#RPGaDay2019 Day 19: Fleetwood Mac and a Chicken

Day 19 of #RPGaDay and the word is... "SCARY"

I've certainly gotten worried in games.  I've been troubled by circumstance, and in a Call of Cthulhu one-shot run by the infamous Dr. Bob, I was filled with dread desperately trying to escape the clutches of a ghoul.

But scared?  Nah, I save that for the other side of the GM screen.

As the back-up GM when our regular 5e online game is a no-go, I'm forced to deal with certain preferences depending on which players can't make it.  My three go-to's require slightly different prep.

My Illuminati University (IOU) game requires the least set-up and I can adapt pretty well based on player choices/character actions, but the concept falls flat unless I set-up a few contingencies/fail safes if things go sideways.

And they always go sideways.

My Canadian 90's in College Call of Cthulhu game is much more free-form than my usual CoC campaigns.  So long as I take good notes I can call back in later sessions, I'm happy with the players collaborating with me on certain portions of our game in Medicine Hat.

My BECMI D&D Adventures in Gulluvia is honestly the most collaborative game I currently run.  Whole swaths of the campaign were influenced by direct questions to players and much of the rest is based on random comments or actions that they make.  I managed the entire last session based on an inadvertent trip to the herbalist and the players/characters wishing to know more about "Grimy Dwarf Weed."  We not only had a good role-playing session, but it allowed me to introduce a plot point that I have had trouble introducing between dungeon crawls.

Of course, the true terror is when I eschew everything I've built and we play a completely improv game using Risus.

With a roll of my random IOU poll generator to guide me, we made characters with the following:

• The best Fleetwood Mac cover band in the Baltimore suburbs. 

Characters were made, a full set was played in a lesbian bar, a chicken stolen, cocaine snorted, a group of Chinese students were accosted in the midst of their late-night flashmob in a Target, and every Fleetwood Mac song we could think of was either integrated into the plot or spoken like David Caruso in the opening of CSI Miami.

And as a GM, I was terrified every step of the way.  It was like a HoL game that almost made sense.

(342/124)

(Kickstarter) The Power d4 by Hard 8 Enterprises

Edit: The current Kickstarter is SOLD OUT!  Although Kenzerco is considering offering KoDT-related add-ons, they have always been quite firm that the production run of the Power d4 would be limited to 2,000 dice.  Not sure what the people in the comments are talking about when they pledged without reward and are still anticipating extra dice be made available. 

There's a bit of irony when my #RPGaDAY post talks about my dice, and magically, this shows up on Kickstarter:

It's not often the Hard8 Enterprises would go down the road of crowdfunding to re-release the most epic of dice, Gary Jackson's Power d4, lo' and behold, we have a Kickstarter for it.

In reality, Kenzer & Company is dipping into this vat of Knights of the Dinner Table lore, and running a no-frill campaign for a d4 on a dodecagon (the geometric term for a d12).

They're keeping this production run to 2,000 dice, so get 'em while they're hot.  

#RPGaDay2019 Day 18: Let Me Tell You About My Dice....

Day 18 of #RPGaDay2019 grants us the word "PLENTY."

While there's no such thing as enough, I certainly have plenty of dice.

After 25 years, the lid to the wooden cigar box finally broke this year.

I've owned a lot more dice over the years.  Jugs, buckets, maybe even troughs of dice.  I've even made money off of rare/expensive dice, but this cigar box contains most of my role-playing dice.  The wargaming dice are downstairs in the Kriget Rum, although a few stragglers will make an appearance.

First off, I don't think I've purchased a complete set of regular polyhedrals in at least 15 years.  Maybe a brick or two of d6's, but outside of a Chessex camo set circa 1999, I don't think I've snagged a traditional set for own personal use (The girls have gotten dice that I've purchased, but they're not in this collection.)

The last non-traditional set was a red metal set from Dice Dungeons at a Mepacon two or three years ago.  They're weighted properly and roll pretty decently, so I give them a thumbs up.

Funny story, as I looked for the post about the next dice, I got an odd sense of deja vu....

The pic I just took of the "first" dice I ever bought at a convention:

Versus the pic from the original post I talked about them during #RPGaDay 2014:

Some direction dice (Manufacturer unknown) and one of the pre-Kickstarter Pizza Dice from Flying Buffalo. I do have a pack of all the snazzy dice from the Kickstarter, but their packed away with the wargaming dice.

 Knights of the Dinner Table Dice

 Koplow Custom Dice for Pennsylvania, Moose, and Turtles, naturally.  Don't know the manufacturer for the beer mug.

Giant OGRE dice from one of the recent Kickstarter, haven't worked their way down to the Wargaming dice yet.

The bottom two d6's came from a card-based wargame I picked up at Historicon well over a decade ago..  No stands of figures, just cards with stats that you moved around with a provided paper ruler.  The game fell into obscurity, but he d6's it came with are great for fantasy RPGs.

The top die came with the Battletech CCG.  I've kept a group of these separate as they have historically rolled 5's and 6's more than any other result. 

Roman Numeral dice (top), another wanderer from the wargaming collection.  I use these for initiative, hits, and morale for a number of game.  And a few plus/minus (not FUDGE) dice.

The survivors of one of my early sets of fancy dice. These are sterling silver and as heavy as anything chucked across a table.

The all-powerful Zocchihedron (100-sided dice - Gamescience), with an oversized d20 (Chessex) in comparison

 Ten Commandments Die and a Hit Location Die (both Koplow)

The lone survivor of a "make your own dice set."  This one is a mixture of pips and weather.

 An old set of Dwarven Stone Yellow Jade dice.

Compass Dice (Koplow) and an infamous "Cheater" d20 with a 20 where the 1 should be (Chessex)

 A Gamescience d16

 Some tiny metal d10s, and some brass tiny polyhedrals

 The three surviving TWERPS d10/d20s and a few tiny glass polyhedrals.

#RPGaDay2019 Day 17: Wilson was a Powergamer

With a word like "One" for Day 17 of #RPGaDay2019, I'm either picturing A Chorus Line or Metallica: The Musical.

But I'll stick with the easier "If you were on a desert island, which one RPG book would you want to have. 

Let's assume you have other non-cannibal people on the island to enjoy the game, so you don't have to set up a LARP with nothing but inflatable sporting goods.  Perhaps we can carve some coconut dice, but character sheets might be at a minimum. 

Sorry Wilson, I needed your cleric to restart the fire....

Call of Cthulhu, 6th Edition.  No!   Unless it's an episode of Gilligan's Island, I don't see cosmic horror and madness mixing well.

AD&D 2nd Edition, No!  Try as I might, there's too much on a character sheet to keep track of, unless it's mathematically easy xp and conceptual gold

So I think my choice would need to be Savage Worlds.  It's universal, the stats are pretty easy to memorize, and I can stay busy carving a few more dice.

Guess I'm making playing cards out of palm fronds.

I'm not 100% sold on it, but it's been serving us well for small or large-scale games.

Perhaps the biggest thing that swayed me is when I read a story in a setting run in savage worlds, I follow it, even if it's using certain advantages and I'm not familiar with. 

#RPGaDay2019 Day 16: Dream a Smaller Dream for Me

I knew exactly what to write about Day 16 of  #RPGaDay2019 , "DREAM."

And then that high crashed mighty quickly.

For #RPGaDAy 2016 and #RPGaDay 2017, I covered the absolute dream:  Getting the old Burning Trogs! Hackmaster group together again to finish off some unfinished business from 2004.  I decided the easiest way was to hit the lottery and force them all on cruise ship for a week, all expenses paid.

It's still there, but I'd like to simplify the dream to a simple practical wish.

I'd just love to get the whole crew back together for a Hackmaster game online.

That's tough enough to pull off.  Hackmaster 4th Edition hasn't been supported since the license expired in 2007 (although there are 21 non-licensed pdfs still available at the Kenzerco online store.) and there isn't much push for workable Hackmaster sheets on Roll20, but good Lord, the chance to re-connect with the characters on some snowy East Coast weekend sounds too appealing.

Let's be honest, Zorin Redrock, Gnome Titan fighter extraordinaire is still sailing the Mer Kasp, hunting down the Slavers of Roark for 15 years now.... and he's still a horrible sailor.

He's angry.  VERY angry. 

(Kickstarter) Usagi Yojimbo 2nd Edition by Sanguine Productions

Sanguine Productions has launched a new Kickstarter for a 2nd edition of Usagi Yojimbo, the RPG.

The second edition will be Powered by the Apocalypse, with hardcopy pledge levels starting at $32 (+$13 S&H). 

#RPGaDay2019 Day 15: Draxx and the Door

For Day 15 of #RPGaDay, the powers that be provided "Door" as the word of the day.  I sense a lot of personal door-opening experiences with RPGs, or perhaps the evils of gatekeeping. 

Winter of '91 - I'm playtesting my first ever convention game I will ever run, The Crystle Dungeon using Talislanta 2nd Edition rules. 

Of course, my playtest group is my high school gaming group.  Most picked the character archetype closest to their usual D&D character.

Except for Charles. 

Charles, who historically played elves, wizards, or elf wizard-blade swingers, went completely of the reservation and created Draxx, a Saurud Warrior. 

For you grognardy folks, a Saurud was a quickly devolving race descended from dragons.

For you whipper-snappers, imagine a Dragonborn, but replace all intelligence, wisdom, or special abilities for sheer, brute strength. 

For the two Battlelords of the 23rd Century fans out there reading this, he was a Ram Python with only melee weapons (but we hadn't learned about Battlelords until we reached the con, so...)

Draxx

The Crystle Dungeon was just an attempt by teenage me to put all the cool things from Talislanta is a pretty mundane D&D dungeon crawl, but it worked, except for one minor detail.

At one point, they discovered the back end of a one-way secret door. Knowing that something was odd about this alcove, Draxx investigated and ultimately got his hand stuck the the door trying to open it the wrong way.  In the subsequent panic, he ripped the door away.

If the regular "human" range of stats in Tal was -2 to +2 , Draxx had a Strength of +8, if not more.  You roll a 20 with that bonus, and the teenage ViscounEric will always err on the side of awesomeness and fun.  The older, grumpier ViscountEric, might have toned it down a bit, but would largely defer to his younger self.

As for the convention version of the game, and the greatness of that convention, you can check out my old Lehicon IV post.