Everytime at a Table, April '18.

In between BASHCon in February and GENCON sometime in July-August has suddenly become a good time for not only working on things clanging around my head but I can connect with nearby tabletop role-players. To date, this year, I am capitalizing on the opportunity. The advent of biweekly Saturday evening role-playing is not only only drawing in fellow gamers, I get to play as well as run things. Combined with my construction efforts, life is full.

Wobbling is a good thing
I am work on the final revision of an RPG game that I have said that never really liked. That said, sitting back and looking at the work that I keep on doing, it works. Add in about nine years of play-testing scenarios,. Then swish around a few illustrations and graphics, Ultimately, you will have a finished product.

I have a couple half-way complete projects that I hope to get out before I die. I'd also like to make sure that my game system makes sense. At the same time, I need folks willing to play with me. Luckily, I have the personal level covered. On the other hand, I am dealing with good GMs that have stories to work out. At the same time, I have a couple of assume GMs. Below is my LOTFP notes from a GM that approved my maps based off of his narrative.

Old School Gaming is Naval Gazing... Leading to cancer.
Okay, I only have 3.16 examples to explain this you, dear innocent reader. So let me try to explain.
I've played exactly 10 sessions of Dungeon Crawl Classics and more than a handful of whatever else claims to be OSR. I have just recently been to Geriatric Con Cheese Curd edition. I have also played in someone's revision of TSR Gangbusters. In all but three situations I have not only dealt with sullen GMs, mostly that Gangbusters guy, not willing to deal with creative players, I have played with petty players. I have dealt with the animosity of  players harboring favor from arbitrary rules that want to define success as scared people turning multiple pages to do something like "118 points" of damage to player-characters that have six points to their vicarious existence. They back bite their fellow players and run away from challenges.

Let's look at this logically. Okay you have systems that encourage statistics to govern the average PC to perform illogical feats in order to become recognized personas in an under-scripted saga. This saga requires your Character to be both the protagonist and the butt-monkey to on-going story in front of it. In about a decade, and 47 of your best efforts to attain 3rd level, you get to be apart of a glorious story. Ayup. That's how it goes. If you're looking at things from 1000 years in the future.

Every role-player is about character advancement and dealing with situations that they don't deal with daily. So what does being a turnip farmer awaiting death at some chance to die in a bit of random goo based solely of  rules lead to? It might fulfill some asshole's desire to be in control of squat. At the same time, both sides of these participants actions lead to seclusion from hope of dealing with anything new.

NOT the "sullen" GM, instead a great one who is just wrong.

 Years-long weekly Open sessions that lead to four 1st-3rd Level, dealing with newcomers like viruses.The most comfortable is hurt even for an evening. The usual  cry "We should screen our players" without knowing the rules. This is while the expected crowd, meaning the "regulars," look like incompetent newcomers. Meanwhile real, just arrived, role-players deal with them. Especially quaint when the strangers understand the rules better than they, the regulars, do after listening to the GM fifteen minutes when they, themselves, asked earlier. If someone has to turn four pages to do 16 points of damage to a Character that has "3" Hit Points,. At that point something is wrong. I don't blame the GMs, they are only promoting a flawed series of products meant to get husbands home to their griping wives earlier than 4am. Old School Gaming is about assholes trying to be 14 years-old forever.
I learned this because a friend from out of town wanted to play with a fabulous DCC group here in Cleveland every Thursday night. We almost killed them all with 0-level characters that none of my group really took seriously.

Alien Sightings beyond Arcturus!

The bright spot of dealing with the "Old School" crowd was that the next night was scheduled for me to GM something. I rolled a d8 to decide among my preferred games. I showcased my Spacers (TM) RPG. Everybody, all five of us, had a great time. It was nice to play for about three and a half hours and tell a story.

Every time at the tabletop is a victory, despite the OSR crowd.

Every Time at a Table is a Victory

Oddly enough the convention schedule between February until now has been a little full. Between BASHCon and GARYCon, I only had two weeks to get things in order between them. And by get things together, I mean financial concerns. Being at the point where my "art" does not pay any bills except for about every fourth delivered pizza, I rely heavily upon my savings account.

But last Saturday night (March 31st), I was able to get back into gaming at the local area gaming store. Both people that I know and people that I hope to get to know.

Two people I have gamed with for over a year.

I wish we had a picture of everybody playing in the tabletop session, but frankly my wife worked her Character too well and things ended too quickly. It's alright, we were at the 3 1/2 hour mark anyway. 

I am moving beyond just small into the weird press

So like anyways, Egg City.

Egg City is, finally, my response to The Easter Bunny Hates You video that has been available for over a decade now. Take a 70s exploitation flick, work in some RPG urban fantasy, and add some not too subtle analogy. Wallah! This project was supposed to be about ten pages long, and then my urban fantasy project from 2004 (then called "The Straits") got worked into the mix. So about forty pages later, and three illustrations from both Jedi and me (Monkey Lot), an affordable product is now up to the cost of budget lunch at Mickey Gee's and not in the PeryPubber "affordable rage". But hey, if you want the Easter Bunny as your umbering hulk and Jesus as your Horus, and fuzzy animals as humans, then this product is for you.

Let me try to better express things beyond a soundbite. Take whatever edition of Shadowrun that included your favorite campaign and your 16 steampunk games, and get rid D&D altogether. While it does still have elves (who doesn't), the rest of the Gygax canon folk are not mentioned. Instead one has neanderthals, otter-faces, a kindred that I call the "imby" (poor cousins of the NIMBY), and Ken St Andre's (T&T) ratlings. Then work in a world that is only cutting edge when it's the most affluent, and the rest of the world deal with data plans on their phones and feeding horses to get to and from their office jobs downtown five days a week.

Then work in a violent Easter Bunny... . The one that hates you, but Santa Claus likes him and judges you.

Over a year ago, I told Beckett, the owner of our local Weird Realms games and escapists media store, something for Easter to compliment the release of the Santa Lands. Well it has taken a while it is here now though. Mind you, the "print run" is fourteen copies being made at a Staples(r) copy center, and three of them being handed out for free to the play-testers. Still, the PDF sales for holiday related items do pay for the art and photocopies, if not for the four months out of my free time it took to get it out of my head. Still, it is a good thing to finally have this setting off my mind.