign have had the luxury of travelling in a group of well armed NMA troopers. Enough of these "red shirts" suffered grievous wounds today one of my players accused me of whittling down the herd because I didn't want to keep up with the paperwork. Nothing could be further from truth! I had given the entire squad names so I could lovingly track the horrible fates which some of the supporting cast would surely meet. Here are the brave NPC meat-shields which took the deadly hits instead of my band of plucky PC's in this morning's session;

Chris Cox, NMA Soldier; died falling from rope bridge fending off an attack from a large bird.

                             
Roger Howard, NMA Soldier; gunned down by his own party after becoming infected with a strange, sticky substance.

Thomas Williamson, NMA Soldier; fell from rope bridge trying to flee from the horrid sticky substance turning his flesh into writhing vines.

There is also the case of the unfortunate Mr. Bartlett. This unlucky soldier has been battered by possessed trees, attacked by wolves, almost joined his brother in arms Cox in the rope bridge death-plunge and now suffers a gruesome wound from an errant musket shot. His last hope now resides in the good Dr. Norton patching him up. With that man's track record absolutions are already being prepared for good Mr. Bartlett.

New USR Sword & Sorcery Supplement

[EDIT 07/11/17] Softcover 8.5" x 11" print version now available!

Horrors Material & Magic Malignant is now available from DriveThruRPG as a $1.95 PDF. This 11" x 8.5" publication will also be available as POD 31 page softcover black and white with a green color field with red lettering, not the black and white as depicted in the PDF. If you are concerned about toner ink I would not print out the cover from the PDF. There is a title page which will make for a less toner-intense cover. Anyways, the POD version will not be available for sale until I get my proof back and uncover all my typos. It will cost the same as the POD 38 page rule book, just shy of six bucks?

HM&MM provides 24 non-player characters typical of a sword and sorcery realm, 32 beasts and monsters as well as magic for all three schools found in USR Sword & Sorcery; Artifacts, Mesmerism, and Sorcery. With both USR Sword & Sorcery and Horrors Material & Magic Malignant the Crypt Keeper has everything they need to start playing sword and sorcery fantasy adventures in less than twenty minutes.

USR Sword & Sorcery features fast character creation, random encounter tables and simple resolution mechanics so folks can get down to the business of playing, not learning. 

So gird your loins, quaff your wine flask and leap into the fray with Vanishing Tower Press' latest release!

ConTessa 2017 Bundle of Awesome

Yes, a $10.00 bundle of RPG PDF's is now up at RPGNow.com  to support Contessa 2017 convention schedule. 

I'm happy to participate and I've thrown in USR Sword & Sorcery, Anthropomorphic USR, Fear & Loathing USR and Western USR into this bundle.

Of course the reason you purchase the bundle is to get Patrick Stuart's and Scrap Princess' awesome Fire on the Velvet Horizon release. And support the great women who add to our hobby!

Anthropomorphic USR Session Report

Only two players could make my Sunday morning Clockwork & Cthulhu campaign so we decided to run a one-shot of something different. I pulled out my USR hack Anthropomorphic USR with the accompanying introductory adventure I wrote. 

Utilizing USR for an impromptu game session is a no-brainer because it is a free rules-lite system with the basic free rules by Scott Malthouse like only nine pages. Character creation can be done in literally five minutes. At least that was the case for two PC's approaching The Terror of Central cold with no previous experience with the system.

The PC's selected their attribute mix and rolled for Hits. They both decided to roll randomly for their animal they derived from. One got a yak and the other an ape. Each fancied the other's animal so they switched. F%^$ng PC's. Always monkeying with stuff. For specialisms the Yak chose Mentalism, Demolitions, and Repair. The ape identified some form of hyper-polyglot ability and flinging poo. I don't think his third specialism was called out as it didn't seem to come up in play. Since The Terror of Central adventure has a specific set up there was no need to go through an equipment selection process. While the PC's bandied about names I read out the introductory "boxed text" for the adventure.

The introductory adventure in the rule book is an "escape the lab" scenario. As newly created anthropomorphs the PC's seek a way out of their current confinement during an apparent system wide malfunction. It didn't take long for Yak 'n Ape, the two jackanapes,  to begin exploring and messing with anything which looked messable with to start figuring out the environment. Per the scenario I rolled to see if Central comes back online every time the PC's entered a new keyed location. Central rolled positive when the PC's hit the teleporting tunnel. This calls for the PC's to be transported by Central to an alien planet. But before that they triggered the nuclear core meltdown by striding through the irradiation room, and lulled a sonic wailing unfinished clone to sleep before it shrieked them to death. The two anthropomorphs decided on keeping the little horror and pushed through to the cold storage server room. The ape, using his tremendous strength, ripped apart the door on the clone pod to fashion foot protection to retrace their steps back across the rapidly heating floor plates of the nuclear meltdown room. Shortly after flooding the rooms with glycol coolant in an attempt to stop the floor-melting heat in the irradiation room they found themselves in the teleporting tunnel.

But where to send them? Lacking a plan for this I turned to the random table I generated for The Monolith Beyond Space and Time. That adventure has a similar event and I penciled in a 1d6 table to roll a random world for PC's to transport to. The table consisted of: 1. Quelong, 2. Champions-based Earth filled with superheroes and supervillains, 3. Corum(Darksyde), 4. Carcossa, 5. Scenic Dunsmouth, and 6. Peril on the Purple Planet. If I rolled #5 I probably rolled again as I wouldn't have time to generate the village. Or I guess I could have just pulled things out of the book I liked on the fly. It's not like that isn't how I end up running a session anyway. But I didn't. I rolled a six and sent them and the sonic "baby" to the surface of the Purple Planet. 

Using the opening pitch of this DCC module I put the PC's within the teleporting tunnel, but now it is just a torn out section lying twisted on the side of a rugged hill. In the distance the weak, red sun. Below on the purple sands ursine-like humanoids battle each other around a cairn, each trying to plant their battle flag. Unnoticed but outnumbered the Ape PC decided to weaponize the weaponized unfinished clone by swinging the sleeping thing over his head and hurling it into the ursoids' melee. This happened after he snuck down close enough to hear them curse over the din of battle. Using his polyglot specialism he was able to get a handle on what was going on. The hurling has the predictable result of waking the unfinished clone who once landed amid the warring creatures began shrieking it's deadly wail. This killed many close to the wailing creature and put others to flight. The balanced now tipped in favor of one side and the losing clan fled the field. 

The victors planted their battle lance on the cairn, took trophies from the dead, and departed with the body of the unfinished clone. During the battle the wailing clone was attacked by some of the more resilient ursoids and silenced by brutal blows. When the coast was clear the PC's descended upon the purple plain and inspected the cairn more closely. It was artificial, metallic, and scoured by ages of windswept sand. Further the battle lance holding the flag of dried skin was obviously a rifle of advanced design and technology. They also found a handle recessed in the side of the cairn which allowed the side to be opened. The Yak used his Repair specialism to restore power to the artifact which in turn teleported the PC's back to the lab. 

When PC's cross dimensions in my games I'm of a mind if the adventure isn't about escaping the new dimension don't let the game stay for a long time in the new dimension. This will mean not making it difficult to leave, or to backtrack to the original game world. And this is fitting with the genre of action-orientated anthropomorphic animal comics.

So the PC's returned to the lab arriving at the junction of the teleportation tunnel, but with a section of the tunnel now missing leaving only bored basalt stone walls and severed power couplings. Here I made note my instructions for how the teleport tunnel works in the printed rule book is all garbage. In the book I have anyone walking down the passageway in either direction will be "flipped" into walking the opposite direction right before they return to the junction. This doesn't work as described at all. After this blog post I'm editing the book to make the "endless" teleporting tunnel work, make sense, and add more to the adventure.

Now the lab, apart from the missing section of tunnel, appears to have come alive in the party's absence. Including audible instructions ringing out from hidden speakers to cease resistance and prepare for termination sequence. Nonplussed, the Yak wants to examine the rifle they brought back from the purple planet. Making rolls against his Repair specialism he figures out quickly how it operates and that it is an energy weapon powered off of battery packs. Then the security robot arrives in the corridor. The PC's don't hesitate with a ranged fusilade of poo and plasma. Badly damaged the security bot lurches forward to engage the PC's but the Ape uses his Climb! (that's it, that is his third specialism!) to jump up onto the ceiling, using his strength to grip into the corridor ceiling, out of the way of the attacking robot. The Ape concludes the demonstration by dropping down onto the robot and stomping in its head. Before another security robot shows up the Yak has taken apart the downed bot and fashioned a bomb out of its power supply complete with wireless detonator, and the Ape has hammered the head casing into a serviceable helmet. 

The second attacking security bot beats the Yak senseless before the Ape can get the better of the bot and it to lies in ruin upon the hallway floor. The Ape revives the senseless Yak and he makes another bomb. It is here time was up and the session called.

Besides the error in the printed adventure the system, rules, and all seemed to work as intended; fast, loose to interpretation. As a one-shot I wasn't too concerned if I got some of the details on how the lab functions incorrect, but I could organize some of the most important information better and more on the front end of the text. Reference sheets for the Game Keeper with all the charts and tables from the rule book would be useful at the table. I'll need to create one and add it to the publication.

At the end of the day it was the great willingness of the PC's to embrace the genre and game accordingly which made the session work. Between the two of them they could carry the game without my input for stretches, but that is something I've gotten used to with this bunch during our long running Clockwork & Cthulhu game. As a group they don't need much from me to keep the action going.

6/19/17 [Edit]: The recovery and healings rules need to be looked at. They will most likely see a rewrite in the upcoming POD copy of the game I am writing right now!

AD&D Rules I Never Used

I remember penciling in all the pluses to hit AC per weapon type, but I don't ever recall the DM paying any attention to it. I think we had to dig into the Monster Manual to identify our opponent's armor class and push the issue. You added strength bonuses if you had it and yeah boyo magic weapons was how you improved your chance to hit. 

I do know for a fact we never played surprise as outlined in the Dungeon Masters Guide. Too bad, it would have added a layer of deadliness, a quickening of combat which the drag out nature of "did I hit, yes 6 points of damage" and the DM would make some notes on paper would sometimes bug me about D&D combat. We were teens so combat really only became cinematic when fireballs were unleashed or the monk PC tried something stupid.

But I pulled out my 1e DM Guide cause, well, there are so many things which delight and frustrate me about the AD&D system I like to revisit the 1e books and figure ways to enhance my B/X games or port the flavor of the classic D&D magic system into BRP. And so I was reading the surprise rules on page 61 getting the usual bemusement. That is a necessary mechanic, providing a rules for a combat event I would want to have in my game, but man they are worse than the los rules in Wellington's Victory. I think they are a confusing mess.  I can see why my DM in those heady days just passed them up.

On page 62 though the rules on surprise made me perk up and get interested. And I quote; "Because the party surprised is (relatively) inactive, the surprising party will be able to attempt telling blows during each segment of surprise as if the segment were an entire round!" Okay, now there is a reason to figure out those fiddly segment rules back on page 61. A chance to land more than one telling blow before an initiative check. But here is the combat game changer I never saw at my early game table; "Even if distance prevents striking with weapons, the discharge of arrows, bolts or hand-hurled weapons is permissible at three times the normal rate..."

I want to track down my old DM, book in hand and wave it around saying WTF?! This rule never hit our table. I generally prefer my Moldvay B/X rules over AD&D. Clarity, brevity, and well organized the first rpg rulebook I had was really helpful. But this rule is kind of a tactical combat game changer. It incentives setting up surprise situations, ambushes you know. Also a place to dump all the gold your PC's are accumulating; bow-wielding henchmen.

The Dungeon Masters guide is a thick book with rules scattered pell-mell so I know there are many more my early gaming group never used. And generally when I peruse my old books I don't really care. The new retro-clones available now clean up the rules mostly to my satisfaction. But the surprise rules, there is something there to like. 

I've never been to a con, but

I already have a huge beef. Whenever I google a con, whether I end up on their web site or a press release, the con never says where it is. Australia, Ethiopia, Cleveland? Fuck if I know. Pick a con, any, and maybe you will get dates on the splash page, and then...? 

What disconnect happens when gaming convention organizers discuss on site logistics, convention bids, vendor space, etc and no one says, "Hey, should we let people know what continent this will occur?" 'eF 'em is what I think convention organizers say. I shudder to think such basic information is merely overlooked.  

Build it and they will come is not a recipe for success for RPG conventions. I guarantee a game convention success is happenstance, relying on the sheer desire and interest of the participants. And your customers are being thwarted by your lazy-ass text. Just let people know where the event is being held. I'll help; "No story-games-allowed will be held in Aspen, CO, USA (emphasis added) December 8th - 10th 2017 at the Mt. Chalet. For further information email jay@resortrenovations.net." Just cut and paste and fill in your gaming convention's pertinent details. 

Put this info at the top of your web page. This will allow an untapped market of interested gamers the ability to say, I can make that. The quest should be found at the game table, not the reservation desk.

[Edit 04/09/2017] Gamehole Con does it right...

International two letter and three letter codes.