Category Archives: commentary

23 Questions

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1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?

The bogpiggie. Which I still need to use.

2. When was the last time you GMed?

Last Sunday for eight hours. LotFP.

3. When was the last time you played?

Last Saturday, for eight hours. As Magneto and then as a number of Muppets.

4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven’t run but would like to.

The chase scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?

I remove corpse miniatures, determining that they have become zombies and will come get them later. No one ever notices this.

6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?

I chew gum like it’s going out of style.

7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?

Yes.

8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?

There was a magic mirror that would grant one inescapable wish. I wished that all magic throughout all universes and multiverses, arcane and divine, no longer worked or existed. All hell broke loose.

9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?

Neither. But my players are at conventions mostly, so there’s no rule of thumb there.

10. What do you do with goblins?

Make them very smart. A cross between the goblins in Harry Potter and the two monkeys in Madagascar.

11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?

I used this image as a sleeping giant last weekend in one of my sessions. It is from Adriaen Coenensz’ Vis booc (Fish Book), which is online here.

All the information is in Dutch, but the Google translating engine says that its actually a miscarriage, which was considered an ill omen from God.

I highly recommend this as a source of inspiration, even though most of it is about whales.

12. What’s the funniest table moment you can remember right now?

I’ll quote Barking Alien  http://barkingalien.blogspot.com/2012/01/23-questions-with-barking-alien.html:

“This past Saturday, Sweetums opened his mouth to show that the Weapons Grade Grape Pop Rocks had turned his tongue purple…which resulted in him accidentally firing on all of the PCs and NPCs with what amounted to a gatling gun style release of candy coated shrapnel.”

 

13. What was the last game book you looked at–aside from things you referenced in a game–why were you looking at it?

 

I just got the prerelease pdf of PSI*RUN for preordering it. I wanted to see what these new kinds of RPGs are like and I had heard some great stuff about an X-Men-themed session run at NerdNYC’s Recess. Now I want to play and I also want to find a way to mash it up with Vornheim.

14. Who’s your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?

At the moment, Adriaen Coenensz.

15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?

I did freak some people with Call of Cthulhu years ago, but I had these advantages: a table on a stage with curtains down, lighting, a fog machine and the Cocteau Twins.

16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn’t write? (If ever)

I ran Death Frost Doom a few summers ago. That’s the only time I can remember running a pre-written module.

17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?

Perhaps a table on a stage with curtains down, lighting, a fog machine and the Cocteau Twins.

18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?

Tunnels and Trolls, LotFP

19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?

Grant Morrson’s run on The Doom Patrol and Evil Dead.

20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?

Willing. Enthusiastic. Open-minded.

21. What’s a real life experience you’ve translated into game terms?

Got nothing for this one, sorry.

22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn’t?

Something like Planescape, adapted for OSR, using less AD&D-specific cosmology. Big influences would be Neil Gaiman & Grant Morrison. Guess I better wrap up current projects and get on that.

23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn’t play? How do those conversations go?

I sometimes talk about ideas with my wife, who until Sunday had never played an RPG outside of video games…

Me: The first time I ran it, they ended up releasing Loki and triggering Ragnarok, but this time I.. blah blah blah

Her: Uhuh. Well that’s interesting.

 

But now that she’s played (LotFP, a Cleric) and wants to try again, I have no answer anymore.

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Update on ‘Bring It’

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Last December, as a way to get myself back into writing stuff for our game, I offered to write tables, lists and other stuff on request in a series I’m calling ‘Bring It’. I said I’d donate a dollar to charity for each request I get.  So far, I’ve gotten 33 requests and I’ve posted 15 replies.

For this first month’s requests, I’m donating $35 to the Food Bank for New York City, which should help feed one child for two months. The food banks around the country have been hit hard this last year, so if you can donate food or money to your local food bank, please do.

I have to finish preparing for the con game I’m running Sunday. I’ll be posting more after the weekend.

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Breaking Rule #1: Never Participate in Blog Things

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Noism had some questions.

Book binding.

I prefer it to be somewhere between ‘falls apart’ and ‘it won’t stay open to the page you are on’. You want me to complain about rulebooks? I’d rather complain about content and organizational issues such as alphabetical lists of spells as opposed to level-based lists (with an alpha index). Or two-columns per page.

“Doing a voice”. How many people “do voices”? Should they? How do you get better at “doing a voice” if that’s your thing?

As long as no one minds if I slip into a seriously stereotypical accent, I’ll do them. If its a serious and dramatic moment, I might not.

Breaks. How often do you have breaks within sessions?

When I notice that I am uncomfortable. If the session goes well, everyone forgets until we are all squirming.

Description. Exactly how florid are your descriptions?

Not at all. I try to stick to strictly physical adjectives such as color, texture or analogy to something that would be contemporary for the characters. I never use adjectives that imply the nature of something or a judgement. I avoid adverbs if I can.

I only give short descriptions unless someone looks closely, in which case they can tell me how they look at something, how close they get and how they go about examining something. This is what makes them start to get nervous.

Where do you strike the balance between “doing what your character would do” and “acting like a dickhead”?

If I think the PC’s actions could easily be construed as being a dickhead, I see if there isn’t some other way to accomplish something. Unless, of course, the atmosphere of the table/game encourages that. I probably get stepped all over as a PC.

PC-on-PC violence. Do your players tend to avoid it, or do you ban it? Or does anything go?

If I am not going to allow it, I generally warn folks at the beginning. Same if I will encourage it.

How do you explain what a role playing game is to a stranger who is also a non-player?

I don’t. If someone came to our table and asked, I’d let someone else explain.

Alchohol at the table?

If I am among friends, yes. If I am at a con or in a situation where people have either paid, no. And if I am running the game, not till it’s over.

What’s acceptable to do to a PC whose player is absent from the session? Is whatever happens their fault for not being there, or are there some limits?

I generally leave them alone.

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Recess Eve

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On the night before Nerdnyc’s Recess minicon, I’m printing player handouts, tables from Vornheim, monsters from this blog while packing dice, markers, hex paper, chess pieces and a jenga set.

I really have come to appreciate the simplicity of LotFP. Pregens take maybe 4 minutes, since I already have stock equipment lists for all classes. At this point, were I picking a pre-gen from my game, it would be the Elf or the Dwarf.

Once I’ve run this, I’ll post a play report, the monsters and eventually the enture adventure. Since I’m using Vornheim for the first time as well, I’ll blog the city as it develops on the spot.

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For My Next Trick…

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Sometimes the best way to get to something you really want to do is to commit to do it in front of a lot of people.

So I signed up to run LOTFP Grindhouse Edition at Recess, nerdnyc’s mini-con in Manhattan on October 8.

I’m going to use the Vornheim kit to run an urban crawl/defense/zombie invasion scenario. Think of this as the aftermath of certain OSR module where all hell is let loose. I’ll be using variations on the undead from this blog and an adventure setting I have used in the past plus perhaps something from Zak’s blog and Ancient Vaults.

I’m mostly out of the weeds now, and will be posting more stuff as I come up with it (except things that I want to use at Recess).

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A Digital Archive of OSR RPG Material

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It’s said that to a carpenter, everything eventually looks like a nail. I just finished an MLIS degree, so everything I see needs to be organized and preserved.

Over the last year or so, and especially in the last few months, I have wondered if the OSR needs a digital archive/library of gaming rules (spells, monsters, house rules, window dressing) that has been published under and OGL and/or CC license.

By digital archive, I mean a website, but I don’t mean a wiki or a list of links to the sites where the materials originated (although that is certainly a good thing). I mean a database that houses the information (each distinct piece of work) and the metadata necessary for users to browse and search for materials by theme, ruleset, inspiration, etc.

Why would this be useful?  Well-designed archive would serve two purposes:

  • A digital archive would make it easier to find good materials. It could be a single place to find that awesome centaur statblock or the quick and easy kung-fu system no matter who made it up. It would also separate the material from any bloggy stuff before, after or around it.
  • And of course it would preserve it against the day when the website that houses it disappears. By providing a means of easily setting up a mirror archive, it would ensure even against its own doom.

I would prefer something like this as a community-supported non-profit effort, by the way. Members (preferably the authors themselves) would need to enter content and make sure the metadata is accurate.

I am not proposing this project just now–I’ve got lots to take care of as it is. I just want to test the waters to see if it’s worth even thinking about. It seems to me that there’s enough good stuff out there that merits some sort of organization and backup.

What do y’all think?

 

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Redheads

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Am I the only one who wishes there was  writeup of the redhead fighter in the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Grindhouse box?

Also: Vornheim. Yes, please more. of. this. Whatever the graduate school equivalent of senioritis is, this put me off the deep end. Three more weeks until I can play and post regularly again.

Hopefully there will be more Vornheim-compatible table keys. I know I’ll be making some.

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