RPGaDAY 2020 Day 6: Forest

 

 

While forests in my games tend to be Fey-haunted and filled with grotesque spiders, mysterious Ents, and distrustful elves I'm instead going to talk about a wonderful novel I've finished recently.

Max Brooks' World War Z is a favorite of our whole family and we end up listening to it on our vacation trips in the car. Earlier this year he released Devolution: A First-Hand Account of the Mt. Rainier Sasquatch Massacre and I've already read it once and listened to an additional time. 

I have loved cryptids and Sasquatch since I saw the Patterson-Gimlin film on In Search Of... as a child. While Bigfoot is pretty popular these days some of the earlier stories of human interactions are far more dangerous than most accounts these days (though its interesting how many people disappear from National Parks each year and how little data is available to the public).

Brooks' tale paints the creatures, especially under a great deal of stress due to the eruption of Mt. Rainier, as willing to do what needs to be done to survive including radically altering their preferred meal. Meanwhile, modern humans, also faced with a great deal of stress, collide with the legendary primate and a mighty battle ensues as the trapped humans must embrace their baser natures if they have any hope of surviving the Bigfoot assaults.

Its a great novel and I heartily recommend it.

RPGaDAY 2020 Day 5: Tribute

I'm going to pay tribute to two different men whose work has left an indelible mark upon me.

The First is Robert E. "Two-Gun Bob" Howard. His stories, especially those if Kull of Atlantis, Solomon Kane, and Conan the Cimmerian have been essential archetypes within the stories I tell. Obviously, I'm not alone, Howard's work is important to Pulps, fantasy, and the Lovecraft Mythos. Specifically, it was Marvel Comics' Conan the Barbarian, Conan the King/King Conan, and Solomon Kane that hooked me on the writer's creations. I won't lie, I have as much love for Roy Thomas and John Buscema as I do Robert (Barry Smith was before my time). Growing up our local independent TV station showed older Black and White films on Sunday mornings and while Conan wasn't featured, Tarzan was and I loved those movies. We had a local department store named Zayres which had these great 3 Packs of Comics. The first of these was DC's Tarzan and I reread them constantly. The next time we went they didn't have any Tarzans but they did have Conan the Barbarian and I decided I'd give it a try. As I remember it, Conan was heavier and more high-stakes than the Tarzans and it took me a few reads to really get into them, but I eventually got hooked. In many, many ways Thomas and Buscema's run will always be classic Conan to me, but it got me to read Two-Gun Bob's work as an adult and helped me have a view of the Mythos that wasn't Lovecraft (for me Bryan Lumley is my favorite Mythos writer). Many people find this hobby through Tolkien or Shannara, but I found it through comics and pulp-style cartoons and that has always informed how I run a game.

Finally, this blog, Cross Planes is named after Bob's hometown of Cross Plains, TX. I came up with the name preparing a city connected to the Multiverse like Sigil, Nexus, The Infinite City, or Cynosure that used Feng Shui for its rules. That game fell apart but Cross Planes, thankfully, lived on.

Last, but certainly not least person, is Game Designer Mike Pondsmith. Mike is the first Game Designer that I would keep track of and buy his work sight unseen. I loved everything that R. Talsorian put out in its heyday. And Cyberpunk was a revelation for me, both in terms of setting and game system. Interlock was a revelation to me about how to present a very straight-forward that was easily learnable and yet very in-depth. I love how it broke down class niche-protection in the way it represented exclusive skills and both Attribute and Skill were important for a character's actions. But the Killer-App for me was Castle Falkenstein. It was a masterful product, beautiful in presentation, brilliant it's streamlined rules, and astonishing in its mechanics. In my opinion, Story Games owe a great debt to Castle Falkenstein and showcased how Mike could redesign ADnD 2nd Edition in space with Buck Rogers 25th Century game, establish the Cyberpunk genre in our industry, and then embrace light rules with a commitment to genre emulation in the span of a decade.

The man even released CyberGeneration to show how Edge Runner's kids would rebel and change their world.

Sadly, I've never met Mike, but I've seen at conventions. In my opinion, he a giant of our industry and deserves a spot next to Arneson, Gygax, and Gregg Stafford.

Thanks for all of the hours of fun Mike. I owe you at least 1 beer.

RPGaDAY 2020 Day 4: Vision

"The robot Ultron is the creator of Vision, a type of android he calls a "synthezoid", for use against Ultron's own creator, Dr. Hank Pym (Ant-Man/Giant Man/Goliath/Yellowjacket) and Pym's wife, Janet van Dyne (the Wasp) of the superhero team the Avengers. Ultron sends his new servant to lead the Avengers into a trap. Wasp is the first to encounter the synthezoid, and describes it as a "vision" while trying to escape. Adopting the name, Vision is convinced by the Avengers to turn against Ultron.[6] After learning how Ultron created him, using the brain patterns of then-deceased Simon Williams (Wonder Man), Vision becomes a member of the team.[7] The team initially believes the Vision's body was created from that of the android original Human Torch.[8] The Avengers later are told that the time lord Immortus used the power of the Forever Crystal to split the original Human Torch into two entities – one body remained the original Torch while Ultron rebuilt the other as the Vision. This was part of his plan to nurture a relationship for the Scarlet Witch that would prevent her from having any children, as her power level meant that any offspring she might have could threaten the cosmic beings of the Marvel Universe."

Monstrous Monday: Blast-Ended Skrewt

[Rubeus] Hagrid produced about a hundred Blast-Ended Skrewts for the fourth-year students to study in their Care of Magical Creatures lessons in 1994 but only around 10 lived to adulthood for use in the final task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament.

Some of the Blast-Ended Skrewts have stingers on them, which Hagrid thinks are the males; the female Skrewts have sucker-like additions on their bellies, which he thinks might be to suck blood.

Adults weigh 6,000 pounds are 10' long.

Male Blast-Ended Skrewt for Dungeon Crawl Classics

Init +5; Atk stinger +4 melee (1d10+2 plus poison Fort DC 14 or 1d6 Str) or blaster +3 missle fire (2d6); AC 16; HD 5d8; MV 35’; Act 1d20; SV Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +5; AL C.

Female Blast-Ended Skrewt

Init +7; Atk suckers +5 melee (4d4) or blaster +4 missle fire (3d4); AC 15; HD 6d8; MV 35’; Act 1d20; SV Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +3; AL C.

If you like this post and others like it and have an extra $1 a month, please consider becoming a Patron of Cross Planes on Patreon.

RPGaDAY 2020 Day 3: Thread

All of my DnD and one of my Shadow of the Demon Lords Campaigns share these common threads, many of which were due to Player actions.

• Tiamat was assassinated by a conspiracy of Chromatic Dragons who freed Raistlin Majere to perform the job.

• The conspiracy's goal was to raise Vorel from the dead to replace her, which they did, but he was destroyed by adventurers before he ascended to Godhood. Vorel in Elven is Tarrasque.

• The Queen of Chaos is closer to finding the Rod of 7 Parts than ever before and Mishka the Wolf-Spider has been freed from his prison to lend his hand.

• Ashardalon has assumed Tiamat's place as God of Chromatic Dragons. The Balor that has replaced his heart adds uncertainty to the Old Red's role in the Blood War. Additionally, Red Dragons are favored by their God which has created additional tension amongst Chromatics.

• There is only one Wish spell and casting it destroys the caster's soul. Additionally, once cast it immediately becomes hidden within the Multiverse again.

• Saint Cuthbert has been imprisoned within the Demiplane of Dread, sometimes called Ravenloft.

RPGADAY 2020 DAY 2: Change

I've been in our hobby since 1991 and my tastes, I'm sure like many, have changed drastically. First, I was looking for the perfect super-hero game. I went through Champions, Heroes Unlimited, Marvel Super Heroes, DC Heroes, and GURPS Supers/Wild Cards. Most people, from my experience, find a game and then stick with it, but not me, I wanted to play all of those games. 

Next, I was looking for the perfect system. It wasn't ADnD 2E, Talislanta, TORG, Feng Shui, The Storytelling System, West End Game's Star Wars, Mekton, Call of Cthulhu, Unisystem, Rifts, or Legend of the Five Rings.

The third stage was looking to create the perfect game. I'd work alone or with a few of my friends and we'd work, sometimes, for months, but whenever I was working with someone else I'd come to the realization that we didn't have the same goals and I wasn't willing to compromise.

The fourth phase was the Story Game era, those years where I sought out games like Sorcerer, Dogs In the Vineyard, Spirit of the Century, and anything John Wick wrote. I made the mistake of treating RPGs as an art form instead of a hobby and it was at this time that I realized that I didn't really enjoy RPGs anymore. So I took a break and I wasn't sure how long it would last because I didn't miss playing or running.

I honestly thought that I was done with playing RPGs. I did read forums and news sites though and on one of them, I discovered Grognardia. From there I was introduced to blogs run by Jeff Rients, Tim Brannan, Trey Causey, and so many others. I began to dig into this thing called the OSR and I downloaded Basic Fantasy and Swords, Swords and Wizardry, OSRIC, and Labyrinth Lord. I realized that I had never played DnD like these guys had and I wanted to give it a try. 

As I began to think about starting this blog I was also contemplating an invitation to a new group playing Pathfinder that would bring me back to playing and eventually running a game. Additionally, within a few days of starting Cross Planes, I was accepted into the internal DnD Next playtest at WotC.

And the rest, to one degree or another, has played out on this blog.

RPGaDAY 2020 Day 1: Beginning

I'm running late on RPGaDay so you'll get at least two posts out of me today (gasp)!

The beginning was my buddy Barry getting a copy of the first Marvel Super Heroes Box set from TSR for his birthday while we were in High School. After looking at all the poster maps, cardboard figures, and dice we decided that he would read the Player's book and I would read the Judge's book. Yeah, we never actually played it because that was a terrible idea. But even though I thought RPGs were some arcane puzzle to unlock it lit the fire in my belly. It would take some time, but I'd find my way to Champions and my first group made up of some of his school friends. Along the way, I'd see ads for DnD and Robotech in the comics I read.

This was where I began...