Shameless Promotion: Blind RPG

Its official. Blind debuts at Gary Con IX.

Information at: http://blindrpg.blogspot.com/

The print version available spring 2017. Includes rules and 3 experiences.

Whisp-Lock

Whisp-lock

Size: 10 feet
Number: 1
Movement: floats 50 feet per Na-nuta
Disposition: Performs acts of evil to prove itself
Heat vision: Yes
Surprise: +4
CHP: See hair color, below
Muscle Power: 2d12 (Ave 12)
Cerebral Energy: d12+14  (Ave 26)
Nimbality: d6+8 (Ave 11)
Armor: None, however may only be harmed by creatures who themselves are bald.
Blind Panic: 65%

Description:

These malign creatures are as feared as they are rare. A Whisp-loc is created when a Gargo-goat eats a single strand of a sleeping female Arcanists hair during a gibbous moon. The creepazoid is released 12 days later from the excrement fully formed. It’s sole desire is to outperform (by a factor of at least ten) the Arcanist donor in every way. To accomplish this it will use the most direct and immoral means necessary to inflate its ego. Whisp-locs have the same abilities as an Arcanist (including combat arts, MERP and spell usage). If you meet one, run. These things void insurance covenants at 1,000 yards. Good luck. 

Attacks/Defenses:

x2 claw slashes inflict 1d8 PHP each (cannot use these attacks and cast a spell).

May set fire to itself (inflicting normal burning damage), however the effect is so olfactorily vile that all creatures in a 60 ft radius must pass an insanity factor check or suffer an effect from the Freakout matrix (p:130).

May completely unravel to escape. This takes 1d4 Na-nutas and the 100 meter strand can slither into the smallest space at a speed of 160 feet per Na-nuta.

Hair Color: Roll a d4

1) Gray: CHP: 14d4/Arcanist Grid 4

2) Black: CHP: 16d4/Arcanist Grid 5

3) Blonde: CHP: 18d4/Arcanist Grid 6

4) Red: CHP: 20d4/Arcanist Grid 7

Live Action Rule:

If the Crypt Lord catches any player fiddling with their hair the combat sequence is instantly reset to the beginning of a new Na-nuta. All actions that may have been performed are lost. As always to start the new Na-nuta scroll, pincer, ingot is used to see which side strikes first. However, the player side is restricted from using ingot during the determination.

The lowdown on the “Weird” non-popular game stats: Some of the terms can be intuited and converted. If this seems an arduous task simply leave a nice note in my comments and I’ll throw some stats together for that unmentionable more popular game. The other option is to...never mind.

New Way to Generate Random Stuff on the Fly

I like my dice, but sometimes they get in the way. This often happens when role playing conversations and I need to pull something off a list somewhere to spark my creativity. I have always loved that commercial where the two people walk into each other, one is eating from an open jar of peanut butter, the other munching on a chocolate bar. "Heyyy....you got your dice in my table...." 

I took the listings from Mr. Sabbath's "d100 Brutalizer" post and put them on cards I printed out that look like this. His list has around 200 entries, each one of my cards holds 24. His list makes a good demonstration of this format.

Here is how they work. Spin them around so a random side is up. There is a hex shaped card on top that is broken into two rings of six zones. Rotate it and slide your thumb down. You will get a number from 1 - 6 and either an "R" or "C".

I check the hex card result, in this case a 3R, which means 3 REPEAT. I slide the cards down so the 3 slot on each is visible. I got "Barbecued Toe" as a result. Because this can be done while doing something else, (like talking) it's a seamless way to throw in random stuff during play. No flipping through books.

The original purpose was to generate random city encounters on the fly. For example, the players walk into a bar and they see...

...a Mengweer Bucklemaker who says "didn't I kill you once"?

Now Available on Lulu!

Guaranteed to put bricks to sleep! Core rules to the the game that has annoyed my wife for decades! It's lots and lots of words and some are even in the right order.

This is an original game.
Not a retro-clone.
OSR? Sure.
This is the definitive original edition.

All you need is some time, brain power and a few chewed up pencils.

My friends promise you will have a great time.

I am not making any promises.

You can find it on Lulu as a softcover or PDF.
We have a long way to go.
Cheers!

A Review of Playing at the World by Jon Peterson

For the last couple of months I have been scribbling notes in my copy of Playing at the World. Every few days my wife says “aren’t you done, yet?” It took three pencil sharpenings before I could even consider my next projects, either WN62 (a biography of a WW2 german machine gunner on the beaches of D-day) or Dune. I thought before becoming consumed by either of these I should savor a few moments of freedom and write a few words about Playing at the World.  

Before I get off track, trying to sound all clever and stuff, Here it is: I really really like this book. I have always been enthralled by the design history of games. I have read many and there are not many good ones.

Playing at the World has a lot of damn pages, 698 to be exact. There’s a narrow passageway in the middle where going back was too treacherous, so I hunkered down and slashed my way through. Not to worry, it passes quickly and I managed to dispatch a few goblins, earn a few xp and find an old boot. In some ways this book is like a long murder trial in which a lot of evidence must be presented to insure a faithful reconstruction of the crime. Additionally, it goes in depth regarding games that came before, such as Kriegspiel and Diplomacy. All good games are built on the shoulders of giants and Peterson’s exhaustive research shows that D&D is no exception. He wisely limits his source material to Fanzines written before D&D’s huge success and the revisionist history that followed. By combing through contemporary sources, Peterson accurately reconstructs the events that give rise to the birth of RPG’s. One of the many things I found amazing is the well documented exchange of ideas in fanzines. They read like a three legged slow motion version of today’s internet. I also appreciate that he presents E. Gary Gygax without judgement and allows the reader to form their own conclusions on the Man, the Myth, the Legend.  

For me this book scratched two itches:

The first was an itch I did not know I had, namely laying out what exactly was appropriated from Arneson, Kriegspiel, Diplomacy, Leiber, Tolkien and Dr. Strange. Gygax combined many disparate ideas to make D&D.  This fusion was incremental and like many category starters, he had no idea what this thing really was or what it would become. He simply thought it would be just another product in the TSR line. I never had the pleasure of meeting Gary Gygax, but I did meet Dave Arneson. In that brief encounter, I could sense the bitterness he harbored, not getting the billing he probably thought he deserved. In reading interviews with him, this is certainly a thing. (Spoiler: not very many people who worked at TSR  ever seemed to be happy). Playing at the World sheds light on Arnesons creative role in D&D and it’s a mixed bag for sure. I still have issues that Gary Gygax always seemed to take more credit than he deserved. Certainly he could have been more upfront about where his inspiration came from, but that’s water under the bridge. I liken it to the credit Stan Lee heaps upon himself in creating the Marvel universe, delicately omitting his fellow creator Jack Kirby. Unlike Kirby, however, Arneson sued TSR and got paid millions (yes, actual royalty numbers are quoted) for basically doing nothing. Bitterness is it’s own reward, I guess.

The second itch I’ve had for a while. It has to do with reconciling the terms “role-playing” and “game”. Technically a case can be made that an RPG is not a game at all. As a game designer this is the Burning Question and for me, Peterson has insight on this dilemma. He lays out the things that make D&D and role-playing unique: a player controls a single character (essentially defining game scale), these characters advance in power through “stratified progression” and one player must take on the role of referee who reveals secret information as the world is explored. But, lastly, and by far the most unique aspect of RPG’s is the agency allowed by the players, in that “anything may be attempted”. I danced around this bit in my own game rules about the Crypt Lord: “This is the magic of role-playing. It cannot be explained to the uninitiated, or simulated by even the most technologically advanced main frame-computing device”. Nothing on this earth except the pulpy mass of the human brain can deal with that kind of free agency.

Yes, “it’s a fine wine, it has a bouquet like an aborigines armpit”. I highly recommend this book to anyone who really wants answers about the history of D&D. Now, if I can just find six more people to play Diplomacy...

Stat-less Characters for The Game With No Name

These are prototypes, basically a test run of the layout and form factor. One of the concepts of this game experience is the rules are kept hidden from the players. As such, character information will be presented in this format using text descriptions instead of stats and percentages. The colored chips indicate how character damage will be represented. Players will need to rely on the referee's descriptions to decide just how wounded they are. The rules part of the game is shaping up nicely, but to insure secrecy I have no other comments on that matter.

I am in the process of writing a number of modules, these will also be getting a similar card treatment. There are a number of advantages. A key one is that because they are not being presented in a linear narrative, it will be easier to rearrange them, thus increasing player agency.

The Game With No Name debuts in a few short months at Gary Con and in print.

Plan B

There is going to be a lot of new stuff here in the coming months. The V1 version of C-N-C is currently being upgraded to V2.  I have been saving old grocery bags for years to make the pages:

Text is nonsense

This is a sample page layout. There will be a couple dozen different page backgrounds. I have a very sophisticated method for generating these:

I draw designs, print them on the bags..

...and use this rig and my phone to photograph them. I want the game to look like a Hobo's notebook. Some of you have seen the art that is being created, here is a typical example of a Gargo-Rat:

"Want us to open some doors?"

Because I am also a model builder I am building physical models of the illustrations, that will become images in the book.  Here is a worshiper of Ishtar that's next up to get photo-shopped:

She's 1/12 scale, I'll make some sort of background and "work my magic".

So, imagine these guys, but bigger and (I was going to say "cooler", but stopped myself). I made these way back.  I really like Manitoba on the far left.

I have lots of stuff to do...here is a "Rending Sucker" that will get turned into a model and photographed.

This is the Lulu cover...Absolutely no stupid character groups on the front. The gist is, there will be V2 coming (I apologize if your a Londoner). A whole new section on Pith, the sandbox stuff will all be rewritten and put in to make campaigns and I have a system worked out I call "Thumbtrixes". New substance and the fluffy bells and whistles, but I PROMISE ON A STACK OF BIBLES it will still be the game you have always known and loved.

Let's not forget the great adventures coming out of Gary Con.

There is also The Game With No Name. Normally I don't get excited (I have people for that), but I am excited about this. Making this has opened a very interesting door. 

All of this will be in print. End of message. That is all. Carry on.