#RPGaDay2026 - Day 29 - "Labor"

Four weeks down with #RPGaDay and we're in the home stretch with "Labor."

This September will be the 17th anniversary for the blog.  I've been averaging OVER a post per day for over a decade.  It's certainly a labor of love, especially the role-playing stuff.  I normally post my Top 20 posts for the past 12 months at the end of September, and it normally is chock full of painting, convention AARs, game store reviews, and a few quality wargame recap,   Even well promoted #RPGaDay or #CharacterCreationChallenge posts don't scratch the traffic of the other posts. 

Why do I do it?  Because introducing journals to the groups almost 30 years ago helped play.  Adding experience for writing in the core book around 2001 produced some great entries for my Hackmasters games.  

By 2018, I had catalogued much of my AD&D/OSR time, all the ongoing games Cthulhu and Star Wars games.  

The only thing missing from my ongoing World of Georic campaign, was the early, non-journal years (1989-1997).   The campaigns I kindly label the high school, army, and Sabut Tablesmasher storylines.  There's bits and pieces, fleeting memories, and I either don't possess or threw out the material I ran for those guys.  

The solution was to make a fictional character to wade through the aftermath of these supposed adventurers cause, and with that, the Lost Dispatches of Feraso was born.  Thanks to a scribe who wrote above his station, Elsderth Millsbottom and his accumulated group of friends and allies acted as chroniclers, and sometimes damage control for the wake of destruction my high school group.  It was great, because it filled in the story gaps for 30+ years, it helped the mis-matched accumulation of Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Dungeon Magazine adventures all within a few leagues of each other, and they allowed me to map out sections I've barely put together,  

Elsderth Millbottom: scribe, hero, judge, Baron Greyhawk, horrible father, racist witch.

I covered the entirety of high school games, my entire army campaign, and the host of smaller, mini-campaigns I ran for folks.   Eldsderth became a real character by the end of the 100 episodes, gaining titles, losing friends, abandoning his family for selfish reasons, and secretly filling in a ton of plot holes that eased my brain. 

I still keep the sessions for our Gamma World campaign up-to-date, and I do some entries from the campaigns Gazetteer, but the Lost Dispatches is the last true labor of love I'll probably do for the blog.

Alternate Question:  Thing you are most willing to work on for a game

RPGaDay2026 - Day 28 - "Devotion"

Day 28!  Four weeks of #RPGaDay and we show our "Devotion" to the process.

The most devotion I've ever seen was Echelon and his animals....  

My college roommate Steve has a 30-year, well-documented history of creating unique (and annoying) characters. 

Despite some great ones after we moved to the online era gaming, he truly peaked with Echelon.  

Echelon's  back story alone was enough to create heart palpitations with a GM.  When his only piece of equipment purchased was his trident, I knew I was in trouble.  

With the rest of his starting gold he bought animals... and the cages and carts needed to transport them. 

A regular Dr Doolittle. 

And a lot of pigeons.  A LOT of pigeons.

Echelon die NOT have buy in during the early episodes.  Sure, he travelled to the dungeons of the ancient Temple of Alasku, but he refused to go down into them, worried some animal would eat his animals. 

Echelon: Come back out here if you need healing.... Don't worry I won't charge.

He even brought a large tent, his fellow adventurers delighted that they could stay dry during an encroaching thunderstorm.

Echelon: No that's for the animals... 

I also believe he let Timmy, the torchbearer, stay above ground to help him tend the animals.  

This schtick didn't last very long, probably because I embraced it with foils.  

As the party released prisoners from the dungeon, they gave them some rations and sent them out of the dungeon... and into the passive aggressive tones of Echelon, while he was feeding his cages of pigeons.  Most simply wandered away, heading towards the nearest village, if the cleric pointed in the right direction. 

Then I had Carthon come up, a basic 0-level human.  And despite getting Echelon annoyed at every step... he stayed near the cart.  He befriended Timmy, and finally Echelon allowed him to stick around as a servant.  

Having Carthon around forced/allowed Echelon to actually adventure... adding more gold to his coffers. 

When the adventuring party left on a mission for the ArchBishop of Hydincall and were all assumed dead.  Carthon used his unknown skills (Echelon never asked) and liquidated some of the animals, and along with Echelon's fortune, bought a small estate "The Chateau"  outside of the village, on the off chance that the group would return one day (spoilers: they did).  The Chateau raised pigeons and made wine.  It was a great action by Carthon, until Echelon and Talis learned how he financed the place.... and they nearly lost everything, but I talked about that on day 13 - "Strain"

Alternative Question:: Game you have played the most!

#RPGaDay2026 - Day 27 - "Hunger"

Day 27 of #RPGaDay and I'm running on fumes.  

Perhaps I should have had my players order my rations for the week, to supplicant the "Hunger" I'm looking for.

For the RPG community, one of the most epic stories has always been "Eric and the Dread Gazebo."   Immortalized in print by Knights of the Dinner Table, the classic tale of players not knowing everything, whether its in the book or in real life, can be quite amusing.  

When I brought forth today's prompt to my Monday night players, the immediately went with "The Mead Story"

I don't know the source anymore, perhaps a wacky letter in Dragon Magazine but I know I'm not the originator of it, but it goes like this:  

New campaign, new characters, definitely new players, who might have cracked open a Player's Handbook truly for the first time.  With a lot of handwaving to encumbrance and basic equipment, there's always a moment for a DM to officially question if the party had 500' foot of rope between them, or or gallon bucket of bat guano, or eight 10-foot poles, and food is always the easiest to call out. 

For us, and many other, rations are a rolling commodity: if you bought two weeks of rations, we essentially say you resupply when necessary, unless we deal with some underground adventure, or lost at sea, or something similar where food will dwindle.   My friends who borrowed my campaign world kept the same liberal worldview.  

The gist of the story is, the party reaches some point where character sheet bookkeeping is required for some reason.  Every one in a while a character is caught off guard, and the others usually share. 

And then there's the one player:  Oh, I'm fine I brought 15 days worth.

Fifteen days? Fifteen days of what perchance? 

Mead.

You bought 15 days of mead?   Just mead? 

Yeah, I figured it was per day and I know we don't follow encumbrance, but it didn't seem to take up much space.

You're adventuring and surviving on 15 days worth of mead? 

Sure!  Is there something wrong?

Do you what mead is??? 

Gemini

**** There is a practical discussion as to what mead actually is.  The player is enlightened, a little embarrassed, and suddenly very worried.*****

Then.... we never made it here.  

What do you mean? 

You asked me to get feed for the horses... 

Oh no....

I've been feeding them nothing but mead for the last five days we've been in the mountains...

Gemini

I know there's a mention of the mead story back in the RPGaDay2016 posts, but nothing that's happened to me directly.  

Any guidance to the origin to the story would be appreciated.

Alternate Question:  What do you hunger for most from a session?

#RPGaDay2026 - Day 26 - "Regret"

It's Day 26 of #RPGaDay and as we wheel closer to the end of week 4, there should be no "Regrets," but one character from my beloved Hackmaster campaign has plenty.

Gnome Titans in Hackmaster are essentially medieval gnome Spartans.  Fierce warriors on their one, regardless of their chosen class, the race mocked for their "Groin Stomp" skill, actualy had some crazy combat bonuses, and extra bonuses for having multiple Gnome Titans fighting side-by-side.

The adventuring company known as  The Burning Trogs had three of them. 

And for  General Zorin Redrock, Plenitatory Ambassador for the Barthey Empire, Revenger of Frandor's Keep... he has been focused on his one big failure for the last 15 years since he retired.

During the last critical days of the Siege of Frandor's Keep, Zorin, his trusted narcoleptic albino pal Whitey, the Gnome Titan priestess of Pangrus, Janus, and  the party's torchbearer, Coreena, left the Trogs to join the Gnome Titan Legions marching to relieve the keep.

While they were gone, the remaining party members at the time were kidnapped and almost enslaved by the Slavers of Roark.   The four members, Cecelia Darkspruce (half-elf warrior priestess of Sif), Gwendalyn Lorax, (half-elf druid), Brother Thomas, (human monk) and Marek the Learned (double invoker),  all managed to escape the ship and into the City of Roark itself.   The group broke out of the city under heavy pursuit,  but with the deaths of Marek and Brother Thomas (allegedly by fire-breathing velociraptors, the other two separated, and it was months before everyone was finally reunited.  

Despite fantastic success, fame, and fortune at Frandor's Keep, Zorin has not been able to live down that he was not around to save, or possible fight with, his friends.  While the woman who survived have risen to great position of powerful in the region, Zorin's watched them work through the trauma.  He's made it his mission to destroy the Slavers by any means necessary.    

Of course, finding an elusive slaving ring that's been around for hundreds of years is one thing.  Trying to do it without sailing experience was problematic.  He's lost most of his fortune, most of his ships, hundreds of men, and possibly the years of respect his previous career had garnered him. 

But those slavers will pay. 

And this leads to by biggest regret, and my biggest failed GM pitch that has never been realized:

Players will start as halfling sailors on Zorin's ship, Vengeance, prepping for the biggest raid of their career.  If successful, they just might find out some information on the Slavers of Roark, and with that Zorin may have to get the band back together to level Roark, and any other outpost they discover.   

This is my dream campaign, that allows the crunchiness of Hackmaster and a chance to get everyone together (probably online), recruit my other players who hadn't participated in the Burning Trogs to fill out the ranks, and finish A1-4 with righteous vengeance and furious anger.

And old man Zorin will get his revenge... and soothe that sharp part of his soul. 

Alternate Question:  One game you regret not trying? 

#RPGaDay2026 - Day 25 - "Familiarity"

Day 25 of #RPGaDay and our prompt is "Familiarity," or to use the alternate question offered:  "One game you want to get more familiar with?"

Staring at my shelf, after years of Gamma World, it's an acceptable transition to explore Mutant Crawl Classics (MCC)  by Goodman Games. 

I've had the opportunity to play Dungeon Crawl Classics, including with some of the published authors.  It's the right amount of zany old school fun.  I've also been blessed to have a local con where Goodman either has had a booth, or one of the authors running a booth over the years and acquired a copy of MCC for a steal. 

I honestly haven't gotten much time to peruse the entire book, but just delving into the first few pages have generated some great gonzo tables perfect for the style of post-apocalyptic play I enjoy.  Here's hoping I get that opportunity soon.

Alternate Question: One game you want to get more familiar with?

#RPGaDay2026 - Day 24 - "Distance"

Day 24 of #RPGaDay and the prompt of "Distance" is a no brainer from a guy who games online.

Yes, it's a poor attempt using Gemini, but here's a map of our regulars 

It's not London and Paris and Tokyo, but it's a good bunch of folks.   Plus, we were just missing our Boston delegation when the rest of us descended to Historicon in Lancaster, PA last month. 

Alternative Question:  Your preferred distance in any type of RPG conflict?

#RPGaDay2026 - Day 23 - "Fortune"

 Day 23 of #RPGaDay and the prompt "Fortune" make me immediately go back to the series of D&D boxed sets.

Perhaps it was the expected rapid levelling, maybe it was just a different economy, but all levels of BECMI D&D seemed to have fat stacks of gold everywhere.  It seemed like there was a lot to save up to, and once you got into Expert, the concept of "Name Level" where it was expected to building strongholds, castles, temples and towers and start ruling.  Noble titles were horribly designed, but structurally, where one could break down realms into handy standardized hexes on a map, it made sense.   (Example: A Viscount needed to rule multiple baronies, with at least barony having a Baron pledged fealty to him... He couldn't upgrade to a Count unless he actually conquered someone else's territory.  Weird but logical - Rule Cyclopedia, page 135)

In that same structure, building your stronghold was better organized that in AD&D.  Perhaps it was just the age, but we designed the castles, calculated the cost, and all that work was reasonable. 

Plus, the concept of having not henchmen, not hirelings, but actually levying troops was completely satisfying. 

Better yet, D&D offered better dominion administration, and a whole ongoing system of dominion check and dominion confidence to keep a Name-Level adventurer on his toes. 

And just an FYI, for those wishing to house me... the anticipated expenditure to keep a Viscount entertained is 150gp per day.  

Alternative Question: An enjoyable moment of good or bad fortune?