Mirke the Meek and His #RPGaDay2026 Companion

 Small podcast rant before I get to Mirke the Meek.

My podcast listening has dwindled down to nearly nothing.   My weekend drives to take care of my mother is always accompanied by Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff, where even the rare sub-par episode would still qualify them for an Ennie. I, for one, loved the tight 60 minutes confines that have characterized the podcast and now play it at x1.2 times to keep my time constraints.  

The Miskatonic University Podcast has been hit or miss for me, and I can't remember when I last finished an episode.  Not saying that I can criticize the topics or the hosts, it's just not hitting the same way it used to, and I'm itching to restart some sort of Cthulhu game.

In fact, in the midst of trimming the shrubbery around my mother's place, I was surprised by an episode of the Nerd's RPG Variety Podcast, and pleasantly amused it was going to be about #RPGaDay.  While the podcast has been a perennial hit-or-miss for me, the fact that the host, Jason, has been on a indeterminate hiatus, I was excited.

It seems his return was to support his fellow podcaster, Mirke the Meek, for an alternative to #RPGaDay that might fit some folks predilections rather than the daily prompts.  

The questions are relatively simple, and six separate areas to apply them:

(1.) What's your favorite ruleset for the genre and why?
(2.) What's this genre's best/most-fun module/adventure?
(3.) What are your favorite media (books, movies, comics, music, etc....) that best fits the genre?

And the areas of discussion: 
D&D as a Genre

Superheroes

Espionage, Spies, and Covert Ops

Sword & Sorcery

Horror

Sci-Fi 

It's pretty basic, and I'll admit, my excitement is just reaffirming my bias.  Since the 10th Anniversary of #RPGaDay, I've mildly campaigned for the return of the basic "Year One" questions that the early years covered.  Stumped on a prompt this year, feel free to call in on the Speakpipe link, or just use the topic for your own purposes.

Bill Making Stuff

First off a shout out to Quantrill's Toy Soldiers for posting the link to Bill Making Stuff  and sending me down this rabbit hole. 

Bill Making Stuff is a YouTube channel dedicated to him downplaying his clever genius with spare parts, trash, and a host of Dollar/Pound Store or thrift store toy finds.  I've been working through his videos backwards and absolutely adore his creations, and tying them into his personal world, the Gutterlands, a new source of inspiration for my own Death Planet Iota.

Delta Pink

 It's been a pretty sparse time for me podcast-wise.  A lot of what I've listened to over the years has either wrapped up for morphed into a different model or entity that just doesn't hit my demographic anymore.  Even my longtime stalwarts, the Miskantonic Univeristy Podcast, and even Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff are running 20-25% longer, and even at 1.25x speed it's been a tough to get through certain episodes.  

Then the fellas at Pink Fohawk wrap up their season and deliver with the delectable Delta Pink.  

Pink Fohawk is a Shadowrun Actual Play podcast suggested for mature audiences, and sometimes, immature minds. It's phenomenal.  I've stolen plot hooks and staging for my own home campaigns.  

After finishing up season 2, they've know launched Delta Pink, a Delta Green Actual Play.  Five episodes total (including session 0 linked to Youtube above), and I personally think it's gold.  I had Episode 3 going through my earpods in a medical facility, and couldn't stop audibly snorting for a bit, before the group went back into the proper paranoia and conspiracy fueled decision making.  

International Crokinole Day

I don't know how the AI and algorithm gods now I played Crokinole at Fall-In last year, but the they casually throw info at me, like today in International Crokinole Day.

I'm even getting recommendations to podcasts like Canadaland, which covered the World Championships a few months ago.  

#RPGaDay2024 - Day 29 - Awesome Podcasts

Day 29 of #RPGaDay2024, and we continue to deviate a bit.  What started as "Awesome Apps" needed to change, if for no other reason than I don't even eat appetizers at the gaming table!  

All kidding aside, there are few programs I use for gaming, other than the Voice Recorder and ChatGPT.

From "Awesome Apps" we move to "Awesome Podcasts."

I recently purged by Podcasts list of dozens of episodes I just will never around to listening.  

But what do I listen to?  

In reverse order.

Happy Jack's RPG Podcast:   One of the grand-daddy's of RPG podcasts, there's been a steady decline in quality over the years.  (And no, it started occurring before Kimi's ascension to the throne).  I think its a combination of the inevitable content over the years, and a letter and listener dominated discussion, which has made me turn episodes off halfway.  If not for occasional letters from my friends, the wisely named EricFromNJ, I would have deleted the subscription months ago.

Miskatonic University Podcast:  I started in the teens with this one, and through many changes of hosts and content, they recently reached episode 300.  Keeper Bridgett and Keeper Dave are top-notch, but sometimes there's been a stretch of episode that have content, but just feel empty to me.  

Nerd's RPG Variety Cast:   Jason's and a lot of his guest are very quirky, and some of his listeners that call in are quirkier, but I enjoy the RPG discussion.  

The Vintage RPG Podcast: I love Stu Horvath and John McGuire's review of items not only vintage, but recent Indy games and Kickstarters.  

Lair of Secrets:  I started following because Host Ken is part of the same Mepcon-related gaming circles.  Along with co-host Dave, it's simply a fun discussion of each others gaming and geek-related personal lives.  I've enjoyed the Actual Plays immensly.  

Fear the Boot:  The true grand-daddy of RPG Podcasts, I'm just disappointed  (and fully understand) in the sporadic episodes. I'm really grooving on the Tungsten GM episodes, where the panel riffs on different ideas for a topic. 

Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff:  The true Gold Standard of RPG podcast.  It may be formulaic, some weeks are total "house organ" episodes for all the games they've designed/written, and Catstronauts ad is getting to me, but a so-called "bad" episode of KARTAS is above average compared to most other podcasts' great episodes.  My Friday mornings can not start with an hour of Robin Laws and Kenneth Hite.

And it's NOT #1 !   That goes to:  

Pink Fohawk:   This Shadowrun Actual Play is exactly what I want from my Actual Plays.  To be honest, it's what Neoscum could have been if they took their meds... but not all of them.   I actively root for John and Tina, be it crazy cults, improv nights, or even actual runs, and I may have stolen some plot elements for my own games.

Zork Remembered

Maybe the grumpy old man in me is evolving into some sensitive mess, but some random items just hit you in the feels.  

So when the Vintage RPG Podcast   starts listing Zork books on Instagram,  I got warm and fuzzy feelings about school book fairs.

Zork was a series of text-based adventure games for the PC.  We didn't have a computer in our house until the 2000's so I was at the mercy of friends for forays in the the Underground Empire.

Usually I got eaten by a gue, but I remember (most of) this series of "What-To-Do-Know" books (aka other publisher's "Choose your own adventure" series.

I remember owning/borrowing 1 and 3.  I remember seeing 2 and have no recollection of 4 or anything related beyond that.  

This is '84-85, so a time of the D&D cartoon, and actions figures, of Beastmaster and Conan the Destoryer running non-stop on HBO, but I still hadn't picked up the D&D.  It is a lasting impact on me as an RPG fan, and perhaps my group's TPKs are less Grue-some than others. 

Anthropology and Archaeology: A Blog Carnival Call to Arms

With the launch of this year's #RPGaDay, I began following the Nerd's Variety RPG Cast.   The host, Jason, ran a contest in support of #RPGaDay, and I submitted Day 25 of the event for him to read.  

As one who has heard both calls and emails go horribly wrong, even I was shocked when I started formulating a basic outline of what a call in from me might entail.  

Then Jason beat me to the punch, by announcing another community event. 

Anthropology and Archaeology: A Blog Carnival Call-to-Arms for September is being hosted by the Beneath Foreign Planets blog.  RPG Blog Carnival is essentially a new centralized topic each month for the community at large to write-up, and hopefully discuss.  Blog Hosts propose the topic then do the administrative work, compiling the links provided to them into a cohesive reference document for other to explore, discover, and expand their horizons.   It's been going on consistently with a new topic every month for the last 16 years, so there's definitely something working with it.

Looking back at prior months, their topics, and the responses the participants gave, I remember why I perused this topic many moons ago and never returned.  These topics can attract a certain clientele of gamer. the "Intelligentsia"  and "Crunch-master Generals, yet I did find a number of posts and answers that were medium length #RPGaDay.  

Beneath Foreign Planets has also provided an excellent list of prompts (copied from their page as proof) to start the creative juices flowing.  And no, you don't have to answer all of them, just the one that tickle your fancy, all you silly pants!

• What might player-characters find it they just start digging?
• How academic are you feeling? Write a short ethnography of a people and their practices from your world.
• Could a character's starting equipment be culturally specific? Surely, different cultures in your setting have potentially very different equipment lists for your players to paw through?
• What archaeological periods exist in your setting and what sort of items would an archaeologist (or dungeoneer) find for each of those periods?
• Could culture result in character class differentiation? For example, how might a magic-user from the Fungal-Id culture differ to their counterpart from the Industrious and Munificent city of Hsan?
• Could you create mechanics that support or incentivize players to have their characters act according to their cultural or religious beliefs?
• Could you replace race-as-class with culture-as-class? If so what would those cultures be like?
• What adventure or adventure hooks might be given by an anthropologist or archaeologist in your world?
• 'The Archaeology of Magic' just sounds cool, right?
• Get meta and promulgate a variety of in-game worldviews and theories by writing a list and summaries of setting-specific anthropological books and treatises that your player-characters can find and read.
• There are a host of generators you could create - a ruin or archaeological dig-site generator, a broad-strokes culture generator, archaeological artifact generators, clothing, taboos, religious customs, food, ceremonies, rites or special days/events generators.
• Even in very small countries, one community's culture will differ from another's - what local or regional differences can be observed in a section of your world and why do/did those differences occur?
• Could you make a mini-game or mechanic for a cultural event, rite, festivity or ceremony to engage your players with?
• How do different cultures grapple with fantastic concepts such as the existence of cosmic Law, Chaos and Neutrality?
• Flesh out a culture from your game, there are so many different avenues to do this - etiquette and taboos, special days or events, clothing, food culture, religious beliefs and customs.
• Create cultural treasure or 'loot the body' tables (this is what I [the September host] will be doing).
• Could a micro-setting be created around a particular social theory, so a purely functionalist, structuralist, materialist, Marxist or even a social-evolutionist world?
• Furthermore, could you create mechanics that incentivize players acting in ways that conform with your chosen social theory?
• Acculturation is when cultures assimilate. Are there places in your world where two very different cultures have begun to fuse? What conflicts would result from this process and what might the new culture be like?
• How has a beast, fantastic species, divine intervention, curse or magical material affected the development of the people who live with it?
• What would Durkheim say about your dwarves? Franz Boas about your Bugbears?
• How would the culture of non-humans logically work? If you think about it, Elves would be very strange indeed. How do reciprocity and kinship work among aboleths?

Again, it's one post, involving Archeology and Anthropology, and the TTRPG hobby.  To be honest, I copied the list over to this blog so I could read each prompt as I reformatted it.  To be even more honest, the first prompt makes with the question "Why is there a dungeon here???" much more important, from the origin of the structure to why it was abandoned, to who or what claimed it and when.  Every one of those prompts is a great question to ask yourself in campaign world development, sometimes multiple instances.

And here I was looking for something to fill in between #RPGaDay and the #CharacterCreationChallenge.

A Contest for #RPGaDay2023!

The 10th Anniversary of #RPGaDay kicks off in just over two weeks!  Early years had a bit a stigma about doing them each day as they came along, but luckily that's gone by the wayside.  We got the list for #RPGaDay2023, allowed for more promotion, more time to craft responses, and now, a chance to submit entries for a contest!  

Nerd's RPG Variety Cast announced a contest in support of #RPGaDay, with just so many ways to enter, I'm a bit jealous.  

The concept is easy, complete one of the daily questions and submit to the podcast.  One lucky submission at random will win an RPG book directly off of the man's shelf.  Submissions are due by July 30, 2023. 

I love the concept of the contest, I enjoy to promotion of #RPGaDay2023, and after hearing a made record a short podcast in his car, I have a new podcast to try out.   With most episodes under an hour, it should be a fun investment of my time. 

The episode covering all this can be found here.

I Could Not Foretell the Use of the Word Oracle

 In Season 3, Episode 16 of the Lair of Secrets podcast, the topic confused the heck of me so much, I thought I might have been suffering a stroke or aneurysm and couldn't comprehend the English language. 

The entire episode was about oracles, yet I did not hear anything resembling a powerful influencer or charlatan in Delphi.  Rather, they used it as a term to describe random generation tables for the role-playing side of the game, popularized in some circles in the Ironsworn RPG.  Ken and David covered the full gamut of properly using those charts throughout the history of D&D and beyond, but seeing a different podcast do a reinterpretation of the term sandbox which is the complete opposite of its origins, I still twitch at the terminology used.  

I was a huge fan of the random dungeon, terrain, and NPC personality generators in the appendices of the 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Handbook. It matches the direction of Ironsworn's mechancis: producing a random result that needs to be interpreted, whether it's a campaign world, or a new perspective on a character's backstory.  

With the short and fluid nature of my Monday Night games, I tend to rely more on online generators to give me some inspiration, or just a name.  

The sites I've used for motivation, inspiration, or to prevent perspiration if I'm stuck, in order:

1. Fantasy Name Generators - I've used even prior to online gaming.  Lots of real and fictional name generators
2. Gamma World/MCC Tables
3. Tormentor's Virtual Wasteland - Gamma World stuff and a whole lot more.

The greatest repository of similar charts that I used in face-to-face play is the entire Hackmaster GameMaster's Shield.  With numerous fold-outs, flip ups, and pages, most of the useful GM charts from the Hackmaster books were placed inside. 

Funny thing is, I routinely use some of the charts for Gamma World, Gulluvia, heck even Star Wars D6!  Not a month goes by and the crew/party/wild troupe of male exotic dancers don't force me to at least use table 12Y:  Random Bar Name Generator, then perhaps the random Bartender generator.

#RPGaDay2021 - Day 8 - Streams and Casts

While I can cover an infamous near-TPK in my Hackmaster campaign, I think Day 8's "STREAM" should be used for streaming and related material. 

I'm not much into live-streaming, time and obligations interfering with most chances.  I do occasionally see an episode of Happy Jacks RPG Podcast on Twitch, and I'm quite confused by the appeal those video game playthroughs, so I rely on a Top 10 list of the "gaming" podcasts I try to listen to regularly.

10(tie) - Spellburn: DCC RPG Podcast  - I've never played Dungeon Crawl Classics, but I get the classic vibe of the game, and I enjoy the input by all the Judges.  

10(tie) - Happy Jacks RPG Podcast - One of the grey ladies of gaming podcast, I've been listening to it less and less regularly.  Sometimes it's poor advice, poor recollections of gaming history, or a focus on items that don't interest me, but if I don't hear my friend Eric from New Jersey's name in the introduction with a letter, I'm barely getting through these ever-growing sessions. 

9 - New Books in History - Specifically Military History.  Interviewing the authors can be a bit droll, or simply a recap of basic history, but I've used some discussed concepts for Call of Cthulhu, a good deal of wargaming, and even a purchase (and reading) of an actual history book.  Big shout-out when my friend and player "Doctor Bob" hosts an episode.

8 - Trapped Under Plastic - An entire podcast about miniature painting, dominated by Games Workshop.   It suffers from being 90 minutes long, with 30 minutes of bs, 30 minutes of the hosts acting like db's, and 30 minutes of sheer brilliance.  They also get demerits for knowing little about Mordheim, or even older GW stuff (I can't be that much of a GW grognard to remember original Talisman and complain about that, can I?)

7 - Miskatonic University Podcast - After 228 episodes, the MU Podcast as turned over most of its original hosts and expanded from Lovecraftian horror to general horror (including a fun interview with the creator of Free League's Alien RPG.  I like the current dynamics, although I'd like some old revisits to topics, even if it's just for nostalgia's sake. 

6  - Lair of Secrets - A podcast about gaming and being a geek by two forty something geeks dads, episodes are posting about eight months behind, but it's always amusing.  Host Ken Newquist is actually part of the extended gamer group that I meet/play with at Mepacon (and lives in my hometown of Easton), although I don't believe I've ever  talked about him.  I also follow his Nuketown blog. 

5 - Fear the Boot -  THE Grand Dame of Gaming Podcasts, it can suffer some of the issues with Happy Jacks, but I enjoy the diversity of opinions, and specific meta-discussion on their own campaigns, even their knowledge of the RPG history and industry-related news is skewed.  

4 - Vintage RPG Podcast - My favorite "latest find," any podcast that review a wide range of RPG products throughout its history and can entertainingly cover one product for a 20-30 minute podcast is simply gold in this day and age.  

3  - Neoscum -  Definitely not family nor work-friendly, but this Shadowrun game is simply phenomenal, and definitely not a game of Shadowrun that I've seen locally or at conventions.  

2 - Campaign Podcast (Generation One) -  I recommended it many moons ago, and still regularly re-listen to the Star Wars campaign.   You may love their now-long-running Skyjacks game as well.

1 - Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff - Quite simply the best gaming (and gaming related) podcast ever!  So much material, so much media, so much history, so much application of all that to your gaming sessions.  I'm slowly working through the backlog as well, and it's great to see the actual evolution of the podcast to the polished product it is today.  

(Kickstarter) Campfire by The Brain Trust

I'm running low tolerance for podcasts recently, but one that does not disappoint is the Vintage RPG Podcast.  Thanks to a recent interview with the designers of Campfire, I'm happy to promote its Kickstarter.

From the Kickstarter description:

Campfire is a storytelling game for 2-6 players, designed to be played in an hour or two with cards, coins, and a special cloth playmat. During a game, take turns as the Narrator and weave together people, places, and things using flavorful story prompts to set the scene. Collaborate to thrill, surprise, and terrify!

 

• Draw and interpret unique narrator cards to fuel your Campfire for never-the-same-twice gameplay
• Cast embers into the fire: the terrified people, the cursed places, and awful things of your story
• Collaborate, improvise, and shiver with this zero-prep storytelling game for any type of horror

If you’re a fan of approachable storytelling games like Fiasco or anthology horror like Are You Afraid of the Dark? or Creepshow, Campfire is for you! Tell a story, from creeping start to bloody end, in a single two-hour session, all with zero-prep.

Learning How to Paint - Nostalgia

Recently, I've been trying to expand my podcast catalog.  One that I'm still on the fence on is Trapped Under Plastic, a painting pocast on two guys who focus on GW models, but a variety of techniques.  The episodes are waaay too long (80-90 minutes), and the content can be broken down into thirds (1) douche-y rambling (2) mindless meandering (3) really solid content.  

Guys, keep your topic focused and cut your time in half, and I'd put this above Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff on my podcast listening pyramid.

Season 2 Episode 16 (see below for their Youtube channel), they discuss painting resources that *gasp* are not on Youtube.  While not exhaustive, it was a great list for the casual or mid-range hobbyist, I heartily recommend the episode, even including a well-deserved rant on B&H 

That got me thinking about my influence for painting.  Honestly, it's not a very long list. 

The biggest influence to improve my painting has been the "Gnome King" himself, Jim Stanton.  I don't always do every step of his "How to Paint a 2-Footer" class from HMGS cons, but when I do, the figures come out great.  For someone who is a great painter (and has friends who are even more phenomenal), the focus on the three-foot is an efficient process to make figures visually appealing on the tabletop (from at least, you guessed it, two foot away).   

My original painting guide appears to be lost in history.  I can't find anything on the internet that resembles what's stuck in my brain.  I believe I picked up a simple four-page Ral-Partha brochure for free from Hobby Hangout in the early 90's.  It may or may not have used a Battlemech to keep it simpler, but the process only included four steps.

1. Base Coat

2. Wash (Diluted Black was recommended until one became "proficient" in it.)

3. Drybrush (Definitely stressing an older used brush.

4. Detail

About as basic as one can get with some cheap brushes and a few jars of Ral-Partha paints, it was the perfect guide for me to complete my Rifleman, Blackjack, and Charger in Skye Ranger colors.  

The free Ral Partha brochure was far less detailed than this one.

I'm disappointed that my introduction to painting may have suffered the Mandela Effect.  It wasn't the painted mechs inside the Battletech Compendium, it wasn't any oversimplified 'Eavy Metal pages.  Perhaps it was an insert from the Battlesystem boxed set?  We may never know.

Critical Role: Tails of Equestria One-Shot

The good folks at Critical Role put together a one shot episode of My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria on Youtube for the whole world.  

As someone who runs MLP at cons for kids, I must commend them for putting it together the game, and heavily critique it. 

For someone who thinks they've perfected a two hour con game with a randomly generated plot, the three hours, thirty-nine minute one shot is painfully long.  So long, that at 45 minutes, my 10 year old watching with me complained, "Are they going to do anything?  They've rolled like one or two dice." 

Role-playing wise, it's a frenetic hot mess that I myself was bored with after an hour, but it did remind me of two rules we rarely get around to in the shorter games. 

1) Some talents, that kids rarely take, allow them to roll both the talent die and the appropriate trait die in certain circumstances.  Best roll is used.

2) Ponies can still perform the impossible by maxing out their current die they are rolling. If the difficulty is 8 and their trait is d6 (impossible to get an 8 on a d6), if they roll a 6, they may then roll a d8.  If they roll an 8 on that, they then may roll a d10,  and so on and so on.  They can then pick the best result of each die roll.  

S. John Ross on What Am I Rolling?

RPG Author, creator of Risus, and all-around good guy S. John Ross was interviewed by Fiona Howat and the What am I Rolling? Podcast. 

At least I'm not pronouncing Risus in the Queen's English.

The End of the Campaign Podcast

Yes, the Campaign Podcast isn't going away.  Their new Skyjacks Campaign is set to drop shortly, and it should be a hoot, but for the vast majority of the podcast's subscribers, Campaign is the the crew of the Mynock loosely using Fantasy Flight's Star Wars Edge of the Empire RPG. 

And earlier this week, the last two regular episodes of that campaign were uploaded for the world to enjoy.  They weren't the best episodes, storywise (heck one was all Dear Mynocks) but they properly expressed the fun and joy that the participants felt with each recording they made. 

I honestly had avoided the entire podcast (and the WotC d20 prequel version over on One Shot) before a lull in my library made me give it a chance.  I've since gone through the catalog three times, and while I know of few tables able to the mix the experienced improv with a rules-light approach to the game, it was the deciding factor when picking up the Edge of the Empire  rulebook cheap at auction (but the dice at full price).

I'll miss Bacta, Tryst, Leenik, L'yntel, and Tamlin.  One hundred five well-editied one hour episodes (plus all the other bonus material) created a vibrant world that I would love to borrow bits from and drop my own crew of misfits and ragamuffins. 

"Make brave and heroic decisions...."

#RPGaDay 2018 Day 27: Share a Great Stream/Actual Play

Getting back to likes/dislikes and less theory with Day 27 of #RPGaDay:  "Share a Great Stream/Actual Play"

I know most people will select a few hugely popular games, but I'll defer to just a wildly popular one: The Campaign Podcast

Kat Kuhl leads a zany cast of characters through Fantasy Flight's Star Wars Edge of the Empire. Bacta, Leenik, Tryst, and the rest of the crew of the Mynock traverse the galaxy in a way that would give George Lucas a stroke.

In other words, just like every other group in a Star Wars RPG.

There are 99 episodes available, plus tons of bonus podcasts. Plus don't forget the Star Wars d20 episodes over at the One Shot Podcast (starting with episode #25) set the tone for the FFG.

The biggest compliment I can give to this actual play? Thanks to them mucking around learning the the FFG rules, I now own a copy of the game plus the funky dice you need to play.  If it wasn't for them, I would still ignorantly mock the system.

Yes, Kat has left the network, and I'm confident James and the revised crew will do well with their new campaign, but the episodes on file are worth a listen through (or in my case finishing up a third listen-though.)

(Kickstarter) The Dungeon Dome Card Game

The good folks at the One Shot Podcast (aka James D'Amato) have launched a Kickstarter for a card game version of their popular Dungeon Dome.

Rainy Days and Finales Always Get Me Down

You would expect a lot more productivity from a half-sunny/half-rainy weekend, yet all my accomplishments are "real-world" and not gaming related. 

I came into the weekend looking at putting paint on figures, putting figures on the table, and maybe grabbing some family fun.  But alas, the closest I got to my painting bench was installing new fluorescent bulbs over it. Definitely much better lighting than six bulbs were burnt out, but I'm still interested in an adjustable desk lamp to keep these aging eyes going.

My biggest accomplishment was taking the early hours of Saturday morning and finishing the last episode of Ballad of the Pigeon God.   Seventy-six episodes, starting from April 4, 2017, and running every Tuesday morning until September 18th this Fall have been a joyful chore.  The realist in me knows that the Pigeon God can't be finished until the last episode posts.  Episode #62, posting this Tuesday, was still rife with major errors when I reviewed it on Saturday, and I'm sure I'll want to add some more commentary in the DM Notes as the campaign reaches it's climax. 

As I've mentioned before, something RPG/D&D related will fill the Tuesday slot.  The Lost Dispatches is slowly getting developed, and I'd love a little more gameplay before Adventures in Gulluvia or the first special episodes of Trogs Redux sees the light of day. 

Otherwise, things are staying busy.  I've passed on a number of Kickstarters so I can spend more in the pledge manager of Scenic Grass and Tufts and the Pelegian Sapper.  Past that, other than getting an SRD copy of the new edition of Arcanum, I'm letting things progress slowly. 

Even podcast-wise, I'm in the doldrums.  Ken and Robin haven't piqued my interest, outside of their convention broadcasts, Happy Jacks have been 2-hour snoozefests, and even my military history and Savage World podcasts have been swings and misses. 

Even the Campaign Podcast, which had been on a short hiatus, came back to announce that the two minds who had helped develop the One-Shot Network into the cool, indie, improv RPG podcasts that they had were splitting up, and one was leaving the network.  Of course, it's the GM for Campaign that's leaving, which leaves us with 90+ episodes after the short backlog is complete, and a possibly different format for the future. 

I got a full day of conference calls for four different projects at work tomorrow, followed by grass cutting, and my online 5e game.  We will get some progress on the wargame/painting/gnome front shortly.

The Muscle, Some Ranting, and Maja's Birthday!!!

It's been a week chock full of Kickstarters (with more to come tomorrow), weekly scheduled posts, and with a weekend in West Virginia for the USA Gymnastic Trampoline & Tumbling Northeast Regional Championships coming up, I figured I'd make this an all-encompassing post.

First off, something random off the painting bench:

77170: Clay Golem ($2.79)

Still can't figure out why a clay golem needs to look like a steroid-filled bodybuilder, but he will have a use in our Pulp Egypt game.

Compared to a measly Pulp Figures cultist.

Up Next: Arabs, Arabs, Arabs! Some of them already have base coats, too!

Secondly, today is my daughter Maja's birthday.  Nine already!  You may have heard it was coming up, as I believe she has told every person in the world this information over the past week. 

All she wants is a vanilla ice cream cake and some basketball clothing.  All I want for her is to keep her enthusiasm, her inquisitiveness, and her tolerance to play a game or two with dear old Dad, even if she's built an intolerance for him dancing in public.  

From the way-back machine....

It's a bit shocking to recall that Maja is only four months older than this blog.  Nothing planned for that celebration (especially since it's in the middle of my busy season for work).

Gaming 

With the return of nice weather, the call of yard work and the kids' basketball hoop will take away home gaming time, but they have demanded Egypt and Mouse game of some variety.  Finals grading and new job opportunities are delaying a restart of face-to-face gaming with the guys, but I'm looking at revamping the Cthulhu campaign or something completely different, rather than doing full-out D&D Gulluvia at the table.  

With the only consistent gaming, the 5e online game I'm in, we've finally levelled (woo-hoo 3rd!) and after six weeks where the only real combat was me landing my hand axe in a waiter's chest (I thought he would be much more important than a lowly servant), we finally had a full combat session, river barge combat, no less.  It might be all these hippie-dippie independent RPG podcasts I've been listening to, but Falgor the Might, hero to the Havaari, should do more than than seven-step moves and attack.  Cleaving a foe in two, and kicking his remains into the river MUST be a thing.   And while everyone else stands flat-footed while a large war canoe catches up to the boat, the scene demands that I go into battle rage and leap from our barge into their canoe.  Didn't work out as cinematically as I would have liked it to, but (a) we needed prisoners to interrogate and (b) my elf barbarian can apparently take a LOT of damage while raging.  Hopefully I'm not struck with the curse of the bat-boys and get some XP next week. 

Kickstarters

With the arrival of my Pizza Dice and finally setting up Warehouse23 account for my copy of Ogrezine, my outstanding Kickstarters are relatively small, and outside of a $5 pledge for a coin for the Prince Valiant game I've written off, everything else pending either is on time or is within a revised schedule I'm acceptable with.  

Podcasts

With my added duties of my promotion and boss assuming the role of his now-departed boss and delegating more to me, podcast time has dwindled considerably.  I can no longer plug-in and zone out on my projects when I have multiple conference calls, webinars, and face-to-face meetings.  Ah such is life. 

One heretical statement I will make: I simply cannot stand D&D actual play podcasts, specifically Critical Role and Dungeon Delve. Maybe it's the time investment, maybe it's the characters/GM style, but I'm not drawn into them like I have others..

I'm thinking the personal investment I'm willing to make for a podcast can not exceed an hour.  I even feel my stamina waning when Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff creeps over the 60 minute mark.  It's definitely taken a few off my auto-download list.  

Biggest mover on my list is the gray lady of podcast, Fear the Boot. It's not the shakeup in the line-up, and I haven't heard a single actual play for their Skies of Glass game, but the discussions generated from that game create great generic topics. 

Ballad of the Pigeon God
I know, I know, it's supposed to be a blog about Gnomes, but the Pigeon God dominates the blog.  These write-ups from an AD&D college campaign twenty years ago dominate my page views (3 in my Top 10 for the year, six in the Top 20), so I must finish them.  The problem has been that next week's episode (#58) is the last entry from the party's journal, so I've been cobbling together the rest of the story, with a few edits and embellishments to keep continuity and interest, respectively.  I finished up episodes #67 and 68 earlier this week and still have three or four more to write.

And for the record, I'll always post RPG actual plays on this blog.  If blogs in this form existed when I was a kid (and my parents were willing to pay for internet), they would have focused 98% on RPGs.  When Magic came out or when I got big into Legions of Steel, I could have split them off into separate blogs.  But at 44 years of age, I'm happy enough to keep up with an online journal covering all my hobby-related stuff.  

Flying Circus Actual Play on One Shot

I've pledged for a PDF copy of Flying Circus, A High Flying RPG inspired by the Apocalypse.

This week, part one of an actual play using the rules and setting has been posted on the One Shot Podcast.