Uncharted Space Random Tables for Traveller

Here is a instant generator I cobbled together out of some old Judge's Guild Traveller products. The use of this generator is when and if your PCs end up in a section of space previously unexplored by any agency. It is not fine grained, detailed or offering up interstellar stats. What it is for is to give the Referee something to work off in an instant notice! The obvious initial use of this generator is when your PCs miss-jump trying to navigate through hyperspace/jumpspace!

Champions United 3 Clouds over Capitol City

The home-brewed supers action crackled across the internet the other night and I finally managed to get captured. Like a clear shot of Spidey over Manhattan, it has been hard to come by actual footage of this new Champions campaign. Pilot error was kept to a minimum and the two hour session has been edited down to 52 minutes. If you enjoy listening to game sessions this edited audio (a format I try to get all my sessions into) shortens listening time and weeds out all the ramblings of middle-aged men and keeps the recording focused on the actual game action. If you do not enjoy listening to recorded game sessions then please, do not click on the following video.

If you are a fan of OSR supers game (Villains & Vigilantes, Superworld, Champions, etc.) then this campaign may be up your alley.

2019 in Review

Never did get around to this semi-quasi-generally-recurring blog post about what kind of gaming I have gotten up to over the last year. Starting to look like my company Christmas party, we usually get around to that in August. 2019, what the hell have I been up to. My first OSR module was released to great acclaim and mild sales. 26 copies to date. I think that is great for this project. The only part I fucked up was making the POD copy available on Lulu. Which means all the copies out there are all PDF's. I couldn't direct any sales over to Lulu. Too bad cause the physical copy isn't shabby at all. Proud of the work. It also had an editor which puts it above like 90% of the DIY game product being shucked on DriveThru. The other serious goal it accomplished is making sure 2019 wasn't a dud, as far as new product being released. Hate to see the Press have a zero output year. If you are not publishing anything you are not much of a game company are you?

I sold 131 of my own game products in total for the tidy some of $86.66 commission in 2019. This includes the novel war game Santapocalypse. I should look at these "card" capabilities at DriveThru, see if I can make some mounted, color counters you could cut up. Color matters in game products.  Or it would matter on this one I think. Nice poppy unit counters. Interestingly it is my first product released by another "company", Peryton Publishing, so that is strange. It definitely is the the way to live, have someone else publish for you. I was edited, got an original piece of art added to it. I just need someone to fetch me coffee and empty out my ashtray! Fucking big time baby.

The D&D conversion guides chugged along grossing a little over $1,000.00. leaving me with $849.00 profit. Lets see... Mark bought a t-shirt. I think they are cool cause it has my art on it.  I "monetized" the venerable blog with using affiliate links to DriveThru and that is a strange, stunning $148.00 in folks clicking thru and buying stuff on the site.  

Business aside, the actual part of gaming, the reason I am all in on DIY gaming stuff, was absurdly off the charts again. Not in volume of play but quality of play. 2019 saw me running only Rom'Myr Dying Earth, but it has spawned my most detailed fantasy world I've worked on yet. As is every other campaign I've run it has a direct motive, game challenge which I set out to accomplish and test the validity of. Rom'Myr is your standard high fantasy fare using Dungeons & Dragons to prove, at least to myself, the shit about D&D being good for only dungeon crawling, or it is only about combat, or it isn't good for telling stories or whatever drivel is being declared about the deadness of trad roleplaying conceits, is just that; shit. The end analysis I come to is shit players/gms make for shit games. I've taken the zero-to-hero, xp leveling for character improvement, counter-intuitive AC system of combat and put so much sword and sorcery meat on the bones that I'm satisfied with my most strident conclusions. I can use any system to give red in tooth and claw roleplaying adventure as long as I have two things; a firm grip on the genre to be run, and players who do shit. Interesting shit. They like talk with each other, work in character based on what the character actually does and don't tell you what their character is, they play the sum'bitch and who these imaginary heroes are comes to life in truly unique ways. I can't get invested in a game or character unless their is an opportunity to be surprised by the character's life and achievements waiting to be had. I won't go through the laundry list of preconceived bias built into critiquing the world's first, and most successful, roleplaying game I and my players obliterated in play. Suffice to say concepts such as immersion, in character, rich game world reacting to the players, player agency and self-directed adventure goals are pretty routine stuff around the Vanishing Tower game table.

Hitting the two year mark with this campaign has got me in the joyous position of thinking of conclusions, campaign endings. When does the campaign reach its end? My first two campaigns ended in the traditional manner of petering out with month-long breaks, rage quits, and changing personal schedules. This one though, Rom'Myr Dying Earth just might make it to a final resolution. A place where the character's stories are done, the last oaths have been uttered and the last betrayal suffered. Where the PCs get the just reward of fading into legend... It could happen. Maybe in 2020!

Rom'Myr the Dying Earth - Currently in Averoigne.

Latest video at Vanishing Tower Press studios is up. Uncut version of session #25 of the High Fantasy epic which is grudgingly being dragged out of our bleak sword and sandal word of Rom' Myr and has spent most of the campaign time in Clark Ashton Smith's Averoigne. It is has been a long and turning path and the linkages between the two realms is little understood. Fortunately the PCs are of a single minded purpose of meting out justice against their enemies. If they could only come to grips with them!