RPGaDAY 2020 Day 30 & 31

Portal. RPGs transport me into a world that allows me to take a break from the everyday problems of life and I have found that doing that one or two times per week can be a wonderful treat.

Experience. Wow. I'd only go back to my younger days if I could take my experiences with me. Beyond that, in RPGs, Experience is kind of an odd thing to me. I know its essential to some games but on some level if I could make my perfect game I don't know if I'd include it. Don't get me wrong going from 1 to 20 is exciting but I don't know that I'd have included it if I wrote the First RPG. At the same time I think we sometimes overlook the importance on literature to Dungeons and Dragons found in Appendix N of the ADnD Dungeon Master's Guide.

 

Monstrous Monday: The Beast of Eloise for Dungeon Crawl Classics

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Eloise has been a thriving trading post and village at the crossroads of the Stone Road and the Old Road for close to a century. The Inns, all three of them, are full most nights which are just as busy as the days though the work is often illicit in nature.

However, two months ago, on the three nights of the full moon several heads of cattle and two horses that were put up for the night in their barn were attacked by a vicious wild animal that tore them to pieces while leaving most of the meat. The local Sheriff called in a sage named Barnaby Duncroft from nearby Portent to help investigate but no more attacks occured and Barnaby was uncertain what kind of animal attack it was.

The killings began again one month ago over the three nights of the full moon, but on the third night, something broke into the Faversham farmhouse and slaughtered Ebon, his wife Pearl, all three of their young children, and Pearl's father Emmet Clover. Unfortunately, the bodies weren't discovered until three days later when Clem Nottingham checked in on them. This time Duncroft and several Clerics of Pelor were called in to investigate and people began gossiping about a werewolf which caused was a run on the local blacksmith to melt and shape various silver objects of the villagers into weapons. Unfortunately, Duncroft and the Clerics only found one odd fact about the killings and it was that Ebon had his great-grandfather's long sword set over the hearth and it was now missing. There was some question why the first five attacks were against livestock and the final one was against the Favershams. Ebon, the husband, was a mere farmer and while he was a ruffian in his youth he had settled down to a quiet life with his wife Pearl and their children. Emmet Clover, Pearl's father, was respected and well-liked and had sold his general store to his apprentice Gloria Wulling around a decade ago. 

It's now two nights until the next full moon and the village is terrified and most of its normal business has disappeared. 

The Beast of Eloise for Dungeon Crawl Classics

Init +6; Atk claw +3 melee (1d6) or bite +2 melee (1d6+3); AC 14; 

SP hide in shadows 60%, move silently 70%, regeneration HD 5d6; MV 30’; Act 3d20; SV Fort +4, Ref +6, Will +4; AL C.

The Beast of Eloise is an old man named James Culver who was given a belt that would allow him to transform into a werepanther in exchange for killing the survivors of the Violet Swords for a stranger named Easop. If he succeeds Easop has promised him eternal youth. Thus far, Easop only has one target left Beur Faversham, the great-grandfather of Ebon. Culver has been in town for three months now but no one suspects a man as old as he is of the killings and he has been very careful in his investigations. When he ran into a dead-end, he sought Beur's sword for any clues, but he has gained such a taste for blood he couldn't keep himself from slaughtering all of the Favershams in the farmhouse. Tomorrow night he has a meeting with Easop, in the forest to the East of the Stone Road and he hopes the strange man can point him where to find his final target. However, Culver has grown to like the power the belt gives him and he savors the next time he will taste blood.

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Putting the I in the OSR

 I love the OSR. I discovered it with James Maliszewski's Grognardia and Chris Gonnerman's Basic Fantasy at roughly the same time. It taught me to love Dungeons and Dragons and articulated to my frustration with DnD 3.X and 4E, especially after discovering Castles and Crusades.

Many of the OSR's core features were elements that I had considered bugs do too bad experiences.

I've been playing DnD 5E for over 8 years now. It is a good game and I like it, but I wouldn't mind a change of pace. My group is fairly flexible but they like 5E and we are all heavily invested in DnD Beyond. What I run into when I think of running an OSR game is that if it is not significantly different from 5E is it worth the learning curve to my players? While I prefer rulings and player involvement vs rules and class abilities am I merely creating extra challenges when we all get together to play?

I've been contemplating that for quite a bit and I feel like I found the answer.

It's Dungeon Crawl Classics. It is rooted in Appendix N but has a time-tested system that is fairly familiar, but it has significant permutations with its use of more types of dice and its mechanics for Clerics and Magic-Users. And in my mind, it is the answer to my internal debates. I don't know when I'll run it and I might run it as Mutant Crawl Classics or Dark Trails, but I plan to run it when a slot opens up and I'm pretty excited about it.

RPGaDAY 2020 Days 28 & 29

Close is an odd one. My Friday Night game is at my store and we are playing DnD 5E. When the game winds down I close things down by cleaning up, taking care of business, and making sure things for the next day are ready and waiting. My buddies tend to stick around where we bullshit and reminisce and laugh. Fridays are my Thursday now but it is a good day to wrap the week up.

Ride. I think each session has its own vibe as a "ride", you might get deep roleplaying, jaw-dropping reveals, life-altering peril, or vibrant set pieces. I guess a campaign, from that POV, is the amusement park and the sessions are it's rides.

RPGaDAY 2020: Days 25, 26, & 27

 

Lever: My worldview and my attitude toward Role Playing has changed quite a bit in the last 4 years. I find that the longer I play and the older I get the more I'm trying to just enjoy time with my group and play what we like. For instance, I'd love to run an OSR game but few of them are different enough from DnD 5E, a game we are all fairly invested in, so it makes no sense to switch. This is sea change where I spent decades focusing on the rules.

Strange: I love strange and goofy stuff in my games. Planet of the Apes in Shadow of the Demon Lord? You betcha! Visiting Monster Island and fleeing from Kaiju? Let's add some 13th Age! He-Man and his Masters of the Universe? They make any game better!! In most cases I find more gonzo equals more fun.

Flavour: I like little tidbits in my game--easter eggs really. Things like using Amora the Enchantress as a Goddess of Witches in a 5E game where I swap Gods of the Marvel Universe for traditional DnD Gods. As a player I like having ties to the campaign world through relatives, contacts, and enemies. Those little things go a long way in games.

RPGaDAY 2020 Days 16 through 24: Playing Catch Up

 

I got behind quickly. Let's see...

Day 16 Dramatic.Some of favorite moments during a game are when someone comes up with a solution to a problem that involves a sacrifice of some kind for their character.

Day 17 Comfort.  When I am playing I want comfortable chairs, a table large enough for a map with miniatures, some snacks, and a soda.

Day 18: Meet. I was always the Group Mom, the person who reminded everyone where and when we were meeting that week and what we were playing, and I did it for decades. I'd like to say that you'd think if we met on the same night each week people wouldn't forget, but they did. These days I'm not the Group Mom and our group DOES remember we meet. Its very, very refreshing.

Day 19: Tower. I have a huge tower of RPG books. It is massive and what is worse is that these days I prefer PDFs so they sit there. My eyesight is such that it is much harder to read a printed book than on a screen.

Day 20: Investigate. I love investigations as a DM. I think I do a good job of using clues and moving things along. My players don't complain. Also, I would never have let a mystery reach a dead end because of a failed roll long before Gumshoe addressed it. I've always felt that regardless of my plot the story is about the Players and their Characters not about my story.

Day 21: Push. We use Inspiration in 5E to allow a reroll or to let you do something cool. We start each session with the Characters having 1-2 Inspiration. I have been known to bribe players with Inspiration to get them to do something. It's rarely for the story, though I have handed out Inspiration and said, "For story reasons, your characters have been knocked out and captured, none of you will die, but here is a bribe."

While FATE is not a game I enjoy I do like the idea of a metacurrency.

Day 22: Rare. It is rare for our group to miss a session even if the GM can't make it. We'll fill that session with a one-shot or board game, but most of us don't want to miss the chance to laugh and blow off steam.

Day 23: Edge. I didn't grow up watching horror films or reading horror but many of my games are a bare minimum on the edge of horror. As an adult, I like horror films and books and I think it is a way I deal with Heroic Fantasy. The Characters might not die but they will be pushed to the edge to win.

Day 24: Humor. As a GM my games our full of it. Whether it is a goofy NPC or just all of us having a good time I really thrive in a group that laughs a lot. It is just how I am wired.

RPGaDAY 2020 Day 15: Frame

        

 

Have any of your characters framed someone in a game?

I have a Tremere in a Vampire: the Masquerade 5th Edition game that did. Solomon Taft was pretty happy being a courier for his Primogen. He never snooped and did his job. But eventually he was pulled into the inner workings of Cincinnati by his Prince.

He was quiet and kept his thoughts to himself but after having coterie member go into torpor due to a Garou attack he got nervous and started making things happen.

His Prince had a safe house in Europe get hit by the Vatican and several of his prized Kindred who were in torpor were destroyed (yeah, he collected vampires in torpor, yeah, it IS creepy).

His Prince wanted vengeance and quiet little Solomon laid out some ideas.

A rival of the Prince's in France and Paris' Prince were both dicks. So here is how he framed them. He began to make overtures to the local Catholic Church a quid pro quo situation. He also had European Kindred assassinate all of the family members of a particular Cardinal. All of them. Then he dropped a Methuselah from an airplane onto the Vatican while the Pope was having a meeting with all of his Cardinals. The Pope survived. Some Cardinals didn't. The Methuselah died too.

Then he met with his Church contact and fed them the location of the two french Vampire terrorists who had broken Vampire law. It went pretty well and it was a lot of fun.

#RPGaDAY 2020 Day 14: Banner

         

 

Invincible Iron Man Vol 1, #131 featured a procedure that locked the Hulk's personality into Bruce Banner's body.

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 13: Rest

        

 

Rest. When I was younger we would roleplay for hours and hours and hours. Whole weekends. Whole vacations.

However, around 2009 I took a break from roleplaying, a king of sabbatical. When I came back we would lay for 2-3 hours because we were playing at my store after hours and when the Magic: the Gathering tournament ended we wrapped up as well.

I really prefer 2-3 hour session and I don't think I could ever go back. Sometimes I wonder if some of the drama we had in those early days was because we were hanging out for 8-48 hours?

I find 2-3 hour sessions restful, they recharge my batteries after a long day, and it has allowed me to play in multiple game each week.

#RPGaDAY 2020 Day 12: Message

       

 

For me Role Playing has several straight-forward messages: 

No gaming is better than bad gaming. Once you learn this you are golden. 

As a Game Master don't afraid to say "yes" and at the same time don't be afraid to say "no". If its cool roll with it, if you are unsure then table until you can think about it and talk it over with the player/group.

Just because I play DnD and you play DnD doesn't mean we should be friends or at the same table. 

If everyone at your table is comfortable then roll with it, don't compare your game or your skills to anyone else.

Communication, honest communication is essential to a successful group.

RPGaDAY 2020 Day 11: Stack

      

 

My Campaigns always begin with a sheet of paper detailing the names and important facts of the Player's Characters, the name of Prominent NPCs, and broad stokes about where they are and where they are going. I generally outline the direction I'd like to go with the story while also knowing that I'm going to prioritize a PC's goals over my story.

This means that as the Campaign grows I add more pages to the Stack with notes, more NPCs, maps, and magic items.

I've run two DnD Campaigns to Level 20 and my Stack of notes ended up being 30 to 50 pages. I'd like to tell you they were all neatly fit into a binder or all in a notebook of some kind, but generally they are simply blank printer paper that gets filled on both sides with bullet points I think are important.

It's an imperfect system, but it works for me.

Monstrous Monday: Blind Warrior-Women of Altara for Dungeon Crawl Classics

Blind Warrior-Women of Altara for Dungeon Crawl Classics

Init +6; Atk martial arts +10 melee (1d10+5) or wrister blaster +8 missle fire (1d6) or heavy blaster pistol +7 (3d6); AC 18; HD 8d10; MV 40’; Act 2d20 + 1d16; SP Detect Ambush 65% SV Fort +7, Ref +5, Will +0; 

AL L.

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#RPGaDAY 2020 Day 10: Want

     

 

Want. I've always liked stuff and I've always been able to get that stuff.

I've been a big fan of Robert Schwalb since Witchunter: the Invisible World and he has designed and published my favorite RPG, Shadow of the Demon Lord.

He is working on a variation of the engine that is less dark fantasy and more Gygax, Vance, and Lieber called Shadow of the Weird Wizard. Hopefully, he'll be able to Kickstart it this coming December for release in 2021. What's cool about Rob is that he always comes in on time or even early with his Kickstarters and they are always a good deal based on the adventures and sourcebooks he releases for his games.

Legend of Grayskull: The Masters of the Universe RPG

Power-Con, the convention of all things Masters of the Universe was held virtually this past weekend and Legend of the Grayskull: The Masters of the Universe RPG was announced for 2021. It is being published by Fandom, who own DnD Beyond and will use the Cortex Prime rules.

I'm a huge Masters of the Universe fan and have showcased it quite a bit here on the blog. My main experience with Cortex was the Marvel Heroic RPG and I wasn't too keen on how it played, but I'll give it a try. It appears that there will be an open playtest, organized play, virtual table-top and character generator, and a community content program.

I'm really happy to see how that this is a thing and I feel that Mattel has people running the property who cares about the fans.

#RPGaDAY Day 9: Light

    

 

I'd like to use this post to remind people of Swords and Wizardry Light from Frog God Games by Tenkar and Matt Finch. 

All the game you need in four pages. It doesn't get much cooler than that.

RPGaDAY 2020 Day 8: Shade

   

 

Shade for Dungeon Crawl Classics

Init +3; Atk sword +6 melee (1d10); AC 12; HD 6d6; MV 30’; 

Act 1d20; SP infravision, invisibility 1/day, regeneration, shadow essence; SV Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +4; AL C.

   Shades have infravision out to 90 feet and they are humanoids who have given themselves over to the Shadowfell itself and are no longer truly human. They bump all of their dice by one step when in dim light and by two steps in darkness, e.g. In darkness, a Shade uses a d30 for their action die. A Shade regenerates 1 hit point per round however, decapitation will kill them.

   "Shades were humanoids who had merged with the essence of shadowstuff. They grew more powerful in areas of darkness or shadows, including gaining the ability to leap from shadow to shadow, to create shadowy duplicates of themselves, and even to become entirely invisible. They could also decrease the amount of light in an area and could see through darkness, even of the magical variety."

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RPGaDAY 2020 Day 7: Couple

  

 

Couple made me think for a bit. I thought about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. I thought about Conan and Kull. And then I thought about Advantage and Disadvantage which was perfected in DnD 5th Edition.

I say perfected because 4E had Talents that let you roll a second d20 if you didn't like the first result but didn't call the mechanic Advantage and it empowered the DM to use the Disadvantage mechanic.

I think its a brilliant mechanic. No need to consult a book, no need to calculate a bonus or penalty, either a mechanic grants it or the DM adds it. It's beautiful. It is perfect, in my opinion.

It's the kind of rule that I think is just as useful in the OSR and I think it is in 5E and can easily be ported over to any other game engine.

I applaud the 5E designers for codifying it and giving it to us as a tool.

Bravo.

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.

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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...