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RPGs

Help Save Gary’s House

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Indiegogo Campaign

Listen to the Companion Podcast Here.

I had a great Gary Con 14 in 2022. The con ended yesterday and I got home last night.

My Gary Con recap will be in the next episode.

For now, I am being laser focused on a place that is at the heart of the Roleplaying hobby’s birth as a commercial venture that was original Dungeons & Dragons.

Gary Gygax was a prolific reader, gamer, and writer of war game rules. He was a father of five living in a small house when he typed up rules inspired by the vision of how Dave Arneson developed a fantasy Braunstein from what Dave Wesley did as a game where the players were individuals on the map of a fictional town that would be the center of a battle set in the Napoleonic era.

The current owner of the house where Gary Gygax wrote original D&D, Yolanda Frontenay and her husband, have discovered that the two large trees on the property are affecting the plumbing and the limbs overhanging the house are a hazard.

The house is also 100 years old and needs a new roof and many other things repaired so that this landmark can endure long into the future.

The immediate need is for taking out the trees.

I first met Yolanda back in September, 2019 when I was part of an Extra Life event organized by John Gilbert. We had the first 4 streamed games from Gary’s old house. I played in 3 of those games and ran one.

There were initial plans to do it again in 2020, but Covid changed everyone’s plans.

I learned of the Indigogo campaign a few days before Gary Con and shared it on social media.

When I was at Gary Con, I saw Yolanda outside the vendor area. She told me of the challenges of the trees. All the bids she has gotten seem high to me. I had to huge maples taken out of my yard and with nearby power lines they had to use a crane. The low end quotes she has are close to double what I have.

I just can’t believe it needs to cost that much.

I met her at the house on Saturday to pick up a shirt that is another fundraiser for the house. The trees are much smaller, that is shorter, than my trees. One tree is close enough to one street that it shouldn’t be that hard to take out. They may still use a crane, but it’s not that big.

The other tree is between Gary’s house, the neighboring house she also owns and rents out like an AirBnb, and a neighboring house. It is about equidistant from both streets, since Gary’s house is on the corner. It definitely needs a crane. It is further from both streets than the other tree and bigger than the other tree in both height and diameter. It is still shorter than the two trees I had removed.

So I’m making an appeal. I’m hoping to help raise funds by getting the word out.

If you can’t donate money, please share the link to my podcast and the Indigogo campaign to get the word out.

I had a couple of thoughts on how we can use the collective of gamers to source a solution.

Other than the obvious of raising a whole lot of money, we can see if we can identify a tree service who has a fair price and not gouge. The other idea is if there is a gamer out there with a tree service that can either give a huge discount or help connect to a tree service with a lower quote.

Other than those ideas, we need a lot of small donations, or perhaps someone with a lot of money who’d be happy to help.

Please keep this in mind and maybe we can get word to the right person or persons who can make it happen.

I told several people with a large social media presence and some famous people about it to help get the word out.

I hate taking out trees, but when they are too big for their location or dead or dying, they need to come down for safety’s sake.

If you think this is a landmark that should be around for future generations to enjoy, please do what you can.

Some just rent the house, those who know about Gary’s house stay there and then play at Gary’s house.

Indiegogo Campaign

If you want more information about playing at Gary’s house or staying in the house next door, check out the website Birthplace of DND.

RPGs

2021 Year End Review

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Companion Podcast: https://anchor.fm/follow-me-and-die/episodes/Episode-198—2021-Year-End-Review-e1ccin5

Companion Vidcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/M9N9a_TGv2c

Conventions – Virtual Gary Con, Garage Con in my garage in July, Live Gamehole Con 8, GrandCon was cancelled, I skipped UCon when it went from a physical con to a virtual con. I play in a game every Wed. night on Roll20 and run one Roll20 game on Sunday afternoon. I get my fill of virtual table tops twice a week, so the fun of gaming I get from a con – interacting with real people face to face around a shared table, isn’t the same as playing virtually. I started using Roll20 when I couldn’t get a local group going once playing with my sons & their friends fizzled out.

Blog – 18 articles, and the other day (Friday, 17 DEC 2021) a comment mentioned that the RSS feed only shows 2021. That damn thing breaks all the time. I’m looking into a different option for my blog. I may migrate the back end to a static site, but I’ll migrate simpler and smaller sites I have first to see if my new method works for them first.

Podcast – Five episodes, the year end review episode makes six.

YouTube – I passed 1,000 subscribers, so am now monetized again. They changed the rules two or three times since I was monetized many years ago just by creating an Adsense account and linking to my YT channel.

I’ve only done 4 videos. I’ve got a couple in editing that I just never seem to complete, and ideas for lots more.

Twitch – I streamed once this year when I streamed for over three hours cleaning and organizing my game shelves here.

Drive Thru RPG – Nothing new this year. I think I updated a couple of my PDFs, but I didn’t create anything new.

Card Game – I got more art from my artist, but not all of it. I don’t think I’ll do a Kickstarter. To do that well, I need a team working like a well ordered and well oiled machine. I think I’ll just put it on DTRPG, as I’ve mentioned many times in the past. Polishing it and making it appeal to a broader audience is a lot of work. I don’t want to just pass it off, and I don’t want to research lots of people to find the right people for the job. Pushing forward on things like this is hard. Ideas are easy to come by. Putting in the effort to make that idea work for others, and grab their interest is a lot of work.

I played my card game on Christmas with my younger son and my granddaughter. They both liked it. That was the first time I’ve played it in over two years due to the pandemic. My granddaughter said, “It’s a pretty fun game for an almost seven year-old.” She’ll be seven in a week and a half from now.

TikTok – Started at Gamehole Con – 28 so far. It has a maximum of 3 minutes, so it forces focus. I haven’t gotten into the groove of regular use. It’s good for getting the word out about things on other media.

Obsidian – Knowledge Base application NOT the campaign building/running website. I’ve moved my local copy of my Sunday game notes into it and used it to run the last 3 games. I’m working on a full blog post on it.

I dipped my toes into Solo RPGs and did a podcast and blog post about it. I haven’t gotten back to it. My brain keeps seeing new shinies to check out. Always been my issue. Too many cool things I want to explore. I could live to a thousand and still want to check out more stuff.

I’ve got ideas for using Roll20 with some solo games, that I was ready to do a YouTube video.

I’ve also got a couple new things I put to use in my Roll20 game that I need to share.

Today, December 31, 2021 is the deadline to submit games to run at both Gary Con and my local con, Marmalade Dog which has a deadline of January 31, 2022. I’m not going to run games at Gary Con. I plan to sign up for war games like I had for the first Gary Con affected by COVID-19. I will bring my card game in the stable version and the iteration where I made icons too small with some new options just to see how it play tests. I’ll bring a couple small RPGs for potential pickup games. I plan a light schedule so I can socialize.
For Marmalade Dog I haven’t decided if I will run something all three days or not. Fridays are hit or miss. I plan to run Lizards vs. Wizards and am debating what else to run. Not much time left to decide….

My favorite RPG experience as a player was bringing back a dead PC into the Wednesday night game. When my ranger PC was killed I asked if I could bring back my original dwarf PC. There is a shields shall be splintered rule I forgot to invoke, so I suggested he could have just been knocked out. The DM was OK with that, but there is some backstory not yet shared with the others as to what really happened. I finally got to roleplay a situation where his mind is broken with grief and he has a new name, and it was several sessions until I revealed who he really was. That situation didn’t go over in the first campaign as another player misread it as he was mind controlled by the enemy, so I had to cut it short. Picking up that thread was fun. Talking to the “head” of the PC he decapitated when a storoper took him over was great. I didn’t reveal that it was a roughly head sized rock that he was talking to in his pack.

My favorite DM experience was introducing the Map of Destiny and watching the players keep “pushing the red button.” They went on so many side quests, it took several weeks to complete the original quest that was done in just over a week. The players were sent to it when one of them was geased to retrieve an item. The map shows whatever item you ask it. If you are under a quest or geas it just shows you the location on the world map. It doesn’t have more detail than that. If you ask it other things you have to save versus magic or be geased to retrieve that item and bring it to the map. They learned some helpful things, but also were chasing their tails going after stuff.

I randomly determined where things were located and had to come up with several on the spur of the moment. The real fun was when they brought back the first item and it sank into the floor. They used stone shape and other such spells looking and when they couldn’t find an empty space one of them asked where is it? They promptly failed their save but learned where it was. Another player, the higher level wizard in the group is 10th level with two fifth level spells and they rested and he memorized two teleports. Then he asked where am I, failed his save, but was immediately relieved of the geas, then sank into the floor. The first time he found himself on an island in the middle of a rainstorm. He investigated the island then teleported back. He rested and the next day did the same thing and was teleported into a blizzard in the midst of a herb of caribou who spooked. He teleported back. They hoped that it would go to a huge pile of loot, but learned that each item teleported it a random direction and distance. That player was the first PC to go “off the map” of my world.

The player with the last geas from the Map of Destiny asked about a former PC of a player that left the game and failed his save. While working on the geas of the player who asked about the first item to sink into the floor the other wizard was killed and resurrected. I ruled that death ends a geas (or a quest), so that saved them travelling for weeks in the opposite direction they wanted to go.

My players finally made it to the capital city of the kingdom and have been having city adventures and the city is growing and coming alive. I expanded the map and they bought a new, better world map so my pre-planning the new map worked out, I was ready for them. I came up with a minimal map to track where the characters are in the city without a city map and to preserve theater of the mind.

Now they are dealing with at least one vampire that they are waiting for sunrise to ensure it is dead. They also have the thieves guild after the higher level wizard as he revealed he has a portable hole and they want it. He keeps teleporting back to the town where the campaign started so he can sleep without getting killed.

They’re trying to wrap up and leave the city, but now they’re dealing with a vampire. Sunday’s game will be a lot of fun.

We passed 100 sessions of my Sunday campaign a few weeks ago. It is the longest regular game I have ever ran. It won’t end until either I, the players, or both decide we’re ready for something else.

I didn’t do all the things I wanted to do the past couple of years, but I did many things that I’m glad I did. I keep hoping things will ease up so I can actually go and do things without having to worry about getting COVID-19. I had a new health challenge of diabetes, but I kicked it hard and just have a once a week injection. No signs of cancer over a year after having my prostate out.

My mood and motivation at work are better than they have been in over a decade. I’m getting a lot of non-gaming things done so that I have more time for gaming.

I’m hoping by mortgage refinance goes through so I can get out of debt in less than ten years so maybe I don’t have to wait until I’m 67 to retire and enjoy more games.

The Year Ahead

For 2022, I’m looking at putting out my card game. It won’t have the polish and so forth of others, but it will be available via DriveThruRPG or GameCrafters. No promises on when, as I’m juggling a lot right now. My busy time of year at work is January, and I’m having to support a new to me product line so I’m spending a lot of energy getting up to speed on it.

I’ll be at Gary Con in March and also Marmalade Dog. I’ll have another GarageCon this summer. It will be a lot less work this year since I already cleaned out the garage.

If there’s a GrandCon, I’ll attend. I’ll also do GameHole Con and UCon if they are in-person.

I’d also like to give each of my PDFs a new editing pass and revise the layout, and add to them. When I do that they will no longer be Pay What You Want.

I’ll also keep playing in the Wednesday Night game and running my Sunday game. I’d love to run something for an in-person group, but not until COVID-19 is behind us. Not sure if 2022 will see that.

My mood and frame of mind is better than it’s been in a long time. Getting past prostate cancer in the midst of a pandemic, then dealing with diabetes must have been the shock to the system I needed. I’m having much more insight into why I have some of the struggles I’ve had with doing things related to maintaining motivation and not getting lost in lots of Netflix and YouTube. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but my much healthier lifestyle and mindset will lead me to do more of the things I want to do in the coming year.

RPGs

Grave Growth

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The flowers and other flora that grow on graves is called Grave Growth.

For burials in the ground the growth is flowers.

For burials in crypts, sarcophagi, or urns the growth is lichens, moss, or fungi.

Graves, graveyards/cemeteries, battlefields, and other places of mass death whether by disease or slaughter will be covered with such growth.

The common folk will all know about these signs of death and burial.

The source of these growths is debated.

How do they only grow over graves?

How do the seeds find the soil to take root?

Possible Explanations Are Many:

Soul “fragments” are actually the seeds of growth.

The blood, bones, or organs contain the seeds.

The gods themselves plant them. (Or the god with death in their portfolio.)

Harvesters or Gatherers of the souls of the dead plant them. (Think like Valkyries retrieving Viking warriors.)

More Signs

While the living flowers or other flora signify a grave, when those flowers die, it indicates the body that rested there has risen in undeath.

Use In Game

The party comes upon a huge field of grave growth flowers. This is a sign of an ancient graveyard or necropolis.

If the field is of dead grave growth, then there is a past or current army of the dead.

Names

I’ve struggled to some up with a specific name for such flowers. This is an idea wanting a name. If you use it in your game, come up with your own name for such growths.

Death flowers doesn’t fit. Grave flowers is a generic term like grave growth.

Grave Watch or Grave’s Watch, as if the flowers are watching or standing watch over the grave sounds cool.

Death Blossom sounds cool, but is already taken by The Last Starfighter.

Death Floret sort of works. Grave Floret sounds better.

Final Floret, Black Floret, Red Floret…. Still not quite it.

There’s a word I can’t quite bring to mind. Searching for synonyms didn’t give it.

Source

This idea came to me while I was mowing the yard. When I took a break for water, I scribbled down my idea before I forgot it.

I have no idea if there are such things in the real world, or if any fantasy world has something like this.

A quick internet search lead to what are the most common plants to plan at a gravesite. I found one reference to a carnivorous plant in an RPG wiki, but nothing like what I envision.

RPGs

When Wizards Die

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I’m prepping for this week’s session of my Sunday AD&D game on Roll20. Two sessions ago, the party sailed into port of the capitol city of the kingdom of which they have adventured at the far reaches until now.

Last week marked session 100 of the campaign, and they continued their big city adventures by visiting the wizard’s quarter/wizard’s college. The party is seeking to unload some items they don’t want to carry for items they want for future endeavors.

I run a low magic campaign.

By this I mean:

  • Most magic has to be discovered during adventuring.
  • Magic shops means places to buy ingredients, not magic.
  • Healing Elixirs with side effects of exhaustion can be obtained from alchemists.
  • Healing potions can be obtained from temples, plus healing spells.
  • Some NPC casters will sell potions & scrolls, or spells to PC casters.
    • There are certain spells casters don’t trust with others.
    • The party took giant parts to a local wizard and got back half the amount back as either potions of giant strength, or giant control.

By having a wizards academy in the capitol, it pushes the boundary. My campaign timeline is about a thousand years after the last great empire fell. Wars and devastation fought by wizards trying to keep things together, or get their own slice of the pie, made plentiful magic and the old academies a thing of the past.

The capitol of this kingdom, a province of the last empire, has had 500 years to build back up. The capitol is far from its past glory. The wizard’s college has mixed stonework from building on the foundations of ruins. However, the illusionist’s part is pristine and complete, due to the power of illusion.

Ancient wizarding families have kept some traditions alive, but the ability to use over 5th level spells is rare. The methods of the ancients for training wizards is lost and it takes a long time, AKA the grind of adventuring, to gain access to (rediscover) lost knowledge.

This means that making new magic items, other than potions & scrolls, is very rare.

Instead of a city lit by continual light, only the academy and the rich have such things.

So it finally occurred to me while prepping for this week’s session.

What Happens When Wizard Dies?
  • What happens to spell books, lab equipment, potions, scrolls, etc. of a wizard when they die?
    1. If they have family or others mentioned in their will it goes to them.
      • If things are planned out in advance they may have notes on command words and other instructions for items.
        • Potions & scrolls are labeled.
      • If no plans are made, the family takes their chances figuring things out.
    2. If they make other arrangements, such as to have it hidden or destroyed.
      • Hidden or Destroyed because they don’t trust their family or anyone else, or don’t like them, or don’t want to share.
      • If hidden, is it documented with clues or a map?
        • One way of hiding is with Nystul’s Magic Aura to put a dweomer onto mundane items causing much confusion for those seeking to understand what the item does.
    3. If no family or other arrangements, the Council will take charge of it to prevent it falling into the wrong hands. They may do this on their own authority backed by tradition, or under the authority of the Monarch. If under the Monarch, the Council holds it in trust for the monarchy.
      • The thieves guild may keep an eye on an aged or ill wizard to pounce and get some good stuff before it’s packed away.
      • A multi-class elf, half-elf, or dual class human magic-user/thief or gnomish thief/illusionist may be in charge of this, since they have the specialized knowledge to know which is the good stuff.
      1. If a wizard dies who resides outside the capitol, it depends on the distance and circumstances.
        • In a distant city, the local noble or governor or city council may get first choice as part of taking things under their charge under the national government.
          • With less oversight and no other official wizards living in the city, the process may not be transparent, or entirely above board. Chance for corruption.

How Do Wizards Die?

Just like everyone else, wizards can die from injury, illness, old age, accident, or murder.

All of these can happen on an adventure.

They can also happen in the everyday life of a wizard doing research and experiments.

Crossing the wrong people, like rival wizards, the thieves guild, etc. can also get one dead.

In My Campaign

Many sessions back, the party learned of NPC wizards in cities near their main adventure area back then. Two such wizards died in the recent past, i.e. a decade or more, and without heirs, the local nobles stepped in.

It suddenly occurred to me during the prep for this week’s session that past wizards associated with the council who died of old age would leave behind all their wizard stuff.

This leads to questions:

  • Where is all that stuff now?
    • Is it in the city?
    • Is it secure?
    • Is it lost or hidden?
  • Who has that stuff?
    • Can they use it?
    • Do they know how to use it?
    • Do they want or need to sell it?

Over a given number of years or centuries, wizards will die. That means there is potential for a lot of items to be in the world, like spellbooks, potions, scrolls, ingredients, inks, quills, parchment, lab equipment, a lab, a tower or other base, familiars, homonculi, trapped or bound creatures such as elementals, djinn, efreet, demons, devils, apprentices, pets, family, servants, etc.

Without a regimented system and the ability to police it there won’t be an estate sale, at least not one that includes magic.

More likely, a group or individual wizard, or other interested party will move in to claim it all, or pick over for what they want. This could lead to open duels or battles between factions or individuals.

This is one of those times session prep has opened a whole new can of worms that I feel like I have to solve now. I’m going to ignore that feeling and just make a mental note of it (and get this blog post out of it).

With more time, I cold develop a set of tables, but for now, I’ll just sketch out the tables I’d make once I make the time.

  • How did they die?
  • When did they die?
  • Did they have family or others they wanted to have their stuff?
    • Did they make a will?
    • Can the will be found?
    • Can the will be enforced?
    • Were they broke and creditors get involved? (real or fake creditors?)
    • Were they under a feeblemind or other curse?
  • Did they have enemies?
    • Do the enemies show up?
    • Do they fight the beneficiaries or each other or both?
    • Are the enemies other wizards, thieves guild, other adventurers, government, other nation, extra planar being(s), etc?
  • What did they leave behind?
    • Spellbooks, potions, scrolls, ingredients, inks, quills, parchment, lab equipment, a lab, a tower or other base, familiars, homonculi, trapped or bound creatures such as elementals, djinn, efreet, demons, devils, apprentices, pets, family, servants, etc?
    • Tower or other lair, or rented space?
  • Did they hide their stuff?
    • Are there any clues like notes, puzzles, or maps?
      • Did they have a trusted servant to handle things.
      • Did they follow the task faithfully?
    • Did they cast Nystul’s Magic Aura on a bunch of junk?

The above are the questions I’d have to consider or develop tables of options to help me decide. Are there any possibilities I’ve left out that you feel should be considered? Please comment below.

RPGs

FKR – Free Kriegsspiel Revolution

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Today I came across a tweet mentioning the OSR and FKR. I had not heard of the FKR, so I had to ask what it was.

https://twitter.com/Allandaros/status/1444316497606754307
Definition of the Acronym FKR

The first article I read was on Board Game Geek titled: Ancient Roleplaying, or Free Kriegsspiel Revolution (FKR): What The Heck Is That? by Jim Parkin. It is a slightly more detailed version of the post from his blog, d66 Classless Kobolds, Free Kriegsspiel: Worlds, Not Rules, Etc.

The original Kriegsspiel rules were too cumbersome, so Free Kriegsspiel arose that relied more on the expertise of the referee than the rigid adherence to the rules of the game. This allowed for the more chaotic occurrences of battle that a specific rule could not adequately convey. Rather than a rule for everything, only things that needed resolution by random chance, such as combat involved rolls.

The main points of FKR are:

  • Numbers don’t add up to a game.
  • If the fiction fits, try it.
  • You play worlds, not rules.

The gist of it is the ultimate in rules light. The character sheet does not limit what a character can do. It seems the joining of story games with other RPGs. It is much simpler than FUDGE/FATE. Some of the games have lots of tables to help set the stage for character creation and adventures.

The biggest challenge to running an FKR game is that it requires trust between GM and players. An experienced GM in other RPGs who is accustomed to the rulings not rules style of play will be more apt to run a game of this style in a way that results in fun for the players.

Any Planet Is Earth [Affiliate Link] is a Science Fiction FKR RPG by Jim Parkin of d66 Classless Kobolds. It is laid out like Maze Rats [Affiliate Link] by Ben Milton, but is very simple. The rules are a seven page PDF and a single page walkthrough of generating a sample character.

I’m not clear on who started FKR, but it appears that Norbert Matausch of the Darkworm Colt blog is very active. [EDIT: Norbert Matausch messaged me and he and Wizard Lizard started the FKR.] He has a free Kriegsspiel game called Landshut. On bottom of the Landshut page are links to his blog of articles for various RPGs that have had the FKR mod applied. His article Back to Really Simple Roleplaying that lays out the basic concepts of FKR.

Norbert Matausch may also be is the one who created the FKR logo, but my google-fu has not yielded who is the creator of the following image. If you know, please let me know, so I can give credit to the artist. [EDIT: Again, in the message I received from Norbert Matausch, he is the creator of this logo. It is free to use for FKR projects.]

Free Kriegspiel Revolution, artist unknown
Free Kriegsspiel Revolution (FKR) logo, artist Norbert Matausch

Ben Milton did a nice overview of the FKR on his Questing Beast YouTube channel with Does D&D Need Rules?

Ben Milton also has a good overview of FKR on Reddit, A brief introduction to the emerging FKR (Free Kriegsspiel Revolution) style of RPG play, for those curious.

There is a Discord server for FKR with an open invite.

CONCLUSION:

Read the articles mentioned above and the articles they link to before making a decision based on my oversimplified overview. They explain the concept much better than I could. Look at one of the games, and you will see the rules light influence.

The idea is that anything one can do in the world, one can do in the game world. Build a huge multi-national business, just follow how it’s been done in the real world. Start a revolution, look at historical revolutions. It puts more weight on the players to figure out how they want to do something complicated and large scale. Whereas something smaller and every day should just be a matter of communicating with the GM how it is planned to be accomplished. Dice are only rolled if the outcome is in doubt.

Power comes from amassing items, wealth, information, and followers. Just like in our world. There are no levels to artificially empower someone.

This could easily fit any genre. Any dice can be used, 2d6, 2d10, d20, d100, etc.

The use of tables to create characters, build worlds, and initiate and run scenarios means that tables from all manner of RPGs can be used. Or one can develop their own tables.

For those who prefer to build their own worlds and spend more time playing than prepping, this is an attractive option. This is something that I am interested to try. It seems to hit that simplicity that I’m looking for with the flexibility to do multiple genres. Now to make the time and find a group to try this, once I develop my own rules framework. . . .

RPGs

Garage Con

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The Idea

On April 30, 2021 I posted on Twitter:

Soon people commented that they liked that idea, so I took the plunge and created a private group on Facebook and invited people who live in Michigan, in other states near Southwest Michigan, and others who might make the trip, plus family. I invited over 50 people and nine showed up, making ten with me, eleven when my granddaughter helped roll dice for my character in Numenera.

Mark Clover suggested the name right in front of me, Garage Con.

I found a public domain image of a garage from Unsplash and a font based off of the outlines of tools.

Clayton Williams provided an image based on the picture and font that I used to make a T-shirt signs and posters.

I put up an FAQ, and a poll listing the dates I would be available. The date most voted for was Saturday, July 17.

I also ordered a port-a-potty since my 10 year old house only has one bathroom.

I updated the group page with more information and progress on getting the garage ready.

I then spent a ridiculous amount of time cleaning and organizing my garage. Long story about why it was so bad. I lost track of how many hours I put into it.

I planned to be done with the heavy lifting long before the day of the event, but I was still moving stuff to the basement the day before, but I finally got it all done with some help for a couple hours at different times from each of my two sons.

The Big Day

The day arrived and I, of course, kept waking up thinking about all the things I hadn’t done yet. None of which were critical. All of those things could be done as they came up during the day.

But I was awake and not falling back to sleep at 5:30 AM. This made for a very long day and running out of steam a few times, once almost falling asleep during a game.

I set up two shop fans to keep the air moving and they did a great job keeping us cool. thankfully it was a mild sunny day that got better as the humidity decreased once the rain stopped about 8:00 AM

Nine guest showed up, plus me. My granddaughter helped roll dice for my character in the Numenera game. She also joined in the final game of the evening, Lizards & Wizards [Affiliate Link].

I ran the first game, my Boot Hill 2e [Affiliate Link] scenario, A Posse For The School Marm.

There were two games in the afternoon, Numenera [Affiliate Link]with 4 players plus the GM, and Weird Frontiers [Formerly Dark Trails] with 4 players plus the GM.

I closed out the day with Lizards & Wizards [Affiliate Link] by James V. West. My granddaughter played in that and had a great time. I wrote up a review about it a few years ago.

We ordered burgers for lunch from the local chain restaurant, and pizza for supper from the local pizza place. Both are less than a mile from my house.

People chipped in to help with the cost of the port-a-potty and food even though I told them it was cheaper than a weekend at a convention. All I really wanted was people to come and game.

Gaming started about 10:00 AM and the last guests left about 10:00 PM, about an hour earlier than initially planned. It was a full day, so that was a good point to end it.

By 10:30 pm I had finished bringing my game materials into the house, along with the leftover food items. The final sweeping and putting the folding tables away can be done tomorrow.

By 11:30 PM I had this article written.

The Future

All agreed it was a fun time and that my garage was perfect for a one day con. Talk soon turned to next year before the day was half over.

I had a great time and the stress and frustration of getting my garage in shape to host this event were well worth it. I had to get my garage organized so I can have an appraisal to re-finance while the mortgage rates are still so low. It was a win-win for me.

I am definitely planning to do this again. Next year will be a lot easier because I can focus on preparing to run games instead of making room to play games.

Others have commented that some well established conventions started as self hosted gaming events. I’m not looking to grow into the next big convention. I just like having people to game with. My normal gaming happens online via Roll20.

I much prefer in-person gaming, but I just can’t seem to get a group together, or find a group that lasts so I stick with Roll20 for regular gaming. But over a year without in-person gaming has been really tough.

Today did a lot to re-set my attitude and re-charge my batteries.

I cancelled my weekly Sunday AD&D game on Roll20 because I knew I would be exhausted and need to rest. While I could probably run a game tomorrow, it would not be wise to keep pushing. That leads to stress and increased chance of getting sick. I’d much rather take a break and re-charge my batteries and rest up after pushing so hard for the last several weeks to get ready.

RPGs

Down the Rabbit Hole of UAPs/UFOs

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With the recent buzz over the release of some videos of various sensor data of Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon, the new term for UFO, I decided to explore “What if….” and apply it to the realm of RPGs. {Companion podcast episode here:]

For the record, I believe in UNIDENTIFIED flying objects. It means you don’t know what it is. So many have conflated UFO = Aliens that a new term is being used. Of course, if there really are extra-terrestrials flying around, I want to live long enough to know about them and their vehicles.

Research

I watched a lot of videos where the host and guests approach the topic as if it is real. They avoided fantastic claims and come down to whatever these UAPs are, we have nothing like them. The science fiction realm offers many potential explanations. It’s when they mention things written about in Roman times that fit some of these descriptions and it reminds me of the Project UFO TV show when I was a kid, and some of the fantastic “documentaries” of that period like Chariot of the Gods, and the History Channel shows. (I haven’t had cable for nearly a decade, but the History Channel had very little history or focus on fact when last I watched.)

I just started making a list of what could be the source of these UAPs. Such a list is easy to add to. There are enough fringe ideas out there that one can find ample material online. I keep adding to the following list as things occur to me or I stumble across them online.

What Might They Be?

  • Lizard People and other fringe beliefs
    • Did V come before or after this idea took hold?
  • Cryptobiological Lifeforms
    • Bigfoot
    • Yeti
    • Nessie
    • Etc.
  • Mad Scientist or other Driven Individual
  • Lost Civilizations
    • Atlantis
    • Lemuria
  • Natural Phenomenon
    • Lifeforms native to Earth.
      • The vehicles are living creatures.
      • Some unknown branch of life evolved and developed technology long before humanity.
      • The Silurian Hypothesis – Advanced Pre-Human Civilizations
  • Other Dimensions
    • These are not aliens but creatures from the Earths of other dimensions.
  • Time Travelers
    • Not aliens but time travelers.
      • Maybe they are “tweaking” the time line to avoid the end of civilization as we know it, and preserver or improve things in their own time.
  • Aliens
    • Lone aliens observing us.
    • Galactic Committee/Council/Federation/Confederation
      • Observing us to evaluate accepting us into the fold.
    • “Creators”
    • We are an experiment.
  • Masters of the Hologram/Program/Machine
    • Reality is a hologram and these incursions are observers on whatever purpose the hologram has for them.

Different Shapes

The different shapes of these vehicles suggests either different functions/purposes like the difference between a car and a truck or a helicopter and a jet. They also suggest the idea that different “factions” have their own style of vehicle.

The shapes reported are cylinders, spheres, saucers, triangles, octohedrons, cubes, etc. One can easily assign various shapes to the above list to come up with one’s own campaign.

RPG/Campaign/Scenario

These ideas could be used in all kinds of table top RPG situations. One could make a new RPG, or use it as the basis for a campaign, or the scenario for a one shot or convention game.

This could fit into any genre and era. Cowboys and Aliens, Gangbusters & Aliens, WWII and Aliens, Apocalypse and Aliens, Post-Apocalypse and Aliens, Science Fiction, Sword and Planet, etc. Substitute Aliens with anything from the above list of possibilities.

A Changing World

Whatever these real world UAPs are, we may learn more following the Congressional hearings in June, 2021.

As a kid once I understood what was meant by UFO I’ve wanted it to be real, who hasn’t. But all the decades of “there are other explanations that cover everything except a miniscule number of sightings for which more evidence is needed.” It makes sense when new, secret planes are spotted, but to hear that evidence supports that these things are real requires a lot of re-thinking.

First, we have to un-learn what we were trained to believe. Then we have to figure out what it means for us. The not knowing what they are or how they function leaves me with the greatest sense of FOMO. I want to live long enough to know the answer.

I wish I could talk to my Dad about this stuff. He was in the Air Force in the late 1950s and was a radar operator on Okinawa. He said that the Chinese would send jets to test the air defenses. That is how long until jets were scrambled to intercept. Dad said they could see them taking off, but waited to scramble jets so they couldn’t figure out they could be seen taking off. I don’t recall him ever mentioning seeing anything weird, so I messaged my siblings to see if they could recall anything. They didn’t recall him mentioning anything like that either. My brother suggested he may have signed an NDA. I’m sure if he had, he’d be telling us all the weird stuff he saw with all the current revelations by the government.

RPGs

Trying Solo RPG Play

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Listen to the companion podcast here.

I decided to try my hand at solo roleplaying after watching most of the Solo RPG playlist of Geek Gamers: Solo RPG Playlist.

First, I developed a rubric for each day of travel, etc. I am using the AD&D DMG [Affiliate Link], Kelri’s Encounters, Scarlet Heroes [Affiliate Link], & various ideas from different bloggers.

I rolled 4d6 drop lowest, in order and rolled well enough to have an illusionist, Morpheus Phantasos. (I re-used that name from an illusionist character I created in another group a few years ago.)

Morpheus hired a light horse soldier to travel to the dungeon, 5 hexes away.

I did not define the size of the hexes other than it takes 2 days on foot or 1 day mounted to cross.

There were no encounters, but found bad water – the hireling is fine, but my PC got sick. Finally we got to the town near the dungeon, but there was no room in the inn the first night, & second night we slept in the common room. Morpheus needed a few days to recover from drinking bad water.

Wilderness map & travel notes

Morpheus hired 3 more hirelings. They tried to turn on us, but failed save vs. hypnotism.

I suggested that they forget about robbing us since they’ll get more gold in the dungeon. They all failed their saved.

There was a mishap, broken equipment, the saddle strap was cut, but they forgot about it.

We finally found the dungeon and I rolled up the entrance using the DMG. It took 3 days to find it.

We went down the steps, found 7 orcs, they were unsure what to do, Morpheus speaks Orc, and as an illusionist used Hypnotism to convince 6 of them to work together to get loot worthy of the Orc Lord – who didn’t live in this dungeon. The one against it I convinced the others he was plotting something and they took care of him. Thankfully, nothing came to investigate the noise.

We went into another room and fought skeletons. We took them out but they dropped two of the orcs.

That fight attracted 2 zombies who we finally dropped, but they took out several more of the orcs and 2 of the 3 hirelings I picked up in town.

We found loot in urns in the room the orcs were in, loot in chests the skeletons were in, and a chest with coins and an Alchemy Jug in a secret compartment. We heard fighting – another party of adventurers was fighting something. Since we lost so many we left.

The horse soldier hireling was still there, unmolested at the entrance to the dungeon. We loaded up the loot and had a fight with the orcs and managed to win.

We overnighted without incident and made it back to town. I tallied the XP and levelled up so now Morpheus Phantasos is a 2nd level illusionist.

Dungeon map & adventure notes.

I thought about solo roleplay back in the day with the DMG, but didn’t have a solo engine to facilitate play. I didn’t get very far.
However, after spending some time watching a few YT videos and pulling together my resources and settling on mechanics, I can see the appeal.

It gives me lots of ideas for making adventures or new tables to use during adventures.
I need to come up with a better flowchart AI to run monsters & NPCs if there’s a fight.
I’d like it to be more than reaction & morale checks.

I’ve got a couple tables from blogs for monster activity & I watched Runehammers “Monster Mind” video from 2017 again.
I want something more general that can be applied. I can make my own, but would like a peak at something others have done.

I want a general framework for a monster AI and not something that has to be hand-crafted to each monster. I am making notes, but making a brief system that doesn’t require lot’s of oracle if/then checks is the challenge.

I’ll share my framework once I clean it up and have another adventure. I put together a rough draft of a new PDF of my experience with Solo RPG play and shared it on my Patreon. It needs a LOT of cleanup before I share it with the world. I’ve been working on a page of resources.

If you know of a blog that is focused on Solo RPGs or regularly posts about solo RPGS, let me know. I’d also like to know about websites focused on solo RPGs and any sites that have a section for solo RPGs.

I’m also curious to hear about other’s experiences with Solo RPGs. What solo engine/GM emulator did you use? What RPG rule set did you use? Was it a positive, negative, or mixed experience?

RPGs

Emulating Battle in Roll20

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For session 70 of my Sunday AD&D game on Roll20 I decided to do something different.

A former player who had to drop due to personal issues had some unexpected availability due to having COVID. So far, symptoms minor.
The party plans to assault a castle that hobgoblins & goblins took from kobolds.

The kobolds worked for the dragon the party slew. The party is trying to avoid a power vacuum & have made a deal with the kobolds back at the dragon’s lair to take back the castle.

This player is going to run the castle. I have his player set on a copy of the map in Roll20. He offered to run an NPC today due to his unexpected availability. As I was planning the session, I offered him the whole thing, and he gladly took it on. This will make it more challenging for the party, and it’s not all on me.

The regular players will be on the player facing map.
I will switch between Discord calls to interact with them on audio.
If things get to the point that they can both be on the same call, I’ll have him join the main call.

My initial thoughts were that this will either be a lot of fun or a big flop….

I had to plan the fight with those in the castle. I gave the hobgoblins and goblins both shaman and witchdoctors who could have thrown a wrench in the works of the party spellcasters.

I gave the player running the castle the detailed castle map (still very general) and units of each troop type. There were just tokens with the title of what the unit was. We agreed to use the green circle for the unit count. That is number of troops in that unit.

This is the map I gave the player running the castle/NPCs

I gave the party a crude map that their scout the party druid who often scouts ahead in the form of an eagle.

Crude Sketch of Castle

Once the PCs reached the castle, I showed them a copy of the detailed map.

The trick was to show what each side could see.

The party summoned an air elemental who was invulnerable to all attacks the castle inhabitants threw at it. It kept splattering goblins in the towers and the unit in that tower would break and run.

The bulk of the party was out of sight and out of range.

An illusion of two lines of 50 dwarves taunting the castle and firing arrows that didn’t reach the castle forced smaller units outside the castle to flee inside.

The nearly 10th level magic-user flew in invisibly with Protection From Normal Missiles and used his Wand of Fear to clear the towers of the keep.

It was about this point, about 3 or 4 round of combat that we had all players on the same voice chat looking at the same map. The fight was over 2 or 3 rounds after that.

The elf 5th level fighter/5th level magic-user flew in and cast enlarge on himself, becoming hill giant size. He cast fireball and wiped out all but one unit of goblins who kept making their morale check. He then flew in front of the gate and was the only PC to take damage from missile fire, but he got off a lightning bolt that nearly killed the hobgoblin chief and subchief and did kill most of their body guards.

At this point the castle surrendered as there was nothing else they could see to do.

It was a few minutes after the fight that the player running the castle looked at the spells of the casters and realized what he could have done.

One of the players thought that I had been working with the player running the castle for weeks. We only started working on it the night before. I put maybe an hour into it. The other player maybe a couple of hours of planning.

I like how it emulated real fog of war.

I was more in the role of a judge in the wargame sense.

The players thought it was great.

It was a little chaotic switching between Discord calls, but it was a minor inconvenience once we figured it out after the first call.

This is something I can see doing again, but coming up with a better plan on mass combat rules. We didn’t need mass combat rules as the level of magic the party had at their disposal made them and elite strike force who quickly overwhelmed their opponents.

As usual, it came down to which side won initiative and had the better attacks.

The unstoppable air elemental was a great touch. They have a brazier for commanding fire elementals but wanted to preserve the castle. They have plans….

So for Session 71 on Sunday, they begin the process of domain building. They see this as a money maker.

I made a YouTube video showing how I did this.

RPGs

Getting Started With Science Fiction RPGs

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Over on the Trilemma Blog, Michael Prescott has a post about the dearth of science fiction games on Roll20. Yesterday’s Five Minute Friday on the Thoughteater podcast by Frothsof touched on the topic. I also called in, so it might get shared on the next Thougheater episode.

Goblin’s Henchman mentioned on the Audio Dungeon Discord channel that with all the science fiction TV series and movies that he wasn’t sure where to begin a science fiction campaign.

This got me to thinking so naturally, I came up with some ideas.

My Science Fiction Background

First, a bit of my science fiction RPG background. Back in the day, as a teenager and even through my college years, I was more into reading science fiction than fantasy. I even considered Science Fiction my “thing.” However, there was just something about AD&D [Affiliate Link] that captured my imagination and we always gravitated back to D&D after taking a break to play something else.

I started in RPGs back when TSR was putting out all kinds of RPGs. We tended to gravitate to all the TSR RPGs. We tried others, but they were either too complicated, or the person trying to run the game loved it, but didn’t explain things well, so we determined the game wasn’t good. That was my experience with Traveller.

Back in the day, I bought Metamorphosis Alpha [Affiliate Link] and was the GM for that. I was not very good as a GM back then, so we’d never play more than a game or two before the others were ready to try something else or go back to AD&D [Affiliate Link]. I also bought Gamma World [Affiliate Link], and we took turns playing that, but never played a lot. Star Frontiers [Affiliate Link] grabbed our imagination for while.

But what really got us was the science fiction game we made from a mish-mash of rules, ideas, and equipment from all the other science fiction games. We called it “Scout” and I don’t recall there being formal rules. We just sort of knew the rules. I think the biggest reason for the success was my brother Robert. He kept wanting to play other games so he didn’t have to DM. But he was our best DM. He ran the games for Scout. He also wrote short stories in study hall and passed them around. Everyone was like, “This is great! We want more!”

Since then I have played and ran science fiction games at conventions. I was in a couple of playtest games for Mutant Crawl Classics [Affiliate Link] at different conventions. I’ve ran Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World [Affiliate Link], and Stars Without Number [Affiliate Link] at different conventions and always had a full table, sometimes overflowing.

I backed the Stars Without Number 2nd edition [Affiliate Link] and like a lot of the ideas. I played in a Roll20 campaign that lasted a couple of years.

I’ve also run a couple of Metamorphosis Alpha games on Roll20.

Yet, I still go back to D&D. I wonder if it is the magic, yet Arthur C. Clarke said that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

I’ve even played in D&D that had the occasional high tech item. Or in the case of the Wednesday night Roll20 AD&D [Affiliate Link] campaign I’ve often written about, it had evil space dwarves as the main bad guys. We had all kinds of laser weapons and high tech gizmos, until we destroyed the power source….

Ideas For Launching A Science Fiction Campaign

  • Pick a genre – Hard or Soft SF, Post Apocalyptic, Cyberpunk, etc.
  • Pick the tropes or hooks
    • To me Post Apocalyptic like Metamorphosis Alpha or Gamma World [Affiliate Link] evoke a hex crawl and dungeon crawl vibe.
    • Star Trek is a “planet (or problem) of the week” interstellar exploration & combat focus. It leans a bit towards Hard SF.
    • Star Wars is a mish-mash of rescue mission & defeat the evil space NAZIs with magic tossed in. It is definitely Soft SF.
    • Seek out the leftovers and remnants of ancient civilizations.
    • Humanity’s expansion to the rest of the solar system.
    • Only humans, or just a few, or lots of different intelligent species.
  • Use an existing setting or roll your own.
    • Some systems have a backed in setting, like Stars Without Number [Affiliate Link], but one can easily make your own.
    • Some are daunted by creating their own setting.
      • For me, the trick is to create something manageable. There are tools online for creating planets, systems, and sectors. If you are comfortable with a planet of the week style, go for it. If you are more comfortable with a limited amount of places, go that route.
  • What rules to use?

Why Is It So Rare/Difficult To Have A Science Fiction Campaign?

For me it is the scope of Science Fiction. If you are out among the stars you have to come up with a lot more information than a fantasy setting which typically focuses on a continent on one planet.

I do better with bottom-up worldbuilding than top-down. But for some reason, science fiction world building feels like it MUST be done top-down. Top-down is a LOT more work as you have to make EVERYTHING!

The trick is to come up with a scenario, like a one-shot for a convention, then build off of that.

The two Metamorphosis Alpha [Affiliate Link] campaigns I ran were playtesting my first convention game and the players wanted more.

Pick the type of science fiction game you want to run. It can be different from the one you want to play. It has to be something that sparks your interest. It can be a limited campaign of say ten sessions, or it could be open ended and go until you and the players are ready for something else. It can even be set aside while you play instead of run a game.

Finding players is hard. However, Roll20 and other table top programs allow you to find players from all over. I started with Roll20 as I couldn’t find a local group. If I were to advertise that I was starting a new campaign of a certain game, I’m sure I’d get lots of interest. The trick is to find players that are the right match for you.

So Why Don’t I Run More Science Fiction Games?

Time and energy. I have lots of ideas for games I want to run. I want to run a Western campaign, a science fiction campaign . . . . However, I only have time and energy to run one campaign. I play in another. I have plans to start a Friday night AD&D [Affiliate Link] campaign, but I never have time to put the finishing touches on it. Plus, I want to stay regular with my podcast, my PDFs [Affiliate Link], my YouTube, and publish my card game.

Plus, I have this blog. It took an hour to do the first draft and will take another 20-30 minutes to add all the links and indicate that they are Affiliate Links.

I’m not independently wealthy, so I have a day job that eats up most of my waking hours during the week. So all the other things I need to do, like housecleaning, cooking, mowing or snow removal, laundry, exercising, etc. all take away from my time for games and talking about games.

This is the reason I try to run the other game genres at conventions. That seems to feed the itch others have to play something else. The hard part is the initial idea for a one shot. Once I have that, the rest is easy.

What’s The Solution?

As with most things in RPGs if you really want to play a certain RPG or a certain genre, you have to run it. Often showing others how fun it can be encourages them to think outside the box. The RPG one starts with is probably the one you most identify with and will play and run the most. Sort of like the first Doctor Who episode you watch determines the “real” or “only” Doctor to you – Tom Baker.

You run the risk of being THE GM for that RPG.

If you only want to play, then look on the looking for players on Roll20 or other online table top.

Other Ideas?

If anyone has any other ideas to get more science fiction or other genres being actively played, please comment below.