Art and the Art of Scam

I am somewhere most people speaking about the open introduction of AI into the publishing field are not. I do not reject it outright, I want to see it work. 

Over the last year, the uproar around "Artificial Intelligence" has been the introduction to a lot of people to the automation of a lot of writing and artwork normally left to the domain of creative sorts that through passion become artists. This is not not new though. Anybody who has been working with more established providers though, has known that the use of programs has often replaced handcrafting images and writing blurbs for at least a decade now. Results have gone from producers standards going from flash to floppy.

Obvious eye-catching but relatable.

Does the original or AI "touched up" version look any good to you?

While I cannot say for certain, but my old friend MK Eidson has most likely been doing AI for a while now. Knowing his artistic process, I can put aside a bit of random imagery for the the intent that he puts into his work. There is a level of expressionism in what he is doing while doing his cover graphics. He wants a bit of cognitive dissonance of the cerebral level to occur. Apologies to Ilya Shkpin for my criticism of his work, while this a great study in fractal processing of similarities between forearms and calves, this is a doodle made by a machine of a machine-made doodle. The viewer glances at the latter image, puts it together and using context of the text around it assumes it's something. Looking deeper into it you feel like a four year-old learning that pizza is spelled "piss-off." This isn't even surrealism. At best, the guy used his ecth-a-sketch and had his AI program highlight the confusion.

Game producers, if you're going to be using AI, at least do something worth the money you're saving like look at your own work before its released. If that's not helping, take an Art History course and see examples of the samples your sources are now.

A lot of information going on. Still coherent.

GenCon 2023: "Of course. You're hip."

 

 The short data is:

• 87% average attendance rate at my Crawlspace events. 38 overall players.
  
• 100$ then 140$ PDF sales in two days. We'll see how online print and distributor sales pan out throughout the month.
  
•  Three possible new convention GMs and two old ones may be returning next year.
• Over half my players were return players and eight would-be players emailed me asking for an extra session.
  
• I only ran 2/3rds of my events.

Well, it was a remarkable couple of days. I was at the JW Marriot, which has become the normal place to be for smaller, somewhat unaffiliated game runners.  I say somewhat unaffiliated because there were a lot of Pathfinder players doing both impromptu as well as official events all over the place. Of course the guys from Tower of Gygax, David, from my Cthulhu Vs Rat Pack days being the name I remember, many of the other event runners had packed tables every time I peaked.

 

No easy Thursday

 

"Gotham City Major Crimes" game-wise, the cops and robbers dynamic worked like a dream. The cops worked together but with friction and drama, while the criminals betrayed each other at the drop of Saving Roll. A player got to be a super-villain from get go, and he was Kite Man, much giggling was had. One bell and whistle that I honed this year was the lucky player-character becoming a superhero/ villain by the end of the game, I basically got two, Plastic Boy (Plastic Man's son) and the Red Panda the Jewel Thief Extraordinaire.   I was lucky enough to have fellow DC enthusiasts, but we all liked different parts of the "DC Universe." We would diverge from the game and fill each other in on stories that the table was not familiar with.
Game mechanic was full of drama at just the right times. A Critical Fail helped the cops and criminals helped Kite Man get busted right away. Now because of the ASTRO Rule Red Bat tends to have a lot of multiple rolls of the dice. Ties though are rare. This session we had a tie and then we had A TIE. First was an Old School cop and criminal Gangster foot race. Two of the players, a cop and a robber at the table, dating in real life and as PCs, at the climax of things, rolled ASTRO eight times and then tied. In short, Plastic Boy got the bejeweled Penguin's Egg but the Red Panda got away. They were starting to suspect each other's secret identities at that point. The criminal Hacker then Critically Failed his roll to encrypt seized computers, and the New Guy cop broke it in a single try. Plastic Boy then knew the Red Panda's alias then. Kite Man escaped with kite made out of chair legs and a tablecloth.

 

 

  

 The evening's Crawlspace event started with me learning how to download apps onto my phone, without sending money to scammers, by forgetting my playing cards for the game. So for "The Dig II" with the help of James of Milwaukee, we used Random.Org's Randomizer. I also somehow only printed six Character Sheets when there were eleven people at the tables in front of me. Kal Luin, from PeryPubbers LARPs in previous years, played in this one as well. For all the technical difficulties, the players helped me turn the session into a raucous good time. Not a player left early as I killed them off one by one because our conclusion was that good. I forgot to get any pictures.

Friday was straight-up Crawlspace

Because of the real world, I could only do two out of the three Crawlspace: Florida Man saga. I was surprised at how many return players that I was getting this year. I don't want to name them because if I miss one I'll feel like a heel. The stories flowed nicely and the players alternately tried to "break the game" as well as make it interesting for everyone. They would laugh at me as I stopped everything to make notes for the good stuff that were feeding me during these playtests.

 

 

 

 

Friday Night/Saturday Morning Hand of Buddha 

Reality rudely broke up my night. I don't want to talk about it. Though the drama would finish around the time that I thought it would (9-10 in the morning), at four AM I knew I wouldn't have the energy to be run sessions at 1pm and then 5pm. Cancelled Saturday in an email and with messages on my phone.
I have to admit, having Saturday night to recover was awesome. I might just do only five, maybe six, games next year on Thursday and Friday. Maybe go to a party on Saturday or take a hot bath and do laundry, who knows?

 
Jealous much?

 

This goes out to, they know who they are. Overall, just not enough older, white males with beards, for sure. Probably only about 30,000 of the 55K that attended were over 40 years-old-- who could a WOTC-hating D&D fanboy talk to? Grognards and froggies of "true gaming" were online talking about GenCon and why they wouldn't come to it yet another year. They were on about stuff like there's a strip club within two miles, too many people in one place being akin to a gangbang, and, of course, the place was full of groomers looking to seduce children. When you say stuff like that, what do you think the real world thinks of you? 

When I spoke to Peryton over the weekend, I was recounting all the return players this year. She replied, "Oh course. You're hip."

 

 

GenCon 23 Prep: A Penguin I can live with

 

GenCon 2023
Red Bat
Gotham Major Crimes: Best Served Cold

The Penguin working with Intergang to clone Mr. Freeze in soldiers for the upcoming Arctic Circle markets.

The Penguin Quick 300, 13^th Level Digger
Oswald Cobblepot considers himself much maligned by mainstream society, as he calls it, because of his billionaire gone to, well, pot roots. He has worked his from a skilled art thief, to a thriving bounty hunter, finally becoming a successful boss in the Gotham City underworld. With his many legitimate appearing businesses, he has maintained a veneer of respectability. Because of this he even has been a mayor of the venerable city. While he is under several investigations by both state and federal authorities, only one indictment has been leveled against him and that has not yet been fully implemented.
PHYSICAL 25 HITS 150
MENTAL 35 BASH 65
CHARM 30 AIM 240
LUCK 40 DUCK 80
NERVE 200 PSYCH 75/70
Perks: Obscura, Big Ear, Nose, Jeweler’s Eye, Bundis, Fix-It, Ham Headed, Indomitable, Race Car Evil
Assets:
Penguin Umbrella Inc- Three small factories, hiring local workers and management from Gotham State University and Bludhaven Community Colleges, specializing in rainy day apparel, umbrellas, and fishing gear. Quick 1,400
Resources: Equipment, talent pool

Iceberg Club- A public nightclub for a night of dressing up and some live entertainment. Quick 700
Resources: High profile publicity, money laundering, locate future marks.

Flock Manpower Employment- Temporary Employment agency focusing on inner city neighborhoods with access to established companies in and around Gotham. Quick 900
Resources: Eyes and ears on major portions of local industry

Sub-Zero Association Hall- The backrooms of the Iceberg Club where a not really secret society of “made men” and “big wigs” hangs out. Quick 350
Resources: Powerful and corrupt connections, sex scandals in the making, neutral ground for criminal gangs to discuss things

Phoenix Stage- A riverside live music venue. Quick 200
Resources: Sex workers, drug distribution, and visibility with rock and roll stars

Arctic Automotive- An electric car research and development start-up. Quick -100 (officially)...

Full On RPG Season

 I really wish I was at VengerCon right now
Now according to InterTube standards dictated to us by WebNet Influences and Disurptors, I should be meh about attending a small RPG convention where a bunch of rightwing and Alt-right froggies, according to warring Twits and Gits, get together, but I really wanted to go this year. First off, while whole-hearted fascists as well neoLiberals are there, the folks are mostly dungeon crawling fanatics that really don't like deconstruction of roleplaying tropes into posters for 18-34 y/os, without real jobs so with too much time on their hands, looking for something to be crusading against-- its called ageism as well as loafing.
The fabricated Left/Right divide among RPG fandom, VengerCon hopefully is a success this year. Why? Because it represents the author-GM as a force in creation of RPGS. That is against the current flow of pointless reasons why some gamers should hate other gamers.  Maybe it's not so pointless as folks trying to avoid ever really having a job, keep trying to make table top role playing into a real industry right up there with magazine racks in coffee shops and inner city subdivision lawn care in returns. Those goals just won't pay off but good for those over-educated sorts that don't have to pay rent.
A bit more seriously, yet possibly more inaccurate, smaller designer-driven conventions are the wave of the future for the RPG communities. If you want to feel like you're a part of something, get to know your local RPG whack job. It pays off. You make friends and see their trends whether you agree with them or not.
The hotel where VengerCon is also has some decent lox and cream cheese on the breakfast menu.



That's like your opinion.
My ongoing Wobble mini-campaign has been halted when Peryton posted in OUR RPG group, "Do I get to play Hitler?" Probably someone, most likely within the membership of the PeryPubbers, Peryton Gamers at FacetuBe, "reported" this statement. She has been banned from video chat rooms for, like, a month. 
One of the PC options in my current storyline, Edmund Weissenstein, is a clone of Hitler. He was raised by two Jewish wobblers from Santa Monica, California wanting to stave off the whole 1940s of their universe by time traveling back to when Adolf Hitler was 16 and obtaining a sample of him to give birth to a properly raised Hitler. They then planned to come back to exact same moment in time and replace their Hitler for the real Hitler. Wobble being a game where time travel is a hoax, things did not work well for the Weissensteins. But Edmund clone-Hitler would become an accomplished wobbler trying to escape all the Nazi fetishism in the multiverse.
I mean, it's not like Hitler is not a part of popular culture, most of us hate him, already.  No but sneaky concern trolls have started pointing their attention away from Twit Wars towards FacetuBe groups. Even if this just FacetuBe's algorithm being proactive, this needs to stop.

Everytime at the Table: Downlow didn't work

All three out of the last three Midnight sessions for the Wobble were supposed to be rather private affairs. Well so much for that. Apparently Peryton Publishing still has some inexplicable appeal to its members showing up whenever they want. I'm not going to complain, it's nice to be appreciated.

So with Parts 2 & 3 of "The Trial of Alejandro" we've had Peryton show up because her and then Liam, The Boy. What can I say? It happens.

So as you might've read, the trial itself was interrupted by a pirate raid. Now these pirates were lead by Taximus Bizness, not the simple intrestellar pirates that Alejandro was hanging with before. Cyclon technologies on Inasfar are well beyond Earth's (most of them at least), but the akkebarik (goat-heads) having been transdimensionally trading, both legitimately and illegitimately for about two millennia. The Business, the pirates' group brand, had more than a few advantages. The ride for Professor Viago and Alejandro had arrived.

Seeing the trouble at the capitol palaces, Dasiy Adair figured she had better get their quickly. Luckily she was on one of Athena City's elevated paths leading directly to there. After a bit of jogging, she saw The Dodo  in the impound lot about a quarter mile away. She knew that she had to get there quickly as well. So she stole police car, err a hover speeder with the City Guard, to speed up her travels.

Meanwhile back in the court, the Boy wobbled in with a Character named Willem Walsh-Wallace (something about American MAGA Republicanism, I think. He tries to be shocking with his drunken libertine uncle). W-3 was a wobbling bounty hunter and Alejandro had a warrant out for him in some other locale, which we didn't determine. Him, Viago, and the target would go about wrestling for more than a few rounds before the police care with Daisy Adair, she can drive anything, smashed onto the scene. Boy that courtroom was getting a pounding.


When the court's baliffs started shooting at everyone not wearing a judges robe, all the PCs decided to get into the hijacked police cruiser. Daisy then started making a "bee line" towards the Dodo. Some Pi-Fighters flew in to try and stop them. A couple of NPCs got killed in the backseat. All in all, the PCs back to the Wobble Boat and took off-- that is regardless of whatever Taximus Bizness and his pirates where up to.

An Inasfar patrol ship showed up when the Dodo reached orbit, preparing for it Wobble. Daisy had to make some Saves before the boat was clear.

At the sequence's end, I left the craft twirling end over end until we resumed again.

A Pi-Fighter, but with wings

Ken St Andre Got Snide

Back when Webbed Sphere (whatever) requested PeryPub to stop using Tunnels and Trolls on our labels, I asked Robin (Peryton) to confirm that we had permission to use Monsters! Monsters! compatibility as a selling point. Here's the receipt: 

On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 12:27 AM Ken St.Andre <kenstandre@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hi, Robin, it's perfectly okay for you to say your (Peryton Publishing) stuff is compatible with Monsters! Monsters!
Good luck!
Ken

Later Steve Crompton, at one time heir to the FBI materials, hearing this concession by Ken St Andre to Peryton Publishing would chat me up. Here is a part of the conversation:

Me: I have a few M!M! friendly items I will be publishing over this next year and next. I'll get you and Ken printed copies as they are available.
(Per Facebook): Steve Crompton did I send you the official M!M! NETWORK logo?

This last week, Ken St Andre got in touch with me. Apparently he can't get printed copies of his latest Monsters! Monsters!  rules set. He thought maybe Peryton Publishing could help him out. I am pretty sure that his business partners at whatever shop he's doing shit at these days could provide whatever he is needing, but you know.

I told him to ask Peryton directly. She might claim to be a part time employee but she does what she wants when it comes to our label. Maybe she'd just work for whatever get up that he had going on these days.

He then asked me to be a part of that organization. I declined.

Ken decided that I had hurt him and decided that we could not use his material. I then realized that his business partners probably have no idea what he's up to.

Ken: ... the mountain you’re trying to make out of a molehill.

Then don't ask me to subvert your business partners Ken.

What should be noted is at no time did I ever ask to play along. I have relationships already established in the "TT" RPG  cottage industry from about three decades ago. In short, I am busy publishing my own stuff.

Everytime at the Table: "If my friends are anywhere, they're being judged."

These are the Court not the Defendants

 So apparently The Last Drive Inn is only doing a few shows at a time to extend the season for the early Summer. This means Robin, Peryton, was able to show up to last Friday's Wobble. So while I had Iron Curtis's randomized events worked out, I had to work her popping back up and make it interesting. So I pulled out my campaign notes and stopped at a random page in it. It stopped at a page full of tables for wouldn't you know "random encounters." So NPCs became her angle.

Daisy Adair and her new Wobbler buddy, Jack Pitt-Freeman, a Nuke-Mute (nearly human) from the Cylon (kind of immortal human) from Inasfar, had accidentally wobbled to the Sigma Verse and ran into an Uber-World faction of Aether Bunnies. We did some sentence-long narrative back and forth that established that the two were on run from the cutest Nazis ever. Just when the pilot who can fly anything and her newfound friend were just about to steal a spaceship, the Wobblers ran into another potential Wobbler, a local sheriff rabbit-head, whom despite having rabbit ears, looked and acted a lot like Colin Ferguson. Of course Rule #117 came into play, more accidental wobbling, and poof the PC and two new NPCs were back on Inasfar again.

Jack Pitt-Free
Nuke-Mute (half-human)
the Quick 80
Notes: Not wild about Cylon-based society, and really not a fan of Inasfar especially now that he's seen other worlds.

Gamderi Sheriff
Aether Bunny
the Quick 120
Notes: Older than the usual new Wobbler. He hasn't liked the Uber-World faction on his homeworld since they got there two decades ago.

So as for Viago and Alejandro, when they decided that escape was the best option, I randomized how this was going to occur using the following table:
Roll    Result
1        Assault
2        Convert
3        Subterfuge
4        Befuddle
5        Delayed
6        Roll Twice
I rolled a "6." My second results were "1" and "5". So I got to get operatic. 

In depth about the Cylons are my take on Jack Kirby's New Gods or the Eternals . They are mortal but really long-lived and quite powerful compared to an ordinary human. Cylons and humans are both referred to as Xylon-kin. The Xylons being a species that look mostly human but have names like Marduk, Isis, Thor, Athena, Bacchus, and whatnot like humans have names like Tim, Ali, or Sally; they also seem to live forever. "Cylon" is a fairly common name in Greek history. I am not stealing from Battlestar Galactica in case you were wondering.
So picture a court room the size of the Taj Mahal inside of a palace the size of Parma, Ohio. No matter where one is in the structure, their voice can be heard. On the floors are areas for the mask-wearing Peanut Gallery (the cast of thousands) and in the center of the Public's Commentator, the Mighty Peanut would speak from an elaborate podium. The defendant, Alejandro, his Defense lawyer, Jax Bizness, and the Character-Witness Professor Rudolpho Viaggo floating into the area on levitating disks. The Court Officials glided in minutes later on square structures with all sorts baroque decals and more than a few gargoyles on them.  Let's column list these to break the text up a bit:
Cylon, the Dude (Rodrigo, Alejandro's twin Brother) sat in his King's Seat. By law he is unable to speak until he proclaims innocence or pronounces sentence.
Lynate, the Dame (A distant cousin actually named Alyssa) in her Judge's Chair. She would be the final say as to whether Alejandro was innocent or guilty.
Sill, the Damsel (Davita, a skilled Inasfar scholar) at Justice's Scales
Solon, the Duke (Rex, Rodigo's right-hand man) at the Prosecutor's Desk
Floating close to Alejandro's disk was a transparent cube, which was called the Bailiffs Block.
Things were about as Kirby as I could a make feudal legal system. The clarions would sound across Athena City to announce that a major Judgement Proceeding was taking place. This was for everybody to tune in on the broad-net channels on the various media devices. More than a few of Peanut Gallery were narrow-podding the events as well.

Just before the horns and on the other side of metroplex, Daisy Adair and her two NPC friends had hit one of the many mile-long Trade Spots of Athena City. Image a mega-strip mall without walls with lots of plaza space and with neon-light and day-glow signs announcing brands and outlets-- no hokey "farmer market-ism" in these spots, just commerce. She ran into an Antling prince, Smell-Weird 18, that she had bumped into during the Art Colony Wobble, he was selling organic ant-head soap (smells like bug) and used Media-Vees (big rings that holo-cast wide-screen TV views). It was able to confirm that she was indeed back on Inasfar. Then they heard the horns. She asked what was going on. 'Weird replied, "A City's Judgement has begun."
Jack Pitt-Free would grunt and roll his eyes.
"If my friends are anywhere," Adair observed, "They're being judged."
She then began making her way quickly towards the palace complex. Her two tack-ons followed.

Meanwhile in the Judgement Chamber, things were almost musical. I mean if my windows weren't open and it was after midnight, Curtis and I would have been singing. I do not blame the four beers that I had had and that he was half way though some tequila mix with pineapple, indeed the cocktail hour was really helping us be poetic. While Jax would give some lame argument, Viaggo would speak up to add to that argument and half the time it rhymed. I would reply as the the Duke trying to rhyme my statements with the Professors.

At one point, the Mighty Peanut spoke up making a bland statement. Curtis called them "the Mighty Penis" in his reply. Whether this was intentional or based on a variable internet connection with Heart-Landia USA, I was obliged to break the Peanut Gallery into three parts; Strophe, Antistrophe, and the Trolls (the rather Unhelpful). Lyrical stanzas were had with the call and response between Viaggo and my three parts. Upon calming the Gallery down, Viaggo was able to build upon his defense of Alejandro.

"I think you just might be swaying the Judge." Jax Bizness would lean in to say to the Wobbler.

About six miles away, Daisy Adair and the newcomers, Pitt-Free and Gambari, stopped their running when the sky above them crackled with an assault force of deformed eight-sided dice patterned spaceships breaching Athena City's defenses. Quite a feat for any spacefleet, but what about serious wobbling factions? Taximus Bizness, Jax's deniable third cousin, and his Ultra-Pirates had finally shown up. The Pilot, Dasiy, was taken aback for a minute kind of wondering what was going on, but really knowing what was going on. The Nuke-Mute (Pitt-Free) tapped her shoulder pointing.
"Isn't that your vessel?" He said indicating the Dodo.

Back in the courtroom, one of its massive windows crashed as the pirate ships entered.

At this point it was 2:30. My allotted time for Wobbles is an hour to 90 minutes. We had started at Midnight. We ended the cliffhanger here. It won't be too far from now when things continue.

Meanwhile, I've been talking about the Characters without giving a Wobble rules-specific description of those involved. Let's amend that.

Daisy Adair
Pilot Extraordinaire
the Quick 150
Defaults: LUCK and NERVE
PERKS: Can Pilot Anything
Notes: She can pilot anything. She can also master a Trans-Atlantic accent 75% of the time that she wants to.

Professor Rudolpho Viaggo
Explorer for the Primrose Corporation
the Quick 150
Defaults: MENTAL and CHARM
PERKS: I Know a Guy
Notes: The TAU Verse seems awfully dangerous to him, but there a few things he really digs. He's getting to know some people.