A Few Times At the Table Since: the Halloween Special

 Well, I was going to summarize the Wobble mini-campaign, Wobble: Espionage on Prime Earth but Peryton has asked me to recap last Tuesday nights ICONS scenario. Iron Curtis and the gal decided between a choice of another Crawlspace session or a continuation of eight year-running superhero setting. We rekindled the four-color printer and got up to some play. Return To the Townhouse of Terrible it was.

A bit about the Terrible Townhouse in my supernatural super-heroics additions to the shared Beta City setting. It is sort of my answer to DC's House of Mystery. Instead of say time-travel and hell being the mainstay like for the TV show Legends of Tomorrow, ours is more based on Robin's first ICONS campaign about dimensional shifts and incursions from other realities. I, being a fan of the supernatural superheroes from DC, as well as Marvel and even Charleston, has worked plenty of of those elements though. So when last we met, Santo Luna, or Jay or Landshark's boyfriend err husband, as we tend to keep calling him, he was taking over stewardship of the place. It being not only a nexus to many locales in the multiverse, it is in the Archway Neighborhood of Beta City, where other nexuses are as well. He was taking over for Professor Hemm who had taken over for Doctor Philosophy before him.

Okay, Terrible Townhouse is modeled after a row house complex where Peryton lived for fifteen years in Cleveland, Ohio. I actually lived in three out of the four apartments available. So while the rooms and abodes change to the inhabitants, there are certain areas that never do though are warped due to the time and experiences shared by past residents. Many of the villains are former bad neighbors of our days in place. The locales around the residence are often running jokes made by the wife and me. On with the story...

Across the street is Ralph's Ant's House. Ralph is an NPC that is always obsessed with whatever Character Robin is playing, his aunt, whom he lives with, is The ANT a mystical termite gnawing at the Tree of Existences. In an earlier adventure, some supernatural heroes, including Santo Luna, defeated the minions of the Ant. Well new neighbors have moved in. From the chaotic dimension known as Fairy Tale. 

Jessica Jones, yes, from Marvel's Netflix saga, played by Robin, happened to be helping Jay move in. Bruce, or Landshark, was out of town visiting Jay's family. Professor Hemm was there to hand over the keys to place, then was zipped out of existence due to some trans-cosmic emergency. From next door a clan of goblins, the Garski Gobblers, have moved in. Being burglars and miscreants by nature, they of course started breaking into the Terrible Townhouse, mostly to steal its copper. Well, the man-witch now had to do something about that. For every time he and scrapper got the last couple out, others would appear elsewhere. So a mystical solve was required.

Poor Curtis, his up and coming superhero wizard was at loss. I absolutely refused to solve the problem for him, but I did overwhelm him with information about my mystical milieu of our ICONS setting. We brought in various NPCs, including Robin's Wisp character, to act as advisors. Landshark even came home to help Mz Jones whap the buggers. Still no solution. I created a Peck goblin, a variation on Pechs, named Jamboree to start acting as the Handyman around the place. He vaguely suggested "Sex Magic," I'm sure our passed on friend Charlie Wylie would've been all over that, but Iron Curtis was more embarrassed than anything. Finally a barrier portal for anything mystic was designed and constructed by Jay, Wisp, and the Peck. It would ward off anything not more powerful than the three of their Magic Skill levels combined. This thwarted the break-ins. Wisp returned to her Laboratory of Whimsy up by Greenbay, Wisconsin-- Robin did a great job with her cryptic dialog.

Oh there was some outrage in the Ant's House because no one pushed them around, or something. The Yagga, witchy den mothers to many a Gobbler goblin, what the Garskis are, clan did some conjuring to summon some trouble to help them out. The entity known as Ogre wandering around our world after being trapped here six years ago in another game session. While not particularly a villain, Ogre, looking like a very tall, buffed-up goblin, likes a good fight. With a little persuasion he'd join the ruffians in an assault on the Terrible Townhouse.
Out in the street, the Garskis and Ogre started throwing things at the magic-laden structure. Ogre was throwing chunks of street pavement no less. Mean Yagga was conjuring up a storm to assist them as well. Of course Jay, Landshark, and the visiting Jessica Jones would not let this go unanswered.
So it was working class fighting in the street with alcohol more than likely involved.Ogre and Landshark took one look at each and immediately got locked in a battle of strength, looking a lot a game of Mercy from High School.Santo Luna was really annoyed at this point. He showed the Yagga how to cast lightning without any theatrics, she was down for the count first round. Meanwhile Jessica would be trying to curtail the two, no, three, no, four Garskis popping in and up around them.
I was proud of the challenge my combat setup was for the Players. Landshark had bit off a bit more than he could. Jay had to deal with a goblin or two that were trying to get him. Jessica was frazzled by the goblin tactics but was steadily taking one of them per combat round. When all the Garskis were foiled, the two heroes piled onto Ogre to help out their buddy, in true Marvel superhero fashion.
Ogre tried to run but was stopped by Jessica leaping in front of him and punching him backwards. Jay would then sizzle the beast with another lightning strike. This left Ogre's alter-ego, Jeffry O'Garsky, a 17 y/o boy dazed, confused, and more than a little bruised.
Now the cops generally don't come to the Archway Neighborhood. More occult-dealing means govern the place. The Ant's House slipped away to the lot next the Gas Station at the corner, right next to Block House of Cacophony Every Weekend almost a mile away. Meanwhile Zodia Atrologa's (a new NPC) Duplex of Diabolical Dealings replaced it. The fortune-teller sorceress knew Jay's grandmother, indeed they studied together. She took the teenager O'Garsky into her care and promised to help return him where ever he'd like to go. Poor kid thought it was still 2017.

Meanwhile, I presented a cut away scene. Somewhere else in the depths of the Townhouse of Terrible. There the enigmatic Wandering Pimp, adorned in his golden suit and matching homburg hat, spoke to the shadows.
"They've been distracted long enough." He said. "You can come out now."
Stepping out was a rip-off of Darkseid, but red, Arkon.
He would look around him, wave his hands, and a massive collection of poles, looking like a Festivus Pole, but with branches.
"It is time for the X-MASS TREE to begin its work." He'd say in a gravelly voice.

(GM's note, Arkon was originally named Sidedark, but you know, that sucked.)

A Few Times at the Table Since: Tales of Keen Excitement (unfinsihed)

 Since GenCon, we've been some gaming online. I've been a little too distracted to recount the sessions like I normally do, so here's part of a digest of this Fall's events.

Tales of Keen Excitement: Set in the World of Keen Excitement, my little foray into politically charged allegory as a grounds for fantasy RPG, has mostly been focused on the agricultural and food distribution systems here in North America. That said, boy has the title alone triggered a lot of alt-right froggies. Though that was already expected, it's still quite satisfying.

So the story so far has been Iron Curtis and Peryton playing themselves fall into a world beyond their own after they are lured to a Renaissance Fair by a dark entity, known as a Sock Specter, imposing as me. This is done when Vankoff, the Wight-Russian, the villain, shows them a large lever with the sign "LEVER THAT MUST (BLOTCH) BE PULLED." So without a pause, any woman (Pery) just had to pull it.
At this point, I had the players develop their Characters using my TOG rules. Curtis became a Warrior, a dark-haired version of Prince Adam from He-Man, and Robin became a witchy-looking Wizard, complete with the pointy hat. They found themselves in a very hot jungle of giant cornstalks, where the corn grew in batches similar to bananas. They were in the edges of what is called The Stalks, and the flora around them called the Cob-Stalk. The corn-looking fruit of these trees are actually called "cobs" not corn. They felt that they were being watched.They made their way to Crashland.
"Landing," as it's called by locals, is a small town, or a "patch" in local parlance, where the houses from other worlds tend to land when captured by mystical tornadoes. Here humans and other creatures, mostly Green-Backs, like very racially diverse hobbits but with green torsos, dwell. Seeing newcomers, they of course broke into song. Curtis would start to join in. Seeing a music unfolding before, Robin retreated back into the Stalks where she saw what had been watching them, the Eye of Ogre. She was scooped up by one its minions and carried away.

The musical set complete, Curtis heard Robin's cries for help as she was abducted. Townspeople came around to give some expository explanation of the place and one of the Green-Backs, named Looker, (NPC Thief) came forward to help the newly arrived Warrior out.
Meanwhile our Wizard was taken into a keep of Ogs. Here piltdowners (hobbit-sized ogres), and the Og (neanderthal men and women) lived and served their master ogres because they had no choice-- they were designed that way. Robin was thrown into a bin with a couple other women. One was being force-fed Cob-meal and mutating into something that resembled a pig, the other was only being given bread and water and being sized up for bridal gown. Maw, the She-Og which basically runs the place, decided that she was "Feeding not breeding." The ogre, not The Ogre, that owned the place Khan of the Cob was returning that evening though.
The wedding night, was approaching. Of course, the pig girl was the feast and the starving chick was bride.

Robin developed her first spell. Meanwhile Curtis and Looker started their plan to free her. Robin said they had stay to save her fellow two captives of course. So using some cobb-syrup alcohol and wheat chaff they blew up a wall to announce the wedding was cancelled... .

In real life, Peryton announced that her work schedule was going to be tough for a while and our RPG sessions on Friday's would have to slow down. So one day I'll get to run my first D&D combat in 35 years. One day.

The Dungeon: the Sweeping Saga or the Bunker

 So I am responding to game-bud Ivan Richardson's "Dungeon Crawls to Stories." In this video essay gets into the ubiquitous question of why do these monsters live by each other? He uses the scenario "The Caves of Chaos" as his choice to show a working grid-grind type of work. He touches upon the concepts of gamism, narrativism, and simulationism, but mostly sticks to the point that disparate entities can be lorded over to explain why they live next to each other on a map with a bunch of rooms within a few meters from each other.

I'm not as he put it '...not criticizing, but critiquing.' I am taking up the subject the "dungeon crawl" versus its proclaimed opposite the story-driven scenario.
Sorry folks but narrative is going to happen. Whether it is because the GM has a narrative, or the roleplayers around the table get into the goofiness of the play-pretend that they are engaging in. It's what keeps people coming back to the table. The connecting thread can be based off of a rather linear direction and flow like say Ravenloft. It can be more haphazard and unrelated occurences in say In Search of the Unknown. It is because of the shared obstacles between the players and the GM stringing that into the yarn of whatever tale gets knitted together. It's not a compelling "ecology" of the encounters, or a detailed understanding rules and implied in-game physics, though those elements make for strong sessions.

Anybody that has had experience with even just a handful of GMs has probably met the Crawl-purist. They're the dude that insists that everything is random yet not arbitrary in the roleplaying session that is going on. Any story that occurs is because of the players' delusional belief that things are connected. This is despite the text of this of that classic dungeon being presented as the get-together's promised tale. If this last over more than a vignette of a room or two, they will then come up with a gladiatorial match where they want the PCs to fight one another or an all-powerful deity will demand that the group eats dog poop, or something similar. In their mind this visceral experience will restore balance in "roleplaying" and get things back to the war game details of a room by room collection of puzzles and Stat-attackers. Sure.

This is fine if you're this sort of GM. Fine if you want your players to get bored of roleplaying and finally move on into collecting card games maybe board games. While the more metered an RPG session becomes, without it basically being something akin to BINGO or amateur poker, there is a reason it only occurs in four-hour blocks at larger conventions. Meanwhile, at the smaller game festivals, kitchen tabletops, and computer screens, things get a lot more wordy than worldly.

Starfinder: Finally Finished Reading It

 

Written in 2017, I picked it up in '18. It has indeed taken me this long to read the whole book. Now I haven't read it religiously, but I have been picking it up about once a week and reading three to five pages. The information is dense and meant for the truly committed D&D 3.65 player getting into science fiction  with its own nuts and bolts. Of course it has like thirty authors and twenty-five supporting people listed on the side scroll of credits, so one might expect that from a book that is 19,000 to 1.6 million pages long depending on the day of the week that one is reading it.

At least some people are playing it. At GenCon, I've seen about a dozen up to twenty plus events for it every year since its release. They might've even moved on to second edition. I attribute this to supply-based RPG "designer" Industrial Complex producing mega-widgets that need to sell only 30% of the stock to make some money, but there are ppl sitting down to play the game. Unlike a lot of new SF RPG works on the bookshelves these days, which garner hundreds of true fans online for maybe six months of online play by some people, including disinterested wouldbe actors, on YouTube. Meanwhile the older SF RPG books have dozens of fans that suck on nostalgia juice and confuse the product with Starfleet Battles or Traveller alternately.

The rules are some very solid and detailed SF stuff. Even when a thousand ppl playing one hundred Starfinder campaigns a year, only a quarter of the provided rules would come out in play. When I started reading the starship section, I was glad to see that the authors were trying to turn vessels into Characters and encounters. I was also wondering how they saw my private notes, but hey I only really got serious about space ships in my own work like five years ago-- still some three years before I waded into this book's section for them. The Character species are things like sexy robots with facial hair if needed; humans; giant lizard people to be used as Tanks; antennae-having psychics, space chipmunks; hidden-faced four-armed things; and interesting, for once, bugs. Dwarves and whatnot from Pathfinder and/or D&D are welcome. The setting is a solar system (and a bit more) striving to be a blank slate for the author-GM. So blank it has only 300 years of history. I like the world listing format, it covers the basics in good sci-fi terms designed for actual play at the table (mostly time and gravity), which I find a very helpful take for my own stuff.

Would I play it? I haven't finished running my first D&D-based combat in thirty plus years over six sessions of play for my TOG OSR fantasy setting yet, so, no. Still the rules here are thought out and helpful to any S-F GM that is only looking for tips. The true Path-finding GM, I am sure can make it work. Overall a Loch Ness Monster game system on the scale of Smurf to Godzilla.

Oh the Trip of the Fantastic

I have run my Spacers, Wobble, Crawlspace and various FRPG explorations sessions over the same time periods sticking to very strict guidelines defining each. Meanwhile, I have been slowing down on my gaming. I have been less than interested to keep straying away from soccer and beer on Saturday. Sundays are a great day to watch TV series or movies and do laundry as opposed to squeak in extra game sessions. Late Friday nights being the only time I want to game. This has led to my writing sticking to whatever I am running the next Friday that anybody can get together.

 I have always like mixing up my roleplaying. Not so much mixing the genres that are set in my head. Someone once mentioned to that the longer that they run roleplaying games the more everything runs together after a couple of decades. As a guy that runs around three differing things over various sessions concurrently this has always worried me. I kind of have viewed it as a form of meta-GM dementia for experienced GMs that must be avoided at all costs.

 I am trying really hard not to start mixing the genres up. And then finding out about George Lucas schemes to make his own sagas in Star Wars it's harder than ever.

This is the sexy picture for Lucas's master tale of Star Wars after the three original movies and before his sequels. If it looks like Jim Henson's Dark Crystal to you don't be fooled. It's a series of kid shows that is not meant for kids nor meant to be much more than after-school specials. Its writing is not intended for the kid in the picture, but for the inner child of 50 y/o Star Wars fans. The budget in casting just made its casting meant-for-TV and therefore hopefully palatable to juvenile viewers.

He take his moderate success, these products did better than the infamous Star Wars: Christmas Special, and begin production on this series of works.

Leaving out the Ewoks, but still with really bad juvenile tropes, Lucas forged works of sci-fantasy that would be terrible. Terrible up until Disney got involved to show us how bad things could really get.

Let's hope that my new RPG strategy fails half as much as the Ewok saga.

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.

Post-Apoc Thought (RPG not Futurism)

Artwork by Michael Hartlieb for Glow.

So Putin drops an atomic bomb on Istanbul claiming self defense. I mean "the West" was just like sending ships into obviously Russian waters supporting a NATO-founded country called Ukraine. The Autocrat is defending the "Western values" of the Eastern Orthodox Church after all. Something about growing a beard and being stupid, but who really wants to explain it to willfully ignorant folks. The real world goes mad, and most of western Russia becomes a-glow after western missiles respond. A lot of the US gets hit by one out of every 1,148 Russian missile attacks. Sadly, most American-born Russian apologists won't actually be living in the parts stricken while they jerk off to what they want to be Ragnarok. They will strive to be the leaders of tomorrow in the new world of IT SUCKS hopefully after a shower. 

 Just to let you know all of our nuclear power plants in the world will not exactly explode without constant intelligent, whether it is human or machine, maintenance. They will though, without constant cooling sources, melt into themselves and melt their surroundings, becoming hotter, yet heavier, and sinking into the ground underneath them.  Sooner or later they, the mounds of blazing uranium and whatnot, will find ground water, which will act as their coolant and stabilizing them into more than ten thousand years of radioactive water. This is while releasing plumes of radioactive steam on the scale of about 1/80th the radiation released by A-Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki back in the 40s every year to 18 months. Depending on weather patterns, folks will be looking at tear-shaped patterns of highly radioactive areas where folks being near die quickly but still too slowly, for about 150 to 420 miles.

These "dead zones" aren't exactly dying though. Sure plenty of mileage is sterilized, but once again weather patterns from unaffected regions will blow into the region. Winds blowing soot/dust, soil, seeds, and insects into there. Meanwhile birds and squirrels are looking for new spots to hang. Sure the newcomers die quickly, but just not quickly enough to stop breeding. Over the next ten centuries, we're dealing with Gamma World-like mutations.

Meanwhile, in the not dead zones, that's most of the 50-70% less irradiated world, people stop worrying about moneys coming from overseas. They find that starch-based alcohols can run cars and houses can be powered by solar and wind based technologies rather than going to far off, exotic places like the Gulf of Mexico or Calgary, Canada in search of crude oil. Those Anti-American right-wingers are making all the hay that they can of American values not being upheld, become a serious political force.

While the new American States, mostly a coalition of neo-fascists regimes, have access to jet engines and hydraulic machines, three hundred miles away are quite mysterious to them-- Corn alcohol is just not jet fuel. Those far away areas are working their way through their particularly specific problems and adopt mutations as helpful tools towards doing so-- this looks like magic to everyone except the local scientists. Here we have a Rifts style like campaign.

Is this a good starting point for anybody?

Artwork Michael Hartlieb for Glow

Everytime at the Table: Wobble aNu

 I normally like three to four ppl at the table when I GM. With Wobble though, I run a lot of sessions for one maybe two players. When Peryton announced her seasonal departure from the late night Saturday scene because of the new season of The Last Drive with Joe Bob Briggs, I doubled down on perfecting the One-on-One session. Iron Curtis and I decided to some wobbling on our own for the duration. His Professor Viggo, which has either warped into Viaggo or I have been misspelling for four years now, is in the throes of some Sci-Fi opera and my Wobble notes are not getting any shorter.

Mind you, I've done quickies for single players since forever. Most have shown up at a convention table for a session scheduled a little too early in the AM for others to show. I'd announce that I need three players and refund their ticket or I've give them the highlights of the game they are about to miss. Then for about an hour, I'd recount the outline I had drawn up, complete with very detailed descriptions of the encounters. Towards the end, I would slip in questions as to what would the player's Character have done during the drama. Of course this was to bring about a collaborative conclusion. No one has ever gone away without a nod, maybe even a smile, signifying that it was an enjoyable meeting. Indeed many PeryPubbers reading this joined the group because of these sessions.

Now with Curtis, this is not the same. While neither us of had planned to anything else that night, he is one strong GM as well as one willful player. So I devised a d4-based matrix of events, but framed with using the Red Bat six-sided die in case the PC went a direction that did not account for, that would set in motion events that would define the drama later. Results did not disappoint.

So on the planet of Inasfar, the crew of the Dodo, Professor Viaggo and Daisy Adair (who can fly anything), have been awaiting the trial of Alejandro of Inasfaras. Viaggo's boyfriend happens to accused of things like piracy and treason towards the Cylon state. Luckily he happens to be the older twin of the last Dude of this planet, and so his treason is complicated. Hence the reason why he wasn't just vaporized after being logged as caught while being pirates on a commercial trade route after their identities, for insurance claims, were recorded.

I worked in one of my favorite NPCs, Jax Biznezz, interstellar/transdimensional Lawyer at Law. 

Jax is actually much sexier than this picture

While I had four paths worked out. Curtis had other ideas. Perhaps his white privilege as a person in real life, but he just knew things could be talked out. He was wrong, but I had to flesh out no less than four NPCs to convince him of as much.

Now the next step seems to be... a break out before trial.

Gonzop 2- The Downgrade River Valley

 

 

In between Wone and Huxia runs the Downgrade River. Two differing nations, complete with multiple species in each, fill up a part of that river valley. The Franks and the Zona. Of course there is a Dome Gnome colony of installations here as well.

The Frank are a collection of Nimbs, Grabbers, and Imbys, along with others, are held together by a common currency and similar variations of the language Dooj. The locales of Nuk (pronounced "nook"), Tarfumes, Manna-Lock, and the Franki Box region are their major population centers. While they have ethanol powered vehicles and solar and wind powered electricity (who'd burn fuel to run lights and fans when it literally comes out of the sky?), agriculture and animal husbandry are their things.

The Zona are commonly believed to be aliens from another planet. For the most part that is not true, even the species new to this world have been here long enough to be not alien to its environments. They speak a language called Zeff and are very intolerant of dialects or slang of that means of communication. One can call their area pretty well defiled and exploited. Nood Nell, or the Non-Existent Mountain, was created by 40 miles of strip mining and creating entire underground cities called Ka-Niff (Really Deep Hole). The massive Lake Iftna, meaning No Good Water, is replenished by fountains used as sump pumps of Ka-Niff.

The Dome Gnomes run The Tubes industrial complexes. They trade the Zona for raw materials and trade out produced machines to the Franks trying to kept conflicts between the two from bothering the free flow of trade they want for the whole world.

Everytime at a Table and BASHCon 2023

Spacers 12: 19.Mar.23

The third season of Spacers "The W&J Sector" started last Saturday night/Sunday morning. Peryton, Just Ben, and Iron Curtis showed up to reprise their Spacers. Nextremi 37 from Proxima Centauri, Gal Qixtar of the Gyyko Clan Devvah, and Alezander Captain of the Arcadia  were all set for the upcoming season. Alezander has grown a mustache, and Curtis roled high enough to make it a decent one. Not to be outdone by anyone, Peryton got a hat for Netremi,and no ordinary one at that but French tricorn one at that. Such Character development. We even got into Gal's subplot, he's just a spy for the 7th Kodoan Federation. Not everyone has such deep insights as a new hat and radical 'staches.
    Oh yeah, after playing doctor in Sick Bay, a new addition to the Arcadia Alezander and Doctor Orlando, one of the NPC love slaves now turned into ship's NPCS, discovered that the "cap-EE-tan" was actually a clone. Not just any clone at that, but a clone type from the Fastidious Wars on Earth some 150 years ago (subjective time). These clones would become inform and die without a certain biological additive to their diet once they turned 40. We determined that Alezander was only 32 so there was not a pressing hurry, but there was a reason to head to Earth sometime in the near future.
    Nextremi had developed a friendship with the Wise Key 27 Hive Queen, Arodda. They shared a nickname in common from their Uni-days, "b 364." Both had also played Zero Ball, volleyball in free fall, during school as well. Where the hat came from? We have no idea yet-- we'll probably have to do a flashback one session.

Those flame looking things are Plasma-Ferns of Galileo 3

So the Arcadia took off from Galileo and began navigating towards a FLAT point, places where gravitational effect is minimal upon any object there where starships can jump to other points. As there is nothing exactly stationary in the universe as far as I know, these are not static. "Star Maps" as seen in most sci-fi tales aren't that helpful for interstellar travel. Astrogation, per se, requires vector monitoring of nearby masses and correct knowledge of where stars are actually traveling to along what is known space. The model I gave was a giant beach ball filled with other balls of various sizes from ping-pong balls to beach balls to medicine balls and bigger. That giant beach ball was rolling as well. The various balls being systems and other gravity phenomena and FLAT Points are where balls meet.
   Before getting there, Sexy, the ship's AI, detected another manatee class ship. Identified by its transponder as the Nora Zedd, the craft was in bad shape and looked derelict. After a quick docking, without a Failure on the piloting rolls, the PCs suited up and entered ready to maybe salvage some stuff. The AI Sexy as well as the Dr. Orlando and Bloom the mechanic to look out for their ship and whatnot.
    Boy the players were ready. From aliens from Alien to even space zombies, these guys and gal had their cheese slicers ready. What they found was the remains of the crew that suffered sudden decompression, which isn't as violent as one would think. That is at least according to my research. This also caught a glimpse of a wonderful looking FLAT-capable 
   Then a Kastuk class (big fighter) with scorch marks all over it was detected. Now Kastuks were extensively by the Zentrum during the Corridor wars, so this was like a Dornier Do-217(a Nazi bomber), showing up to a yacht in need of towing situation indicating that raiding as well as salvaging was on the newcomers mind.
   Alezander decided that he was going have N-Zedd act as a torpedo against the pirates, while the Arcadia slips out the backdoor.
   That's where we left off. 

Was it already three years since?
Let's see. 2022, the near-divorce. 2020 the Great Plague. 2019, Cory ran the Wendy's Fastfood RPG in Toledo at BASHCon. Ayup three years. It certainly needed to happen. I've moved to Indianapolis, back to I should say, because the city is rather central to everything that I like to do on weekends. That is roleplay and take road trips.
  While I am recovering financially from the sudden relocations of 2022, I am a bit restricted in what I am willing to do-- that mean's if I can't buy a late model car in an afternoon, I'm broke. Still BASHCON is BASHCon and Peryton showed up. We were off for an adventure and, more importantly, Adventure Gaming.
   Getting to Toledo was a bit of adventure. Somewhere along I-69, north of Kokomo, the bafflement of my car's front end decided to come loose on one side. Stopping to check things out and get a snack, I moved the cheaply built piece to spot to where it wouldn't interfere with travel. It was kind of raining hard, so I felt very manly doing so. En route once again, Robin did her navigator job of looking up things on line. We found a service station in Toledo that would help us out. An hour and a half later, we were not charged a penny because the mechanic "only had to remove a bolt." It was nice to see that people still have pride about the jobs we do. I still made sure his next lunch was paid for.
   Mind you, I can do that level of car maintenance but rain and snow were moving sideways. A garage was needed.
   That bad weather was why JerryTel had to run his "Oh Dark Cha'alt" scenario at home and not at BASHCON. Robin and I would spend the evening at our favorite Red Roof Inn in the world, doing delivery pizza and salads to make the night decadent.
   The rest of the weekend was awesome without qualification. Note that the people that I've known as kids are stepping up to run some old fashioned tabletop gaming for us old folks.

Gonzop 1- Te Fulk

 On the world of Gonzop Fulk means "species" and "folk" in the Trade language known as Dooj. Here are the three main Player-Character races, the folk, to choose from.

Nimb- These humanoids are built for mobility with endurance and speed being their strengths. About two meters (six feet) tall once they reach adulthood. Most migrate from favorite to favorite spots, and consider themelves the lords of all around them. They are not afraid of much in their way, and when they need to be afraid, they’re usually faster. Others set up very hard to get to manors or ranches, and work on building wealth or knowledge.

Imby- Generally ranging in height a meter to a meter and half (three to five feet), they are diminutive when compared to other humanoids. Some have pouches like the Nimb folk, a few will develop an antenna or multiple antennae along their foreheads. Their skin color changes from season to season enabling subtle camouflage with their surroundings.

Grabber- Up to two meters tall (six feet), these folk tend to be more muscular than those around them. They also happen to be superb climbers, despite their weight. With their dexterous hands, and feet, they are also very good builders.

These tend to be the most technological advanced species in the areas that they live in.

Over Tolkien Rehash this Year

As you might've heard, Iron Curtis is complaining that Peryton Gamers group has been getting a little quiet on the RPG get-together side of things. He's right, our group's slow down for the Holidays has been going on for a couple months. Though Crazy Ivan, Ivan Richmond, has started highlighting his Dream of Dragons ("D of D"), but that is only one game. It's not the usual two or three campaigns that we have going on.
Here's the quick preview:
Beyond Bog, Not Desert Planet  (Spacers 22-23) March to November
Wobble: Alejandro Quest part 2, May, July, September
The Starry Tower T&T, concluded by June

At the same time, the TOG rules system takes things to 21 and beyond. It's a speaker going to 11 instead of ten, but for whatnot in a roleplaying game. Why stop at level 20? A bit seriously, I really want to try out the system. Yes sorry game designer friends, I wrote the product without years of brooding over the D20 yes, come on it's "roll over/under 15, always a success" already.  Over the Summer into Winter, and probably into 2024, even with the conventions, I want to try out the rules.

And I'm looking at an older campaign world that has cropped up here from time to time. Announcing the 21 levels of Gonzop.

The "gonzo" world, meaning fantasy with very few dwarven kingdoms, will be the map that I force myself to stick to for the campaign. It's not really post-apocalyptic, but rather post-human. Let's call it Ethanol-Punk or Sorcery and Solar Power as its subgenre.

BOT a Publisher

 Sitting around, watching soccer and chatting a friend up today, we clarified, among ourselves, what is going on in the RPG community. When I say "RPG community" I mean the table-top roleplaying cottage industry. I do not mean some sort of collection of people that look after one another. I don't care how good of friends that you are with other RPG content producers, it's a race. If you're not trying, you don't get to whine.

Where's WotC going?
No where. Not for at least a year. Their betters at HASBRO have had to step in and lecture them, maybe just remind them a little, about copyright law and more importantly HOW TO SELL A PRODUCT. My shares in Hasbro have decreased by 9% since the kerfuffle began. Before any redheaded webhead declares victory, I'm still up by like 80%, maybe 120%,  since I bought them in 2009. That's like over 240$ (US), at least, a share. Cool your jets, doom and gloom dice rollers.

So during my own cool down period, I will only look abstractly at my stocks (good advice for anyone that has a real job). What I will be looking at is the roleplaying, err RPG hobby. I'm done using terms like "TTRPG" because if it's not at the tabletop, it's a flop in about sixteen months. Sure the folks involved in owning this or that electronic game for your cell phone believe, but will you and the folks that played the game with you be spending Thanksgiving evening together playing it on your cellphones thirteen years later? If your answer is "Yes" shine on you crazy diamonds. Still I believe that when it comes to the cultural phenomena of "playing D&D" everyone wants to be at a table, even if hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles from each other.

 

Copyright 2023
Peryton Publishing and Teresa Guido

The sooner that white men leave the market, the better
As a dude that gets called a "troll" because I post thoughts when I disagree with others and they are unwilling to research what they are on about, perhaps I am immune to very slight provocations. Heading towards my sixth decade alive in a couple years and having had women and "people of color" in my gaming sessions since like my first time playing D&D, my feelings aren't hurt. I'm pretty sure that the players that show up at my tables like having me around even more so than the people that I work with in THE HOBBY after they displayed unprofessional conduct while doing so. Just ask the accused, they still work with me. I can get your their current email addys. Most of them are not old, white men.

Not sure if all you alt-right froggies in the OSR mire noticed, but WotC started finding their contributors' bad manners and anti-social tendencies after 5E started making for real moneys. That's like back before Moses was crucified on Gamergate. It was a way to insinuate problems with reputations without legally removing folks on a contract. THIS IS REALLY UGLY and as a company's practice. It needs to be redressed, BUT not by guys with silvering sideburns and silly glasses (so studious!) While not taking the fall for the OGL 2023 mishaps made by whomever, whom they alternately don't know about or won't speak about, Kyle B is lying hard. Do all the web interviews he wants, he's saying much of nothing and mentioning the word "community" about four times while doing so. This does not make anything right.
Noop the racial divide in roleplaying is a distraction. Find talent already, not agendas. Need a list of people of color that make great RPG products WotC? I have six on my phone and there are more. Stop demonizing the socially awkward guys that you once once liked when publishing 5E.

To the tadpoles of Mussolini
OSR just do something. Folks at WotC and their post-2003 alumni have backed you in a corner, but that was like in 2014 until like 2141. Stop leaning into the drooling racist mode while thinking that an acronym made by other folks, folks that have moved on, will save you from the likes of me making fun of you. Really, you guys have like 195% talent that gets wasted on putting out this or that fire because somebody is pranking you. Who cares that it's because you just can't get over a dude in a dress, that one that you met that one time in Memphis... . Mind you, the gatekeepers in your group are mostly to blame. They're as jealous of you as anybody on your left.

Bot A Publisher
I keep saying this. WotC is all about firing authors and firing up plagiarism. They have this thing called "artificial intelligence" that has moved from machine intelligence to text and image gathering and rehashing others' materials as fresh product all without paying royalties. Somehow for all of the product producers' high-minded intentions as proclaimed by its users, it just keeps saving big companies money on stuff like advertising and, soon to be admitted, content.
It really is time to start fighting this trend. That does not mean approving of children watching drag-queens in public libraries in Florida or showing up at my game at GenCon with .45 Colt with intentions to kill about a dozen people. It means, stop letting corporates tell you what is right.
Write it down, make it yours. Draw it, let others see what you did. Let editors and publishers be replaced by bots, not the human element in creativity.

No One Needs Permission to Be Creative
Even if your material is reliant upon somebody else's concepts, as long as you do not use use their copied and pasted material, you are more than likely within the guidelines of a legal concept known as "Fair Use." Oh yeah, don't use other authors' unique character and creature names and whatnot. While WotC has been the villain in displaying this precedent recently, the need to hide behind another logo is just a blanket.
Publish what you want, maybe with being a little paranoid about previews. If you cannot write something, don't create a facsimile. If you can't be an artist, don't fake it.