USR Sword & Sorcery Reviewed on Drive Thru

This silver best seller of mine did go up in 2016, so, 1,631 copies later its first review now appears on DriveThru Rpg!

I will count this a win. Out of all the copies sold it appears it was not sooo dreadful it moved anyone to commit an online barrage of hate directed at the press.

Two more automated Carcosa Generators

I've formatted two additional tables for the Carcosan campaign setting and have them now on the Carcosan page. It is kind of sloppy with the format of the actual description, but if you are neck-deep in a Carcosan campaign you will know what to make of it.

They are a Village Customs tab and a Random Encounter chart. Enjoy!

Live Stream Death Frost Doom

Vanishing Tower Press has got live streaming back for its Rom'Myr Dying Earth OSR campaign. It will be launching through the YouTube channel this morning at 7:00am.

Good time to start watching. The PCs are in the shrine room of Death Frost Doom and it is time to plunge deep into the evil witch dwells there!

Designing an Ad for Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery

Common refrain I hear from potential buyers of new game stuff, besides a smart question to ask, which I have tried to tackle with this ad is "What does it offer that I don't already have?" Game Masters and Crypt Keepers alike are skeptical of the latest dark brooding thing. And they have every right to be. I think the blurby, what's inside pitch I make is a decent one. Go ahead let me know what you think.

Death Frost Doom Session Report #1

I always tell myself to just breath easy, take a moment before speaking, and try not to freeze up when there is much I must respond to immediately and anticipate its “logical” reaction in real time. There is nary a session I have not been freaked out at some point during play. The freak out goes something like this: What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?

So if I am spinning out while running Death Frost Doom I conclude it must be me and not the published module. Maybe I can’t run these “awesome” adventures effectively? This is all rubbish of course. The only struggle, and I have had it before, is good old-fashioned page flipping during the game. If I get caught going back through my game material (mine or others) I start to unwind.

That is the other benefit of recording the game sessions. I make shit up that is not true in my head and believe it. Being your own worst critic. Little voices in your head...

The session was no better or no worse than any other. The PCs were wary, concerned and fearful of the place, but pushed on, nonetheless. The interesting moments of the session were player initiated. Any bad form I could find was having to do more retcon with the PCs than I usually must or desire. Retcon, my advice, get over it. Now if you want to find an indicator, some mark you have become a Dungeon Master master it is simple you never ever have to retcon during your campaign, Ever! This is clearly not possible, but I like it as a metric. The less I retcon the better all of us at the table are doing as far as attention and engagement are concerned.

Change of pace. Finding organic instances to change the pace of the action I consider important to. The previous session was a full-on wilderness night fight with wolves, werewolves, and the forest catching fire. Most grognards would call this a “combat heavy” session. And they would be right! For the player’s first time spending an entire session in the crypts there was no combat had. And I felt the players thought the stakes were just as high here as they were rolling on the forest floor with werewolves fighting knife, tooth and sword!

If you are a Dungeon Master curious or fretting on running DFD, the recorded session (link below) may put your mind at ease and may spark some ideas you want to include to pick your session up a notch. Please note, this is a recording of the live stream so there is no editing. The game session doesn't get started until 36 minutes in. Also, in another two weeks the game goes again and there is no sign the PCS are ready to quit the dungeon so you will most likely get a chance to see the module played all the way through? Heck, I'll even provide a link to some appropriate background music.

1E/2E Gamma World Game Session: Detroit Suck City

I turned to the MeWe gaming crowd I've managed to keep together after the demise of G+ for players to fill my friends new 1e Gamma World game. The three other open seats filled fast with five people so it looks like the game may get some legs with a stocked roster of PCs. The bidding war was opened for first game date (it was this past Friday) to be picked, got it scheduled and slammed out our first group adventure (jiminey got a special introductory issue one-shot prior to this) with, what the GM said "were questionable tactics." :) You now can be the judge. Here is the unedited, unexpurgated game session. I thought we had solid plans all along?

Now you get to be the judge!

Shelter in Place with Gamma World 1e

I phoned a friend of mine today while sitting in the Falcon after the Kessel Run got canceled. He was finding some time off on his hands like the rest of the world and was perusing his old 1e boxed set of Gamma World. We quickly agreed we would hook up on line in a couple of hours and roll up some mutant humanoids and animals (no plants or PSH's, first house rule). With any good session zero, the character creation process started blocking out the campaign world. The apocalyptic event was recent and not in the misty past, so a lot of standing rubble and ruin. We picked Detroit out of the hat for the destroyed urban environment we would start in. Slag pits are what you climb out of when ascending the post-apocalyptic corporate ladder, and that is about it at this point. 

Building the game world around some random character creation is just such the right way to approach a classic Gamma World game. We all have so much Post-Apoc media influence the idea train shouldn't ever run out of track. 

I posted up a mewe group for the game so as to get others involved and start establishing some game dates. Come on over if interested. Don't need to be a player, lurkers are always welcome. At least head over to the group and poach the form-fillable 1e character sheet. Or not. It is easily found online. I'll think I will add it to my Summonings page anways.

Oh, here is the character I created, Jiminey the Unethical Mutated Cricket.