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Rolang's Creeping Doom

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23 Questions

January 18, 2012 4:30 pm / Leave a Comment / Chris

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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Posted in: commentary, legacy D&D / Tagged: blog thing, meta

Update on ‘Bring It’

January 13, 2012 8:32 am / 1 Comment / Chris

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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Posted in: commentary, legacy D&D / Tagged: bring it, charity, meta

A Digital Archive of OSR RPG Material

June 14, 2011 8:06 pm / 9 Comments / Chris

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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Posted in: commentary, legacy D&D, Organization / Tagged: archive, meta, metadata

Redheads

April 18, 2011 12:09 pm / 1 Comment / Chris

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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Posted in: commentary, product recommendations / Tagged: lotfp wf rpg, meta, vornheim

Best of the Creeping Doom Part 2

December 31, 2010 1:48 pm / 1 Comment / Chris

When I started this little project, it was meant only to entertain me. It seems to have entertained a few others. I certainly didn’t expect any sort of audience and I never would have guessed that my most popular articles would be about clerics and halflings.

Let me tell you about the Old School....

The most popular post by a wide margin has been my review of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role Playing boxed set. There has been constant interest in that review since I wrote it. I take it as a sign of interest in what OSR and especially what James Raggi is doing that people are still getting here via googling his game. Looking back at it now, it’s really not a very good review. It was rushed and I’ll admit there was a desire to be one of the first reviews out there. Looking at the boxed set now, I’m still impressed. The “princess box” will be my ruleset of choice when I next DM.

While the LotFP review is still the most looked-at and most googled post, the biggest one-day post was my piece on hobb -er halflings. I wanted to make the hobbits into the nightmare that some people see immigrants to be. In this case, they do take over wherever they settle and the thought of legions of halflings with spears or pikes amuses me to no end. This was a throwaway piece when I started writing it, but in the campaign world in my head, they might be one of the most important features.

Another popular post was a simple idea: mages will become liches after a certain age or level. This seemed to be popular with the folks who hang out at reddit’s rpg community. I’m far from done with mages.

I rarely play clerics, but I seem to have posted more about clerics and their gods than any other subject and as a topic, they are the most popular. The most popular post in this series concerned a goddess of despair that is empowered by the harm her followers do.

Before I wrap up this meta talk, I want to recommend two sites to you that I am sure I do not need to. If you are reading this, you are surely reading them. If not, you should be. First is Ancient Vaults and Eldritch Secrets. Bat puts out a new item, spell, monster or whatnot every day. Holidays and blizzard days too. Each entry is a quality piece and begins with a short setup with a recurring cast of characters. The man has a work ethic and he’s done this enough to get really good at it. You’re my role model, Bat. Now when are you going to publish?

The other site, Swords and Dorkery also needs no introduction. Mike’s presence here as a recurring commenter gave me the first notions that there was anyone visiting this site more than once and for that I must thank him.  He participates more actively in the blogging community and has gathered some of his best materials into downloadable files.

To wrap up the navel gazing…

So far, the blog is still dong what I wanted it to do: get me to sit, stretch my imagination and write RPG material for later use. That some people have found it worth reading and perhaps used something in their games is very gratifying. I hope I can keep my personal goal in mind and not get distracted by the number of readers or page views I get. This next year, I hope to post more often, even when extremely busy as I have been this fall.

I wish everyone a great 2011 and I hope we all get in as much gaming as you want.

Happy New Year!

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Posted in: character race, commentary, house rules, legacy D&D, product recommendations / Tagged: clerics, gods, halflings, lotfp wf rpg, meta, reddit

My Ettin vs. Porn Stars

October 17, 2010 10:27 pm / Leave a Comment / Chris

Zak asked for everyone’s ideas late Friday night and said he’d put them all in the sandbox. I posted a short paragraph about the Ettin I’d retooled a while back. Lo and behold, it turned out to be the big combat of the session. To be clear, it was his interpretation of my short idea that took them on, not any monster of my own devising.

Nonetheless, I post this because I find it gratifying that someone had fun with one of my ideas and specifically Zak and his crew. It was this post on Zak’s blog that inspired me to start writing my ideas down for you (all three of you). His posts exemplify the kind of creativity and fresh thinking about the game that I hope to develop by doing this.

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Posted in: commentary, humor, legacy D&D / Tagged: blogs, ettin, meta, rethinking

Why Creeping Doom

April 28, 2010 3:02 am / 2 Comments / Chris

From the Advanced Edition Companion to Labyrinth Lord:

Creeping Doom
Level: 7 Duration: 4 rounds per level Range: 0
When the caster utters the spell of creeping doom, a mass of centipedes, insects, and arachnids is called forth. The swarm occupies a volume of 20′ square, and can be commanded to swarm any target within 80′. The swarm moves at 10′ per round, and will consist of (1d6+4)x100 individual bugs, each of which deals 1 point of damage and then dies. If a swarm occupies the same area as a target, as many bugs attack as the creature has hit points. The remaining swarm may be commanded to attack a new target in range. If the swarm moves beyond 80′ from the caster, 50 of their number wander away. An additional 50 wander away per 10′, so that if they are 100′ away, 150 have been lost.
Now that, friends, is a spell.
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Posted in: rules, spells / Tagged: meta, spells
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