Category Archives: RPGs

RPGs

Series Introduction: How to AD&D 1e

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As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, I decided to launch a new series on my YouTube channel.

Today, I posted the Episode 0, series introduction.

The TLDR; I give my background with AD&D and explain that I plan to do two episodes a month on my channel. One for the new How To AD&D 1e series and another for my Rol20 For the Absolute Beginner series. I plan to do an episode for each before the end of the month. That might lap over into May, we’ll see how things go.

How To AD&D 1e Series Introduction

RPGs

New YouTube Series: How to AD&D 1e

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I have a series on my YouTube Channel, Roll20 For the Absolute Beginner. I haven’t put out a new video in the series since the Fall and I have viewers asking for more, and I have lots of ideas. I just haven’t found the time since I started publishing a monthly PDF. It’s not that there isn’t time available, I just haven’t had the energy or desire to make the time to do it.

This morning on Twitter, someone I follow, Bill Allan, asked if there were any YT series on AD&D 1e.

He Tweeted:

I started playing D&D in 1978. I haven’t played 1st edition since around 1989. Who or what channel would you recommend for tips and tutorials SPECIFICALLY geared towards 1st edition AD&D?

I then mentioned my 1st edition efforts online:

I never stopped playing 1e.
I played in a 4 1/2 year campaign on Roll20 that wrapped up last fall.
I have a game on Roll20 & a home game, both on hiatus.
1e is the system that is the focus of my blog.
Nothing specific on my YouTube channel, but I probably should make a series.

https://twitter.com/TheBillAllan/status/1117061613738188802

I then started musing about actually doing a series and Retweeted his tweet sharing that musing:

https://twitter.com/followmeanddie1/status/1117109907722055688

To which Bill replied:

Yes man! I would dig it!

Bill is a high school teacher in the Chicago area who teaches audio/visual stuff, and he had a prior career in television. He knows a ton about video creation and editing and is a member of a FB group I’m part of and it is his sharing of information, slong with that of others, that lead to the marked improvement in the quality of my videos. It’s another reason, I’m able to make a really good quality podcast if I set my mind to it and make the time.

I’ve got a rough outline for an episode 0 and ideas for various episodes percolating. I’ve started regular walking since the 1st and that’s taken a couple hours out of each day. Great for thinking & generating ideas, & catching up on podcasts. I have to reorg my office for it…. the list goes on. I have the equipment, the desire, the knowledge, and the ability to make the time, I just need my office to be presentable, or make use of a background.

I think the how to AD&D/1e/1st edition would work better as a video series since there is so much visual information to it.

I know a lot of the OSR Anchorites know AD&D either from back in the day or exposure to it via the OSR. Would that be something you are interested in? If you’re interesting, I’d like ideas for topics. I have a ton of ideas, but want to speak to what others want as a focus.

My thought it to do 2 episodes a month, alternating with my Roll 20 For the Absolute Beginner series.

I don’t have a final title for the series, but the working title is, How to AD&D 1e.

I look forward to your comments, questions, and suggestions for this series.

The key is to stay organized and keep up with the other projects I’m working on, including the preparations for the card game kickstarter…

The companion podcast to this article: Episode 106 – Saturday Scrawl – YouTube Series How To AD&D 1e

RPGs

Flying Carpets & Powerful Spellcasters

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In my Broken Lands online AD&D campaign that has been on hiatus over a year, I planned to talk about it in today’s podcast. I thought I had written an article about the mountaintop Temple of The Necromancer along with the isometric map I drew. Turns out, it’s a false memory. I did write about it… on G+. No wonderI couldn’t find the article I was looking for. I didn’t go into great detail on G+, just showed off what I managed to do with isometric graph paper.

Via Roll20 this map made it a lot easier to convey the layout. Both the players and I appreciated that.

The players had found The Tomb of The Necromancer and sealed him in and faced the minions who were trying to free him. The party used a portal that had been opened via powerful magics to open from the mountaintop temple to the far off underground tomb. The party dealt with a hoard of undead that filled the tomb and used some things they found in another underground area to seal him in. Up to this point is a scenario that I ran at Marmalade Dog a last year ago, after the players had done it.

They then went through the portal and faced more undead and some living guards. The party managed to defeat the undead. A successful turn undead had the undead fleeing at top speed away from the good cleric. This was hilarious as the skeletons, zombies, and ghouls ran over the edge of the mountaintop temple, climbing over the winch for the elevator that provided access and resupply to the human guards. The undead were killed in the 500 foot fall and caused death and destruction to the people and equipment they landed on. NOTE: It took more than one turn to get them all, and some they still had to fight.

Just as they had defeated the last of the foes on the mountaintop, a figure in plate mail and flowing robes with four crossbowmen attacked from a flying carpet. The party managed to kill a couple of the archers, and wound the robed figure. They were amazed that he seemed to cast both clerical and magic user spells. One comment was along the lines of, “Wait a minute that’s a magic user spell and he’s wearing plate mail.” “Yup!” was my answer.

The party did all they could to try and take out this spell caster, but couldn’t do it. I forget what spell they used that sent him away from them, but the carpet was too fast and out of their reach. One of the players said, “That flying carpet is mine!”

They were nearly out of spells and all of them hurt, so they decided to flee through the portal and seal it so that the bad guys could not access The Necromancer without waiting for the right conditions to open a new portal, or traveling the unknown distance from the mountaintop temple.

Last we played, the party was making plans to find the individual with the flying carpet who they believe carries the title, Son of The Necromancer. I gave them a foe with his own neat magic items and abilities they were not prepared for. Interesting times lie ahead. I’m hoping to pick up where we left off in the coming weeks.

You can find the companion podcast episode here.

RPGs

Inspiration From Movies – Kung fu Hustle

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I watched Kung Fu Hustle on Netflix. I had heard of the name of the movie and decided to try it. It is a comedy kung fu movie that goes over the top. This is what some mean by gonzo. I recommend not reading about it and just watching the movie.

My inspiration is that I now have the idea for a village that is full of tough NPCs. Strong and muscular farmers and laborers who don’t take nonsense. This was all from the first few minutes of the movie before I knew what was going on.

I can imagine a group of PCs trying to run roughshod over such a village, only to be hoist by their own petard. Definitely something to use on a group of players that think they can rule over any village in sight.

It is good for a laugh and has several things in it that one could use for RPG inspiration.

RPGs

G+ the End And Google’s Still making Changes

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Today marks the final two days of G+ as Google says it will pull the plug April 2nd.

What is odd, is that a couple weeks ago, G+ took away the bell icon or notifications, and added a new notifications feature.

A couple days ago, the G+ phone app was updated. Why update it so near the end?

Why not issue the final uninstall command on April 2nd?

I hope I get all the disk space freed up on my cellphone. They better clean it up so I don’t have to root it to do so….

G+ has been great for RPGs and especially the OSR.

The new emphasis on blogs is a good one. There are a few places to find listings of OSR blogs, and many of us have increased the size of our blog rolls.

No single site has arisen to meet the needs of all the various G+ users in the RPG space.

There are many choices:

  • Some like Facebook, and an equal number despise it and refuse to use it.
  • Reddit has attracted some, and some like me, don’t quite get Reddit’s flow, and are trying to figure it out.
  • Twitter has a strong RPG and OSR presence, and those of us who curate and promote a positive circle of people find it a welcoming place.
  • MeWe initially attracted a lot of the G+ crowd. I like some of its features. I describe its layout as a cross between G+ and Facebook. Some refuse to have anything to do with MeWe because some people who advocate bad things use it. Unfortunately, the same could be said for any social media site. don’t use technology because bad people use it. Don’t use fire because bad people use it. Just because some misuse a tool doesn’t make the tool bad. I find the MeWe is growing and I get a new group invite every week. I don’t have time to keep up with the groups I follow now, so I’ve been declining those invites. MeWe just recently added the ability to import one’s G+ profile.
  • PASHPost is a new option. I just learned of it this past week and set up a page there. It has some features that I and many others liked about G+ but the ability to find and follow users is in need of more work. It is changing rapidly making way for the influx of G+ refugees. Supposedly the ability to import a G+ profile is in the works, but the advice is to download it now, and maybe upload it to PASHPost later.
  • Other. There are many other options that I have not had time to explore or not felt drawn to explore, like the fediverse things like Mastodon. I’m sure there are a few more options.

TOOLS

G+ Exporter published their last update today and said, download it all to your PC now while you can. If you haven’t yet started and don’t want to spend $20 on G+ Exporter, go to the Google Takeout option before March 31 to be sure there is time to get your files, as it can take a couple days for the data to be available.

Breadcrumbs

Edward Morbius of the G+ Mass Migration Community also had an effort to migrate the home pages of the top 100,000 G+ communities’ home pages to the Internet Archive. You can see an example here.

Lots of people pinned a post on their G+ and on other sites listing all their other social media. The site wheretofind.me lets users make a list of all the online site where they can be found. You can see an example of mine here and below.

The Last Gasp

Many, including me, are still posting to G+. I said I’d go down with the ship, and I meant it. As long as this effort still gets my efforts to the eyes of others, it’s worth it.

James West’s image that I used for the image for this post says it all. I particularly like his latest post to use this image:

The last initiative has been cast. Actions are simultaneous. The deathblow is dealt… what is your last action?


Final Frustrations

Last weekend I finally finished converting G+ links to Internet Archive links. Unfortunately, several people just deleted their G+ pages before I could get to it. I made a note that the source I linked to is lost to the ages since the page was deleted before it was archived. So many great conversations. The biggest frustration in that was that I had to do all this manually.

I posted a few weeks ago an SQL statement to help identify G+ links in one’s posts, but it did not capture all of them. Even those identified, I had to manually archive on the Internet Archive and then replace the G+ links on my blog with the new Internet Archive links. I hope I found them all. In the end, I had to cycle through all the articles on my blog looking to G+ links. All the backups of each post and auto backups made too many records to automate. I just didn’t have time to decipher which records were the current post.

Moving forward, I will have to make an internet Archive backup of all links on my blog. I also need a plan for archiving all of my blog there, so when I’m gone. If there’s anything anyone finds interesting, perhaps only my descendants will.

My follower count on G+ was moving upward and was on track to hit 600 by the end of 2018, but topped out at 406 in November, 2018 and then dropped down to 398, went up to 402, dropped to 399 and stopped at 401. I too followed a few people on G+ at the end. I wanted to show them support, and some followed me back. I think a sociologist could make a career out of studying G+ for building a community and watching how that community faced the inevitable. Whether there’s a complete record of this for any community, I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see it.

Lastly, why G+ couldn’t make a read only archive of G+ as it stands on April 2, 2019 is beyond me. Google who wants all the information they can and who saved a famous internet forum by making a read only archive out of it, won’t do the same for G+. Why they are keeping G+ around for business users and wouldn’t let free users convert to a paid model is beyond me. People who would have paid money to keep their G+ were not given the opportunity.

I’d really like an open and honest explanation from G+ about what went on. I suspect that no one at Google really took ownership of G+ and that they built a social media site without really understanding how it needed to work. At least, that’s the way it looked to us who were using it. Their constant inflating of users in the press to save face made it worse. Why did they keep throwing money at it all these years if it was that bad? You’d think all the smart people and especially the bean counters would point out the folly of the sunk cost thinking that kept it alive.

The users in some segments, hobbies and interests, like the OSR, thrived on G+. Google never understood how to capitalize on that. I doubt any new thing Google has will attract those of us burned by the G+ fiasco. We are now much more discerning of how we use our data.

The Mighty Are Fallen

Surprisingly in the waning weeks and month, some big names showed their backsides too prominently, or their coerced allies finally turned on them. While the ones who showed their nonsense are still out there, many, like myself have blocked and ignored them to keep that drama out of their lives. It was really bad this past Fall and once I blocked them on G+, my feed was nothing but gaming and encouragement.

Unfortunately, some of those jerks made life miserable for the creators of the most well-known OSR logo and it was just a mess. I am saddened by how that whole thing ended.

Then a well known OSR contributor, who was obviously a jerk to many with whom he interacted online, finally has his comeuppance when his true colors were revealed. I don’t think all the fallout from that will ever be known. Whether you agree with the resolution of this that removed him from the realm of future RPG creations, you have to admit, he went down much like he relished in taking down others. The lesson here is don’t be a jerk online and you might have more people mourn your absence or stand up to defend you.

Conclusion

We shouldn’t be surprised if any other social media site with a lot of traction among the RPG/OSR crowd fails. Maintaining control of your online presence, such as through a blog ensures a more long lived online presence.

There has been a mini-renaissance among OSR bloggers, myself included. I’m not posting here as often as I would like, but I aim for about once a week. I’m podcasting three times a week and sharing my episodes, RPG publications, and other things via all my social media, as I always have.

The past two or three years have seen the rise of RPGs as a driving force in our culture, especially via online entertainment from television and movies, to YouTube and Twitch. I’ve been playing D&D over 40 years. D&D is 45 years old since its first publication in 1974, and will continue to be played in its current extant versions for decades to come. I know I will play until I can no longer roll the dice. My plan is to play til I grow old & die many decades hence.

As long as I can manage an online presence, you will find me sharing my stories of games past and ideas for various game situations.

I look forward to interacting with all of you.

In the coming weeks, I hope to introduce my granddaughter to RPGs and make her the third generation in my experience with RPGs. I hope I can show her grandchildren how to play.

RPGs

Gary Con XI Recap

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Gary Con XI in 2019 was yet another awesome experience! Here’s the companion podcast episode.

I rode with Steve Fridsma, from Grand Rapids, MI who I met last year. We were supposed to play in two AD&D [Affiliate Link] games, but the first one was unexpectedly cancelled, so I offered to run the
Gamma World [Affiliate Link] scenario I was running the next day, and some of the players elected to do that and we had a blast. Then we played in Chgowiz’s AD&D [Affiliate Link] game the next day. We kept in touch on social media and tried to coordinate rides that included one of my con roommates, but the travel days didn’t work out.

Steve and I arrived Wednesday right around check in time and I unloaded my bags to my room ASAP then picked up my badge and GM packet. We again got a lot of books, some duplicates of others. I may use them for a giveaway.

I had my card game and notebook with me, and met up with Steve and some others who wanted to play my game, and drummed up some interest from some others. We had a UX designer, architect, and game designer among that play test. This is rules that are basically the rules I had as of the end of play testing last year at Gary Con X. The deck had a few tweaks from last year, 5 cards were swapped out for some other cards to add some more interest to the game. Most importantly play text deck number 2 fixed the font color and placement of the numbers and added some explanatory verbiage to some cards. This group had lots of great suggestions.

After the game, Thaddeus Moore asked me to sign his copy of
The Front [Affiliate Link], as Mark credited me as proofreader. This is the first time I’ve ever signed a book in my life, other than to indicate it was my book.

Thursday morning I ran a scenario for The Front [Affiliate Link], a WWII RPG based on The Black Hat 1st edition [Affiliate Link] , by Mark Hunt. See here for The Black Hat 2nd Edition [Affiliate Link] . Mark joined in the game and had a copy of the rules from Lulu for everyone. Mark signed them all, and since Thaddeus got me started, I did the same.

With Mark there, we did a lot of belly laughing and had a great time! Mark and the other players had a laser focus on the objectives to “win” and we were done early. The players didn’t care as they had a blast. I now see a need for a few more modular encounters/events to bulk up this scenario to take up more of the slot. I plan to start publishing my con adventures on DriveThruRPG [Affiliate Link] , but it won’t be my scenario for The Front [Affiliate Link].

Thursday evening I sat in on a seminar by Satine Phoenix and Ruty Rutenberg which was different aspects of GM issues.

I then got in some more card game play testing and had a lot of fun. Some events I don’t recall which day they happened as I was so busy with running or playing and visiting, I didn’t keep track of what day I did which thing.

Friday morning I played in The Brazen Mask of Zenopus by Zach Howard of the Zenopus Archives blog. It was the Holmes Blue Box Basic, which is what started me on this whole RPG journey. I had not played those rules since the final AD&D book, the DMG came out over 35 years ago. It was a cool scenario that used characters from a book Dr. Holmes wrote. I played the hired help, two vikings, Olaf & Haldor. The dungeon in the back of the Basic rules was used, with some changes due to the passage of time.

We worked together and managed to avoid the death of all characters, and avoided a situation that could have been a TPK. For the first time in play, I encountered a purple worm and Olaf was swallowed! How cool is that! The halfling, Boinger was also swallowed. It was entirely a bonus that the worm was killed and the party cut both of them free, so that they lived to continue the adventure with minimal injury.

We found the baddies and had the boss fight and so not to spoil it we were within a few bad dice rolls of disaster, but we made the crucial rolls needed and prevailed. I really enjoyed it and would play a game with Zach again!

Friday afternoon I ran my DCC funnel, A Fungus Among Us. I had seven players, two of whom had played funnels before. One teenage boy, a young woman, and two fellows that I am pretty sure were older than I. I am used to being the oldest one in the game in recent years, so this was great. The father of the teenager made decisions and dice rolls that had three of his four 0 level characters dead in less than an hour into the session. He then had his last stay out of the way, and he survived the final encounter. Of course in the boss fight at the end, my poor BBEG had a fumble that had him on his back and unable to attack for a round. His attacks that hit only had minimal effect. The two older gentlemen must have double-booked their time as they could only stay for half the session. The remaining players did well, and lost a few more of their characters. Everyone survived with at least one character.

Friday night I saw, Eye of The Beholder about the artists of TSR who formed the image most of us have of what D&D is. I backed the Kickstarter and had seen the film online. Several of the artists were there and there was a Q&A. Just before the con they sent out a note that the CDs and other things were in the shipping process, but I didn’t have my CD waiting for me. and my CD was waiting in an unexpected location when I got home.

Friday night I ran more play tests. I finally remembered to have my 5 x 7 index cards with the quick rules on one side and what the cards to on the other. I made the players read it to ensure they could learn the rules from that, since most people will learn a game that way. I also have index cards I cut to playing card size with bullet points of the steps of one’s turn and what the cards do on the back. Of course, they identified typos of words that I spelled right, but were in the wrong context. They also identified things I need to clarify. So the cards worked, but need some improvement.

Saturday morning my schedule was clear. I met up with Ray Otus of the Plundergrounds podcast and Coddy Mazza of the No Save For You podcast. Ray’s first Gary Con was last year, but we never crossed paths. This was Cody’s first. We played my card game in the open gaming area and a father and 13 year old son joined us. The son was the youngest play tester yet, so I was really interested in his reaction. Ray and Cody loved my game, and had some suggestions. The boy liked it and thought the placeholder art was cool and thought I could just use that. He also will have a credit as a play tester so he will have some extra cool factor with his friends when he gets home.

Ray, Cody, and I did a joint podcast on Ray’s Plundergrounds and they both were too kind about what they thought of my card game. You can catch that episode here.

Saturday afternoon I ran my Boot Hill [Affiliate Link] scenario, A Posse For The School Marm. I had a lot of players who had never played it, but they all had fun. One character was injured and stunned by dynamite. Another got one bad guy and almost got the last one, but he shot her character in the chest for a mortal wound. She thought it was epic and fitting to go down fighting. She later told me that she hadn’t played an RPG in 30 years and I made it easy and walked them through what to do and she felt comfortable and welcome at the table. Also they said up front that they had another game and would have to leave early. They ended up not leaving early because they were having so much fun. Her husband is not much of a gamer, but he had a blast. I just love hearing that sort of thing.

Saturday night was supposed to be a showing of The Dreams In Gary’s Basement by Pat Kilbane, but unfortunately he was sick and it was cancelled. I backed that Kickstarter and have been cheering it on since I met Pat at Gary Con VIII when he premiered an early showing of a few interview snippets. You can read about that here.

Saturday evening I went to a party to see the teaser and a behind the scenes of Peter Adkinson’s Chaldea. It is a series of videos to highlight a campaign world setting of Chaldea. Very cool effects. Met some new people, and a player from my Gamma World [Affiliate Link] game last year and he was gushing about that memory, which is so cool!

Matt Mercer was at the con and was in the lounge, I was able to tell him a Vecna story and congratulate him on the Kickstarter and get a picture with him. Unfortunately, someone from the party who I only met at the party was drunk and not taking the hint to give people space. I was asked to escort him away from the celebrities since I knew him better than some. The fellows social intelligence was gone and he obviously wanted to communicate something, but was unable to do so beyond repeating an innocuous platitude.

Unfortunately, he was stumbling into people and flopping his arm into them. He did not react well, but we got him out of the lounge and then out of the building. We had to call for security to ensure he didn’t try to drive or something. I heard nothing more about that, but if you go to a con, don’t go past your limit to control your motor skills or communication ability. That’s how you get banned from cons. I don’t know if it got to the level of the con knowing about it or not, as I was no longer privy to the situation. I have not witnessed anything like that at a con. In the current environment, I was disheartened to witness such a thing. Please don’t drink and be stupid, it is not fun to witness nor to be the problem person who sobers up and finds they’ve got a bad reputation. I almost didn’t report this, but I don’t want to whitewash a bad situation.

I also told Vecna stories to Joe Manganiello and got a picture with him. I showed him my shirt that says, Follow Me, And Die! and he said it and then said, “Nice!” I knew he’d get a kick out of that.

Another thing that occured at the con was rumors. Someone told me X about so and so. I will not repeat that as that does no good. I will only repeat facts I can verify or I witness personally. Rumors of game stuff and game personalities always occur, sometimes there is a grain of truth, but I won’t spread something I can’t verify.

Sunday I did not sign up for any games. I was in the lounge all day apart from moving my bags from the room I shared with my normal con roommates, to that of my ride.

I played my card game at least a dozen times. One player from earlier in the weekend really latched onto the game and has probably played more than anyone but me, and knows the rules as well or better than I do. She played nine games on Sunday, and was teaching the new players and we worked on how to cut the deck in half. Since there are an odd number of some cards we did a large half and small half deck. We played one hand with the large half deck as a two player game and it feels like the full deck and is faster. One game is not enough, but it does tell me I have the numbers of each card right.

After all the play testing and suggestions for little things to improve the cards, I know I need a third play test deck and more play testing. I don’t have an artist lined up, since the rules and cards are not locked in. Unfortunately, my hopes of Kickstarting this year are not realistic. I want to avoid rushing things, as I want to do it right. I will do all I can to make launching during the first quarter of next year. This means that I need to go to more cons and FLGS’ for more play tests. Once I have a new test deck and play it a few times I will know if the cards need any more game play tweaks or only need art. The rules are really close, and I think we have to options for play, one that will be perfect for learning the game. Two player play may be as simple as a half deck, but more play test will tell.

If you are interested in knowing when the Kickstarter is launched, you can click this link to join the mailing list. It is ONLY for announcing the Kickstarter launch, and possible future launches.

Wednesday night, my roommates and I went to the same restaurant as last year and while waiting for a table, someone behind us saw my Follow Me, And Die! T-Shirt and asked if I was the guy behind the blog. I believe his name was John Zach from Atlanta (He messaged me on social media to correct me. I then recalled that I used the mnemonic that his name is the same as my youngest son’s.). I didn’t think to get a picture together. A couple other people told me they liked my blog and/or podcast. Erik from the Chicago area, as I recall said he’s been reading my blog for the last seven months. I did have the presence of mind to get a picture with him.

I got pictures with many others and posted a lot of them on social media. I need to find time to make an album to share to make it easier to have all the pictures in one spot. Not sure when I’ll get to that.

I had a blast at Gary Con and I will be back next year!

I will have my card game there from hopefully the final pre-Kickstarter test deck and can play with those who want to see what it’s all about. I will have it at every other con I attend.

If you will be at Gary Con next year, or any other con this year that I attend, be sure and say, “Hello!” I’d love to meet you and get a chance to game together!

RPGs

Spontaneous Generation

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In the real world, the idea of spontaneous generation, where maggots and flies come from rotting meat was disproved and replaced by the actual method of like creatures spawning like creatures. That is called biogenesis. [Catch the companion podcast here.]

However, in a fantasy world, spontaneous generation can be real.

So normal creatures that die spawn maggots and flies.

Monstrous and magical creatures would spawn something more fantastic.

For example, if a dragon is slain, suppose the creatures spawned from it are carrion crawlers and purple worms.

Not ever creature needs to do this, but once you have one creature do this, if the players make the connection, they will burn every dead body ever encountered. Perhaps some creatures only spontaneously generate from the ashes of their cremated bodies.

Some creatures will have more rapid spontaneous generation than others. The more powerful a creature, the more rapid and impressive spontaneous generation could be.

There are a couple of ways I see of handling this.

One option is to specify a certain type of 2 or 3 creatures that are generated when a specific creature dies.

The other option is to generate a table of the kinds of things that can be spontaneously generated. Perhpas there is only a chance of it happening, or the onset of the new creature is variable, etc.

It occurs to me that this is one way a seemingly inaccessible dungeon manages to re-populate.

Perhaps only certain creatures have this happen.

I can imagine a table where after d6 minutes or hours the creature either dissolves into slime and sludge or blows away as ash in the wind or generates 1 to 3 random unrelated creatures. This limits the efficacy of collecting parts. Get them now or they won’t last long enough for you to come back.

This is an idea to keep in the back of your mind for when weird things get mixed together. Like when the players mess with the experiments on the wizard’s workbench. Perhaps some horrid beast is created by messing with wizard’s experiments. It could be some “regular” monster, or some hideous creature created by the 1e DMG table for randomly generating creatures from the lower planes.

RPGs

Building An Encouraging And supportive Community

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I have been honored by some of my Twitter followers for my positive presence there.

On Twitter, I have been mentioned as one of the positive influences in the OSR, more than once in the last week.

I know that I am not perfect, and fail far too often for my liking at being a good person. It is far easier to present your best side online: Don’t try to argue with people, or discount their opinions or experiences.

I’ve tried to win arguments online, and one day a few years ago, realized it was a waste of effort. I might still write a rant about something to get it out of my system, but I rarely post them now. The things that bother me usually are not worth bothering other people about them.

However, this week has been quite the eye opener to the TTRPG crowd. We can learn from this, someone who is a horrible person online is more likely to be a horrible person.

We can’t stop people from being horrible. Their dysfunction, or whatever it is, can’t be cured with online discourse. Only someone with authority in their personal lives whom they truly respect has a shot at making that impact. Unfortunately, for some of these people, they are either their own echo chamber and masters of manipulation, or those who agree with their brand of nonsense flock to them forming an echo chamber.

An echo chamber is a good thing when it reinforces positive traits and experiences. However, the negative version of that is often that people in those negative groups don’t see or hear the dissonance as they are on a different channel. Their twisted ideas of right and wrong and self-justification shield them from the rest of the world.

My concern is how can we learn from this and keep those new to the online TTRPG experience safe from those who seek to cause trouble and outrage to promote their own agenda or products?

I want to focus on the positive. Making a sign saying stay away from X on every social media page only serves the purposes of those who seek any publicity. They fully believe that any publicity is good publicity. Please don’t feed the trolls.

I’m not about making a blacklist and curating it, that never ends well as those always end up influenced and controlled by those with the wrong motivations.

If we follow anyone online who is horrible to others, please unfollow them. Don’t mention or re-tweet their nonsense. Let their influence wain. Maintain a long memory so that in a few years they don’t make a sudden comeback sneaking in with a new crowd. This same problem exists among the charlatans and false prophets that are nearly all TV and radio preachers. Those that get exposed as frauds fall from sight, and in ten or fifteen years show up again.

Screenshot, Block, Report, and Ignore

Where physical safety and mental and emotional well-being permit, I recommend to screenshot and report those causing you grief online, then block, and ignore them. If they are the lowest level of jerks, this is usually enough. I blocked the most surly of the TTRPG people from all my socials a few months ago, and my feeds suddenly became brighter and more encouraging.

Online interactions need to be efficient. It is better to block someone at the first sign of nonsense and re-think it based on the experience of others than to put up with nonsense. All online communities of TTRPG people should oust anyone who displays disrespect to others. Make it clear that such behavior is not tolerated. Allow X number of chances, but whatever line you set, stand firm and expel and block them when they cross it.

Help and Encourage

For the very few that will learn from their mistakes, help and encourage them in their efforts to change. Keep the reins in check, however, in case they are not genuine in their change of heart, or not resolute in their determination to change.

Be the kind of person you want your online experience to be. If you want a fun and engaging online experience, be fun and engaging.

Modify Your Behaviors

I grew up with a strong sarcasm inherited from my father. I have struggled to keep it in check, as it is not always well received. A lot of my sarcasm is of the dissing or casting shade variety, and I find when I type it out, it doesn’t feel right, so I delete it before sending. Unfortunately, it is far too easy to let my mouth spew the stupid thoughts that springs to mind when face to face.

I have said things that have caused fresh acquaintances to look at me with questioning looks. Those first impressions are hard to overcome. It is the same online. If we spew venom and so forth online, that will be the first impression others have of us.

I try to be genuine to who I am and the way I am in real life, but I have found online, at least with a text based interaction, I more easily catch myself and say a lot less things that cause athlete’s esophagus.

Be Helpful

I like to help others, one reason I’ve had a tech support job for 21 years now. I was also a volunteer firefighter/EMT, and have mentioned a few times, was a pastor for ten years.

I don’t always have something helpful to add to a conversation. I’ve seen some posts by people I follow online about personal tragedy or personal connection to recent events in the news. I want to say something to them, but my words are inane and pointless. Nothing I say can fix it. So I click the like or heart emoji, and maybe post a gif.

As Thumper said, “If you can’t say sumthin’ nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”

Honesty

Honest criticism of a game product should be proper criticism. That includes what you liked, and for what you didn’t how would you fix it or improve it?

A hospital chaplain once told me, “The truth hurts, bullshit kills.” [I had to take a unit of chaplain studies long ago, and was on the oncology floor of a hospital two days a week. I chose the oncology ward to deal with my own issues involving disease, death, and dying.]

At the same time, the truth does not need to be delivered in a cold and cruel or heartless manner. One can pick their words to speak the truth direct and true without being intentionally hurtful. For example, a victim of an online jerk deserves more careful phrasing than the online jerk. The jerk needs the most direct and concise explanation of what the issue is. If they are unteachable, block them.

Group Honesty

As a group, the TTRPG online community needs to be aware of the jerks who give TTRPGs a bad name. Publishers need to vet individuals and ensure their online presence is not that of jerk supreme before enshrining their names and ideas in various products. If someone is hurtful in one group, they must not be allowed to skulk around at the fringes of other groups.

There are those who claim allegiance and even that they are leaders and authorities on what is and isn’t OSR. The do it yourself mentality of the OSR is, “Oh, Yeah? To heck with you! I’ll do it my way!” and we ignore the jerks. Unfortunately, our ignoring the jerks has led to much chaos and trouble for those we failed to warn or shield from the crap. This has led to the jerks being the “face” of the OSR to many. Which has led to the OSR being generalized as a bunch of jerks.

I am part of the OSR, or consider myself as such. I found the OSR back in 2007 or 2008 when I started looking for game opportunities online. I started this blog in the summer of 2009. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel that I was able to do anything about the online jerks I encountered. I’m still not sure what I can do. How do you rally others to a cause who are content to let it slide?

They don’t want the hassle of dealing with things when they “poke the bear.” Other than anonymous reporting, how does one deal with such jerks? I’d have to unblock them and allow their nonsense into my life and wait for something worthy of reporting. [It should go without saying one should only report with evidence so that something is more likely to be done about them.] I really don’t want to do that, as I’ve got enough things in my life causing me stress. Some of the things I have mentioned online or on my podcast.

Input/Advice

What tried and true methods of dealing with online jerks actually works? I’m looking for proven methods to:

  • Reform their behavior.
  • Keep their nonsense from bothering others.
  • Prevent the like minded from drawing encouragement to do likewise.
  • Help those harmed by the jerks to prevent them leaving the hobby.
  • Making this hobby a warm and welcoming place to meet like minded people who want to play!

Conclusion

I grew up when it was normal for it to be hard to find other players. If not for Roll20, I would not get to play regularly. I try to be a positive influence on the games I am in, both as a player and GM. Excluding people from the table to me is so antithetical to the idea of RPGs that I just can’t comprehend it.

Everyone who is a fan of TTRPGs should feel welcome to “pull up a chair at the table” and never have to worry about being judged or excluded as long as they are there to engage with the game and have fun. I invite you to help make that goal a reality.

RPGs

GitHub Project For G+ Links In Blogs

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Bloggers who use Blogger were given the biggest disappointment yesterday when all the G+ comments for all Blogger blogs were deleted by Google. I have a blogger account, but it is just a link to my blog and lists each post from this blog. I never used blogger for my RPG blogging.

Those of us who don’t use Blogger still have time to preserve our G+ comments.

Thankfully, I only had two comments from G+, both from the same person. I used the Internet Archive to make an archive of his G+ page. I then added a note at the end of the two articles involved:

[EDIT: Google is deleting all G+ comments to non-blogger blogs. Below is one of two G+ comments on my blog I want to save. 02/06/2019]

  • I then pasted in the comment,
  • The Date,
  • The Commenter’s name,
  • and the link to the G+ site.

I left the link text as the original G+ page, but I used the Internet Archive URL for the link. (See the Internet Archive page in this repository.)

G+ Links

All bloggers, including those using Blogger, still have time to handle those G+ links that still exist on their blog posts.

Internet Archive

The Internet Archive, AKA Wayback Machine, has a way to request that a public URL (link) be archived.

https://web.archive.org/save/

Where the above link is modified where the link to archive is used in place of <URL>

For example, the G+ page for Follow Me, and Die! would look like this:

REQUEST LINK: (The following should be one line.)

https://web.archive.org/

save/https://plus.google.com/+Followmeanddie

RESULTING LINK:(The following should be one line.)

https://web.archive.org/web/20190206103057/

https://plus.google.com/+Followmeanddie

Each time you use a request link, you get a new resulting link, that has the data and time as part of the URL. You do not need to generate a new request if the page has not changed since you last generated it.

GitHub Project

I am by no means a master coder, but I know SQL, and I know how I want to handle the issues with my blog. I like to help others, so I am sharing my process and inviting anyone who wants to participate to step up. Anyone who is a better and faster scripter than I is welcome to build a script to do this. NOTE: I am looking for cross-platform solutions, i.e. a single solution that will work on any Operating System (OS)

Here you can find my minimal, in-progress project that I started this morning before work.

RPGs

Good Luck If You Linked To Anything On G+

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I have a BA in history, which means I have training on how to do research and cite my sources.

Following along with my training, even RPG blogging, I link back to my sources online.

When writing about RPGs, especially “OSR” topics, I found a lot of great ideas, discussion, and all around inspiration on G+.

It occurred to me a couple of days ago that I should see how many things I linked to on G+ and try to copy those things and add the source to my blog posts, so the information is not lost to the mists of time.

I use an extension on my blog that lets me do a search and replace on things across my entire blog. It has an option to do a “dry run” and for the free version show how many instances of a given phrase it finds before it replaces it.

Great . . . .

I searched for the key part of the URL for G+: plus.google.com.

Here are my results for a few of the tables:

  • Comments – 2
  • Links: 4
  • Posts: 867!

Comments

The comments are from the same person and link back to his G+ page. I copied the long text in the about page and the graphic to a google doc. That was easy!

Links

The links are to the Follow Me, And Die! G+ page. OK, I can screenshot it or something and provide a nostalgia page or something.

The other three are to the Metamorphosis Alpha, the Swords & Wizardry, and Tenkar’s Landing G+ community pages. I can use G+ Exporter to grab those and post to a page or site for historical purposes, but that’s a whole other ball of wax.

Posts

The 867 posts are links in 157 actual posts. Counting this post, I now have 780 posts.

I can go into the database and search for the unique links and go from there.

I’ve got some ideas of how I can hack together a crude solution. I’m not the best script coder, but I plan to do my best to copy what’s on the other end of all these links. But first, just in case, I’m going to grab my favorite G+ discussions that stand out in my mind

Unfortunately, trying to preserve this background history of my RPG life during my time on G+ is going to sidetrack me from other things.

Conclusion

Unlike blogs and websites, there is no archive of all of G+. Google is just going to delete it. It would be really cool if Google and The Internet Archive could work out a deal.

If you have a favorite G+ discussion, get it now — if you can find it.

[UPDATE: I just found that if you use the Evernote web clipper and tell it to use the default option of Article, it will save the entire G+ thread. NOTE: It is literal about what is copied. Be sure to unhide all comments with the view x previous comments link, if any.]