A GM's interpretation of Grateful Dead's Terrapin Station

People find their fantasy world gaming inspiration in lots of places. Obvious choices (fantasy movies and books) of course. 

Some can be odd. Some years ago I remember some inhabitant of the Dragonfoot forums in a discussion about a warehouse hallway fight in the Daredevil TV show excitedly going on about how that scene was "so D&D." Yeah, most dungeons have hallways. But I could not see how a superhero punching thugs in a hallway was a big D&D inspiration. But what the heck. I remember as a teen visiting my oldest brother, a sort of biker tough guy type,  in his big house in the mountains and on a lark running a D&D session for him and his wife. They had zero expeirence. It did not last more than a couple hours. Big bro had a fighter in the city who was not long in the tavern before starting fights. He ended up killing a summoned city guardsman and ended up in jail. It was all good laughs. Later we were listening to the Desperado album by The Eagles, and he was like "hey, this is like a game!"

Sure, the album told a story. A western themed one for sure. But the only resemblance to D&D was his character getting in trouble with the law in the session. 

But I should not judge. For many years I got a lot of Inspiration from a Grateful Dead album.

In the 90's I was mostly into hip hop and rap. But I went out with a girl from Ren Faire a few months. Heidi was only around 20, but she loved The Grateful Dead, a band that was not on my radar. But on long trips she would jam out to them, and I sort of got into it. I remember going with her and a gal pal of hers to a concert in Oakland, CA. The highlight was them saying we would all take shrooms, but after I took a dose they decided they did not want to so we could drive there. I was flying while they goofed on me. 

My favorite song they did was from Terrapin Station. 

A great concept story album about a kind of mystical train station full of characters, it would eventually tickle my fancy for gaming inspiration. It's not just about characters interacting, but it's equally (or more so) about the teller of the story. The "DM" if you will. 

Here's my breakdown in game terms:

The Lady with a Fan. She has
a challenge for you, good sir...

Let my inspiration flow in token rhyme, suggesting rhythm,
That will not forsake you, till my tale is told and done.
While the firelight's aglow, strange shadows from the flames will grow,
Till things we've never seen will seem familiar.

Characters in front of a fire, or a fireplace. Clearly, they have travelled, and are in unfamiliar surroundings. Kind of adventurous, right?

Shadows of a sailor, forming winds both foul and fair all swarm.
Down in Carlisle, he loved a lady many years ago.
Here beside him stands a man, a soldier from the looks of him,
Who came through many fights, but lost at love.

Tells you a bit about the characters backgrounds. In old school style, its brief. They will be more defined by their experiences than their past. The sailor once loved a woman. It's important, because its mentioned. The soldier also has had his romantic entanglements, but clearly, they did not work out well. One sympathizes. 

While the story teller speaks, a door within the fire creaks;
Suddenly flies open, and a girl is standing there.
Eyes alight, with glowing hair, all that fancy paints as fair,
She takes her fan and throws it, in the lion's den.

GM introduces an NPC. Or is it a monster? A spirit? Or just a magic user. I mean, she comes out of the fire. She's hot, and she wants to give herself to a man. She is among men, and her tossing the fan to them is an invitation. 

Which of you to gain me, tell, will risk uncertain pains of hell?
I will not forgive you if you will not take the chance.
The sailor gave at least a try, the soldier being much too wise,
Strategy was his strength, and not disaster.

The soldier is wary of women. Of love? He is a badass, but has been hurt on an emotional level. He is not into the test. The sailor, maybe remembering that love of the past, wants to gain it again. Whatever the test is, he passes it. I like to think its a D&D style puzzle. 

The sailor, coming out again, the lady fairly leapt at him.
That's how it stands today. You decide if he was wise.
The story teller makes no choice. Soon you will not hear his voice.
His job is to shed light, and not to master.

Sailor gets the enthusiastic lady. Happy ending? You make the call. The story teller makes no choice. he's running the game, man. He must be impartial. Is the game coming to an end though?

Since the end is never told, we pay the teller off in gold,
In hopes he will return, but he cannot be bought or sold.

This story has no end. It's D&D. it goes on an on. Even if the campaign ends, unless somebody dies you never get to the end of their tale. And this DM cannot be bribed with Beer or Doritos. 

Inspiration, move me brightly. Light the song with sense and color;

Hold away despair, more than this I will not ask.
Faced with mysteries dark and vast, statements just seem vain at last.
Some rise, some fall, some climb, to get to Terrapin.

Counting stars by candlelight, all are dim but one is bright;
The spiral light of Venus, rising first and shining best,
On, from the northwest corner, of a brand new crescent moon,
While crickets and cicadas sing, a rare and different tune,
Terrapin Station.

And there's some good metaphysical stuff for yah. 

Like I said, inspiration comes from different places. Don't judge, and maybe one day I will tell you about how a Michael Jackson song greatly influenced a few games of mine in the 90's. 

YMMV. Happy New Year!

"Official" D&D vs "Folk"D&D and the pitfalls of playing with strangers

(this post may qualify as a rant. Take it with a grain of salt)

 I've recently been seeing a bit of this lately, the use of the term "Folk" over the usual "Old School" designation.

"Official" is of course the rules (more or less) as written, while "Folk" is a name for people who rely less on whatever the current editions and settings are, and "do what thou whilst" hodgepodge gaming. I like the word Folk for this. The term "Old School" is getting, well, a little old. 

As a D&D person myself, this is sort of hypocritical I guess, but I find gamers, D&D players especially to often be an odd lot. I suppose I always considered myself Old School, but maybe less so in recent years. When I got hipped to the OSR (sometimes derogatively referred to as the "blOwSR") around 2009 or so, I got involved a bit. I started this blog not long after starting a 10-year group where I ran a variety of genres, but mostly 1st edition. I'd say about 60% of that experience was great, and the rest, well, often when more or less unfulfilling, and often the drizzling shits. I feel this is because it was gaming mostly with strangers. Sometimes weird ones. And I found this to my experience with the modern crop of players, especially gained on Roll20 forums. Maybe chock full of more oddballs than Grognard places like Dragonsfoot. 

Most of my gaming life since I was a teen was about me running campaigns, of various genres, for friends I already had. People who often had no real D&D experience. They came in fresh, and just wanted to enjoy the play without a bunch of expectations. Open minded. In any genre I ran. And these were my most happy gaming years. Dungeons and Dragons, Champions, Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, Traveller. Kind of a bummer that this was 20 years and more ago. 

As a teen I knew that playing at game shops or cons was not for me. So many of the people turned me off. 

So as far as 1st ed D&D was concerned, there was no arguing over rules or rulings, whereas in the groups of strangers that I ran for years later that was often the order of the day. So much of 1st was open to interpretation, it was an easy in for power gamers and rules lawyers to work their shitty magic. People who if you gave in to, would, like classic bullies, feel they could do more of it until you were worn down. They were so proud of how they viewed how things should be run.  It was one reason I treasured doing games like Champions or Call of Cthulhu. The rules were fairly clear. But eventually it would be back to D&D and "D&D People" and their particular peccadillos. It was often hard to feel like these people were friends.

When I moved to a new state it was a chance to sort of renew. I adopted 5th edition and had a couple of decent face to face campaigns, the first one was me being tapped to DM by my current beloved besties B and L. I was happy to more or less be turning my back on my old school roots. But my experiences going mostly online with Roll20 the other year was also decidedly mixed. It was mostly with strangers. Because of this I decided to hew close to the rules, but still, no matter the experience or age range, D&D players still seemed to have particular expectations, rather than just going with the flow of whatever the DM had in mind. 

 So, call them old school or new school, call them official or folk. The only main difference to me is that one wants rules as written, and the other ones want something more creative and distinct. But they still often seem to be odd people (yes, I am very much generalizing) with particular expectations. Such as "I want to run a cyborg minotaur gunslinger!" People under 40 on Roll20 are full of this kind of "hey, look at my cool character!"

But even if I stick with 5th ed, it will soon be a "folk" edition. One DnD is going to change everything. WOTC recently and very blatantly announced that the players are an untapped resource to be monetized, so part of their plan is microtransactions that themselves are well known as the drizzling shits of the video game industry. To play it is no longer the DM's who will need written material. Players will need to create online minis for their characters, and I can see a couple of dozen microtransactions for every aspect of it. Face, hair, clothing, every weapon or piece of armor. The colors. What the cost of this stuff will be is what interests me the most. In the past you could buy some paints for about 10 bucks, and a mini for about 5. Will your online mini cost you 30 bucks? 50?

But that is going in a direction that I am not at all interested in otherwise. 

Mostly it turns me off as there will be a lot more work for DM's, and likely a lot more costly for them. They will need to invest a small fortune in DND Beyond, as will the players. And as usual, you will be dealing with fickle players you often do not know along with the cost and time investments. For me, based on my hit or miss Roll20 experiences with the community at large, will it be worth it?

Nah, I will stick with Roll20 and 5th ed for now. Or maybe just try to get a campaign of Call of Cthulhu or a Superhero thing going. A break from D&D people. I think I am maybe starting to head towards being done doing RPG's with non-friends. I have a campaign of infrequent games I run for my local besties B and L, and my old player Terry, which is just great because it is just like those games of old for my friends. No weird expectations. Just D&D. A D&D game once or twice a month with true friends, with my favorite video games in between (this was a super banner year for video game), is starting to seem just right to me. I'm really kind of fed up dealing with strangers in gaming. 

So yeah, this will now be old school or "folk" gameplay for me. Until WOTC buys up Roll20 and other platforms and it is no longer supported. The time is maybe coming when if you don't want to invest in the official stuff, it will have to go back to face to face tabletop. Somewhere you don't need WOTC or their bullshit. That will be the true Folk RPGing. 

Maybe unfortunate for me, as I still feel I want to be retired from face to face. I have boardgames for that.

YMMV

Cheers

 much of 

D&D and the character party Foe Gauntlet

 

The "Foe Gauntlet." There is probably a better name for it, but regardless, it's a thing. 

Though I am sure it has appeared in various media in history, I think the first time I saw such a thing was in old Spider-Man comics as a kid, where in at least one instance he had to fight each of the Sinister Six enemies, such as Vulture and Doc Ock, one at a time. 

I cannot help but be offended by the derogatory
and racist word Spidey throws at Electro

Then at some point in the Bruce Lee movie Game of Death. The film has a very storied background (look it up), but it inspired the "fight your way through a series of enemies to get to the boss" in video games to be sure. 

I also believe in the Batman story where Bane breaks his spine Bats had to fight through a series of villains set up by Bane to soften him up for the final fight. 

and it went down at ComiCon so
nobody really noticed it happened

And I remember Hulk Hogan doing something similar in his earlier WCW appearances against the Dungeon of Doom (a good idea with terrible execution). 

Pre-Attitude Era wrestling was pretty crappy

One time I did such a thing in a game, that I can remember, was in a solo game I ran in the 90's for one of the players in my Champions game. It was a Bourne Identity type character. He had developed his own little Rogues Gallery of foes over a couple years of campaigns, and for a solo outing a "gauntlet" sounded like an easy thing to game master. His foes were mostly non-powered dudes, like martial artists and a trio of former pro wrestlers who were getting into the mob enforcer business. I remember the character being worn down in several fights throughout the city, ending up fighting the wrestler trio in the foamy surf at the shore in Venice Beach. Then he fought the big bad and barely won the fight. 

So the idea came to me for the DnD characters in my current Roll20 campaign. The night the party arrived with a caravan to "Lemon Tree" (my stand in for Apple Lane), Gengle (my stand in for Gringle) the pawnbroker was negotiating with the Vaishino snake people. The negotiations went bad, and the creatures took out their anger on the surrounding area which included the caravan the party was camping at. That fight went OK for them, and they got thier long rest through the night. But the next morning the long day (which including the pawnshop assault that night), that would last several games, began.

The caravan left and the party walked down the hill to the village. Therein lay the first fight. Several Vaishino warrior jumped out of tree to attack. No problem. Then the party went to the Tin Inn. Several members of the Biglaugh the Centaur gang (whose gang members in the original material were all Dragonnewts and such, but I had it be just human bandits in mine) came into the tavern for a morning eye opener, and of course got into it with the party. Not a big deadly fight, but still, the party had to use resources for. 

A couple of those bandits were immediately thrown into jail by Dronlon the Sherriff, and by early afternoon Biglaugh and company caused small fires and ruckus' around the village while the prisoners were released, and the characters had to fight them off. 

So by early afternoon the party had three conflicts, and with the pawnshop scenario coming up by night fall, they had no chance for the beloved by 5th ed player's long rest. They had to go into that shop assault fairly depleted. 

I loved the concept, but you can probably count on players NOT to love it. They like to have their resources in a fight. And for the pawnshop those resources were mostly used up. Especially healing. 

It was a harrowing building-based combat that went on for almost 3 sessions. I felt it was all pretty dramatic, and at the end a couple of players had their severely wounded characters lean up against a wall and exhale in relief. But overall it was clear, I loved the concept more than them. But that's players for you, especially the more modern ones. 

They really feel entitled to a long rest after any kind of fight. 

YMMV. Cheers. 

The Question of Race in D&D and other Woke issues

 

So I read yesterday that they will be removing the term "race" from D&D.

I'm not here to rant on that. You can go to The RPG Pundit's Blog, or Venger Satanis', or any number of more conservative (does it sound logical for a satanist to be conservative? I mean, is "do what thou whilst" conservative?) spots for more passion about it. Me? I get over these things fairly easily. 

I mean, race was never the proper term. And "species" seems more appropriate, though sounds more science-fictiony. I recently had to go through the "no more racial modifiers" thing with my Roll20 material. And you know what? I love those race-based modifiers, but in the grand scheme of things? I just want to run games and make fun for others. So now you get plus 2 to something and plus 1 to something. Big whoop. Let the players decide if a mod is based on what they are. 

The main thing that irks me is how the left wants very badly to instill real world race issues into gaming. They are the ones who decided orcs and drow represent black people. It's kind of tragi-comic how the left seems to actually be the ones with racist thoughts. But whatevs.  

I'm fairly on the left for many social issues. Things I can't believe we still have to talk about in this day and age. Gay marriage. Legalization of marijuana. But I lean more to the center on most other things. Though I believe there is a lot of racism in the country (no worse than most other nations), I think the current wokist ideals at their heart include a lot of racial grift and liberal profiteering. Indoctrination of children into believing they are racists at heart and their reading of way too many Twitter posts on the issues are making them do things they will one day regret. I mean, those dicks don't grow back after you cut them off. 

The regular Roll20 campaign I've been doing for months does not seem to have especially woke players, though I don't try to test them on it. But I have tried a couple of campaigns that were nonstarters that were made up of folk heavy on the pronouns. It's bad enough that in a lot of cases off the Roll20 forums you will get people who want to go by nicknames that are awkward for me to call them, like Morpheus, Goat Cheese, or Sucknuts, but toss in an endless variety of pronouns and it starts to get kind of surreal. I'm open to learning more about people, but for games I just want to call people Mary or Joe as our campaigns roll along. DMing can be stressful enough without worrying that using the terms "He" or "She" might be taken as ignorance. 

Again, whatevs. I'm accepting of le differance. When I left SoCal I had a transgender neighbor, and she was the first person who called me when I moved to a new state to see how I was doing. My friendship there sort of opened my eyes to more acceptance of differences. 

But the long and short of it is I just want to run a game that is fun for all. I don't want all these worries of the real-world intruding. I want orcs to be nasty and evil, and I want everybody to hate them. Even other orcs. 

YMMV. Cheers. 

Apple Lane Again and Again

 

Over the years I have posted about my use of the old Runequest Apple Lane setting. Multiple times. For both its intended Glorantha setting, and my D&D homebrew world. Some names get changed up, and other details (mostly to prevent internet lookups by players), but basically present it as is. I renamed the town "Lemon Tree," for example. 

This is a location in my world that runs on Negative Continuity. In other words, different players have gone there again and again over the decades, and only minor changes will be there, usually left over from the previous campaigns. Like when a female character married a major NPC. But most things just do a soft reboot. The Pawnshop gets assaulted on the full moon again and again. Sometimes by baboons, sometimes by orcs. Or in the recent games. Vaishino, a type of serpent people introduced in Magic the Gathering. 

I was looking for something new to for the Pawnshop Scenario, and stumbled across these fierce reptilians. I imagined them easily being able to scramble up walls and across the roof of the shop.

I had designed the entire campaign to lead up to the Pawnshop scenario, followed by the Rainbow Mounds. A couple of the characters at chargen came up with an NPC, Billy, a fellow villager they grew up with. They would be going out in the world to look for him, armed with only a few clues. Intending to lead up to the Rainbow Mounds, I would put Billy in there, captured and charmed by Adorra, an Enchantress NPC who got involved with previous characters in another campaign almost 10 years ago and got magically trapped within the mounds. 

Anyway, the campaign, which I called "Trade and Turpitude", was mostly up to this point a caravan guarding series of games, leading up to the characters being dropped off in Apple Lane, uh, I mean Lemon Tree.

With the Pawshop encounter being the showpiece at this point in the campaign, I wanted to work up to it. I placed Lemon Tree in the Eastern Highands of the southern shires (in previous campaigns I was not calling the area highlands yet) and I wanted the area to have a decidedly Glorantha flavor. People almost living in a bronze age, and worshipping older gods not usually associated with the Kingdom. So Issaries, the trade god the pawship owner worships, or the Sheriffs deity Orlanth, are influential in this area. It's part of the kingdom, but no tax collector ever comes to call. 

The Pawnshop encounter went well, I think, though it took 3 sessions to finish. For reasons I think I might explore in my next post, the PC's came into the evening pretty beat up from several encounters that day. Also, the encounter also involved the NPC's Relanis and Demul who I have mentioned before. the party is very divided about these NPC's, so as always they added a little extra tension. It was a hard fight, probably the toughest I've done for the pawnshop encounter, over several games, but they won. 

I love that I can go online and find pretty decent maps of the area and the pawnshop. This was my first time doing it electronically. All the others were of course done on grease mats. That was always  a lot of work.

I added all the numbers...

"come visit relaxing Apple La...um, Lemon Tree"

Cheers

The Encounter that what was meant to suck, but Didn't

 Besides my regular Roll20 campaign, "Trade and Turpitude," I've been doing a little campaign for my besties every few weeks. My old Friend and player "T" back in Los Angeles, and the younger couple who sort of adopted me when I moved to a new state, "B and L." I met them when they were looking for a DM to start a campaign, and when that campaign ended after maybe 15 sessions, I stayed friends with them because in all honesty they were the only players I didn't pretty much hate. Heh. And they were so good to me, I held on to them like grim death. They spend most of the year on the road travelling the country but were recently visiting town for a couple weeks. They took me to a couple of great shows, a showing of Ghostbusters with full orchestra lead by Elmer Bernstein's son, and a local theater doing Evil Dead the Musical. 

But while they are on the road we do some online stuff. Like digital Talisman, and now some Roll20.

I love B and L, but they are not what you would call outgoing players. They are fairly reserved. At least compared to my regular players in the other campaign. So after a couple of games in the campaign I showed them a "50 character questions" thing my player Mary gave everybody in the other campaign. Just basic things to flesh out a character. I even use it for some NPC's. I thought it would help B and L get a better handle on their characters, allowing them to be more at ease with basic role-playing. 

After a few weeks they hadn't done it. So I decided to "punish" them. Not really, but I thought I might put them through the ringer with a heavy role-playing situation that would test them, and maybe open them up a bit. But like a lot of chances a DM takes, it might well suck. But the point was to get them to come out a bit. I'm not looking for community theater, but its more fun if players can improv a bit with you. 

So I was going to be using a free Roll20 adventure for an easy-going session. It's called The Festival of Emerelda. It comes with a map of a whimsical fairground. 

Not a lot of content is there. The most obvious are some audio tracks featuring the halfling witch Emerelda and some of the festival event barkers, but they don't work great. In one instance uploading the tracks deleted all the other tracks in my Roll20 jukebox. 

As far as the festival, the contests involving drinking, arm wrestling, and other things were not really working for me as far as the rules and presentation of the games. But I mostly made up my own rules that suited me. The map has some things, like an owlbear chained up with a food bowl, and some Griffons in a pen, all things you can wing it to have some fun with. What interested me was a tent with a couples game, A Suitors Claim. The rules didn’t tickle me for this, so I decided to change it up, and at the same time put my reluctant role-players on the spot with it. 

T was running a fairly outgoing bard, but I would make an example of B and L. I would put them into this heavy role-play contest as a trial by fire. I decided to make it like a 70's dating game show. The party was divided up by two males and two females, so it was perfect. They were split into two sides and they would have to ask questions of each other. The audience would be played by me, and my reaction to the questions and answers would dictate the couple that would finally win. 

Each one of them got 5 questions of varying levels of intimacy, and each character would choose 3 of them to ask. Here are some examples of the questions I came up with:

1)      do you still have feelings for any of your exes? Tell me about it.

2)       What's the worst advice someone else has ever given you?

3)      What do you think happens when you die?

4)      Get up and Dance like your life depends on it for one minute.

5)      Lick a bar of soap.

 Describe the weirdest thing you've ever done while inebriated or impassioned

What's one thing in your life you wish you could change?

What's something you've done that you'd judge someone else for doing?

Put on womens clothing and walk through the crowd

Eat a teaspoon of mustard

I found a jazzy lounge type music in the jukebox to go along with the game. 

And it was on. So, I figured B and L would hem and haw and have a tough time with the improv. I imagined I would be cutting it off in 10 minutes, B and L having learned that they need to get more in touch with their characters just for the sake of role play. I mean, not so much to interact with me, but at least all the players need to be able to communicate openly with each other in rpgs. I got it going and was prepared for it to bomb. 

Here's the crazy thing. It didn't. OK, B was kind of hesitant. His male sorcerer was teamed up with Evador the female cleric, an outgoing rich girl. Seeing that B's shy sorcerer was having trouble with the questions, she assured him it was alright. She asked him the less embarrassing questions, not worried about winning the 50 GP prize money. This seemed to kind of spark an understanding between the two. Still, B rose to the occasion a bit, nicely answering a question about the most embarrassing thing he did drunk (getting naked on a chilly hunting trip).

T and L were far more outgoing. T was running her beautiful Elvish bard Xanthia, and L was running her male elf ranger Myrnigan, a character she created as being very dumb but a bit of a womanizer. With those traits I really wanted L to come out of shyness closet with this character, and with the help of Xanthia she did. Myrnigan and Xanthia asked each other the most challenging questions, and asked each other to perform outrageous acts, like duck quacking and dancing around for a minute. "Lick this bar of soap." They had such great fun with this and were highly entertaining. They of course won the prize. 

So what was supposed to be a minor encounter that bombed, this ended up taking most of the three-hour session! I never expected B and L to enjoy a game with almost no action, but they loved it. I tested them and they passed with flying colors despite my expectations. 

I take chances with sessions here and there over the years, doing something that I know has a decent chance of bombing, but it is so satisfying when your fears turn out to be unfounded. And in this case especially, a couple of reserved players came out of their shells a bit. Gotta love it. 

Cheers

Nintendo Switch and Breath of the Wild part 2

 

Last post I was talking about pushing the button on buying a Nintendo Switch. And like a lot of people a large part of why I got it was to play Zelda: Breath of the Wild, an exclusive to the portable console. 

Is it worth over 400 bucks (including two games and two years of Geek Squad coverage, because there is a good chance you are going to drop the thing at some point) for Zelda alone? Of course not. I imagine there will be times I will want to play it on the road somewhere, or just lazing in bed playing it in travel mode after getting the coffee brewed. 

There is a wealth of games you can get on it. But the two games I got was Breath of the Wild and Cuphead. Cuphead is a simple side scroller that is the kind of thing I think works best on this gimmick. 

Breath is another story altogether. It's a huge open world. Lush and vibrant. Well, it's not as bright and colorful as something like Elder Scrolls Online. It's a very little bit washed out in appearance. Almost kind of like the type of cell shading animation in the Borderlands games. But there is a lot to see, up close and on the horizon. A big screen TV helps with the experience. It's a massive open world, and at times kind of empty. Lonely, in a good way. You really want to take it all in, and that is hard on a small screen. When combat gets hectic, or you are working big moving puzzles in the shrines, it just feels kind of tight on the small screen. I think games like Skyrim are available, so this will be a common decision. Should I play this in handheld mode or save it for the TV?

Still, there is plenty that works on the console screen. Resource collecting in an area with uncomplicated enemy types is fine. So lazing in bed on the weekend with the small screen might require a bit of timing. But it would only be a few minutes before something epic is going on and you'll want to be in front of the TV. 

One of the things that really tickles me is all the nods to old Zeldas. I only ever played the original Zelda game (not just in the dark past but there is a copy on my old Wii). But most of the monster types, and sound cues, harken right back to the old days. But of course updated. Such as the Zora. In old Zelda they were basically big ugly demon fish heads that came up out of the water to spit a rock at you. But here they are dolphin people. And they are strangely attractive in some ways (maybe just in my sick mind). At one point they will give you dolphin armor that lets you zip up tall waterfalls. It won't help you from drowning during swimming moments. 

So, Link in this game awakes from a 100-year slumber to find himself on a big plateau area. Naked and unarmed, he soon finds at least a shirt and pants, and very early on in this game you will be using branches to fight monsters with. 

The Great Plateau from afar

Unable to leave the plateau, even though at points you will see the vast lands below, you wander around getting your adventure legs going. You spend several hours exploring the area. Turns out its the games brilliant way of getting you to practice all the skills you will rely heavily on later. Weapons, combat, running, climbing, foraging, using cooking fires, etc. And this is where you first learn of the shrines. 

The shrines are one of the most important locations in the game. There is no grinding for XP in this. Instead, Hearts (health/HP) and Stamina are mostly gained through completing shrines. There are around 120 scattered around the lands, and often you can be alerted to one being nearby by the Slate you get early iun the game. It's basically an iPhone that has various functions, including shrine detection. 

Once in a shrine, you will usually have to face some challenge, either an elaborate puzzle, or a fight with mechanical guardians of various power levels. Finish the shrine and you will be awarded a Spirit orb. Get 4 of these and you can gain a heart or a stamina.

It turns out stamina is about as important as hearts. You use stamina to run, swim, and climb. And you will climb A LOT in this game. Cliffs and mountain areas are abundant, and some areas will not be accessible until you have gotten enough stamina to climb them. Items, such as a climb-bonus head rag will assist. 

Towers also have an importance. There are several big land areas, each with a tower more or less centrally located within it. There are times you can look around and see up to 3 or 4 towers in the distance. They are very tall. And much like the shrines, they glow at night, so they are easy to see.  In order to reveal a land area on your map, you need to climb one of these towers. Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes there are guards or other things to hinder you. It always feels like an accomplishment to get to the top of one of these. 

One of the most outstanding items in the game is the Glider. You will get this from an old hermit a few short hours into the game on the plateau, and it's how you can finally leave that area. 

It's an amzaing experience to use it, and it becomes part of your character. You will be gliding all over the place. You can fly off a tower and soar over the land or get to a high mountain top to sail over to another peak. It has its limits though. It uses stamina, so you need to look for a landing area before too long. 

I won't get into spoiler territory, but there is a story behind all this, and a main quest. But I'm pretty much still in land exploring mode. After some two dozen hours into this, I'm nowhere near powerful enough to take on main quest challenges. 

So, off the top of my head here are things I love and hate about the game.

Love

The huge open world. It is fairly sparsely populated. There are villages scattered around the lands, where you can see a merchant or lodge a horse. But most of the land is unpopulated, other than monsters. Hills, meadows, woods, lakes, gulley's. But there are always resources to gather. Fruits, vegetables, wild game. Dozens of ingredients you can combine in a cooking fire to make a variety of restorative meals, often with special protections. The higher mountains are cold and you can freeze to death prior to gaining resistant clothing. But combing peppers with other foods can give you limited resistance. Cooking and discovering new meals are one of the simple joys of the game. Can make you hungry too. I'm usually already doing something while gaming that gives me the munchies but cooking up a hearty meal with things like crab, apple, acorns, and bananas can make you head for the kitchen real fast. 

Hunting for shrines. A new shrine is never too far. Sometimes they are hidden behind a hill or on a mountain side, and seeking them out, maybe using your glider, is a total joy. 

The combat. Simple and intuitive. Once you get to the point you can take on multiple foes' things get really good. 

Day and night cycles. Days and nights pass quickly, maybe in about 10 minutes of real time. But they are distinct from each other. At night you can see less in the distance, but things like Shrines and Towers are lit up like Xmas trees. And at night there are more dangers. Things like Skeletons pop out to attack fairly often. If you don't want to waste valuable resources on that, you will try to find a village to lodge in, or to use a fire, to pass the time instantly to early morning. Every few nights this even called Blood Moon happens. It darts across the sky like a red eyeball, and in its wake all the monsters you have cleared out from places will return. Another nice touch, and something to be fearful of. 

Powers. Early on in the game you will gain powers from your Slate to help you in various situations. You can use magnetism to bring a chest to you or make ice blocks on top of water to help you cross a river. And the bomb power is just so useful. From scattering enemies to revealing a hidden area behind rocks. It's just plain funso to blow shit up. Especially because those damn Bokoblins (a Zelda staple since the first game) like to store up barrels of explosives in their lairs. Even without the bomb a well places fire arrow will set them off. 

Korok Seeds. Every now and again when you pick up a stone or explore a secluded mountain top, a little Seed creature will pop out of nowhere and give you a Seed. These can be traded in for more inventory space. This really adds another element to the exploring. After a while you will explore a secluded mountain peak or tall treetop because you feel it's a good place for a seed creature to hide. 

I very truly love the open-ended nature of everything in this game. A true and fully realized sandbox. After the Plateau (and even during it) you are free to go in any direction. There are hints at first, but you are not at all required to explore any areas in any order. You find you own way. And your Slate powers can come in handy to perform a myriad of tasks. 5 years in and I understand people are still finding new ways to overcome challenges and exploration methods. 

Hate

Swimming. Early on you find that you do not have enough stamina to be in the water for more than a few seconds before you die. At first, I thought I was allergic to water or it was acid or something. Later when you build up your stamina it gets better, but at first, it's ridiculous. Even having gained more stamina a few times, I still drown it less than a minute in water. 

Weapons breaking. You find weapons very often, even if it's just a branch or something. But all weapons are fragile as hell. They break constantly. Even magical seeming ones are good for around 5 hits. So, your weapon inventory will be constantly changing. You get sort of used to it, but I can't help feeling like everything is made of bronze or something. 

The rain. All the fucking rain. It seems to rain about 60% of the time in this world. It adds a great atmosphere, but it really sucks when you are climbing. Rain makes you slip and slide down mountains and boulders. When its not raining you know it will be in a couple minutes. At the worst times, like you are high up on a cliff and a storm comes through and down you tumble. Its more annoying than challenging. You may find yourself on a ledge somewhere waiting 10 minutes in real time for the sun to come out. 

There is a sequel coming out, and though I may be a year away from finishing this one, I hope they tighten up some of these annoyances. But despite them, I am fully all in on this. It can be a really relaxing experience, outside of those crazy combat moments. It for sure is going to remain in my top ten all-time favorites for a long time.

Cheers

Nintendo Switch and Breath of the Wild part 1

 

A portable console? I never really felt I needed one. My early progression was Nintendo consoles (I had one about when Super Mario 3 came out in the early 90's), to Genesis, to PlayStation, to PlayStation 2, and on to being an XBOX guy with the 360 and now to the latest XBOX. . 

In recent years when away from home I was happy to play Poker on my iPhone or iPad when the moments were free. For about 10 years I have loved to play Governor of Poker, a great app. I started with 2, and they are on GOP 3 the last few years. In 2 you just played the computer AI, but 3 introduced playing with people from around the world. It actually seems to encourage trash talking and flirting. Fun for quick 10-minute breaks. 

And hell, I don't find the time to play on my consoles as much as I would like. It was the rare game that had me playing more than a couple hours a week. But there were great loves that had me going 6 hours a week or more. Final Fantasy 7. The Resident Evil games. Fallout 3. 

But in recent times I have been watching a lot of G4 and IGN and other video game related channels, content on Pluto TV streaming. Most of the programs are years old (besides G4 which is on a relaunch year, and just laid off most of their office and on camera people, including the odious FROSK), but I still like to watch. Nobody talks much about the Nintendo Switch lately, but it did come out half a decade ago. But the content on some of these channels is years old. And this year I have seen a lot of talk about Switch, albeit, again, from a few years ago. And some of these older bits included one of my current favorites, Scott the Woz. 

Scott does pretty funny little video game review and history skits, and I became a fan right away. And Every year since the Switch came out, he does a segment on it based on its existence up to that time. And this went a long way to perk my interest enough to nab my own Switch. 

So then came the long road the last several months of getting one. Yeah, I hemmed and hawed with myself. I'm not broke or anything, but with a couple games and a couple years of Best Buy Geek Squad replacement was well or 400 bucks. But I worked hard, at a hospital, during the height of the pandemic when most of my county sat home on their asses collecting fat Biden bonus Unemployment checks, and felt I needed to start rewarding myself.

Regular versions were around. But I wanted the OLED, which has a bigger screen and couple other nice upgrades. Better speakers and such. But the OLED had to be ordered. It is a popular version, there was a shortage due to pandemic demand and chip shortages (thanks again, Sleepy Joe!), and this was something I needed to impulse buy. I'm not going to wait a week and a half. 

This went on forever. But then it got a little better. Just a three- or four-day delay. I can have it by the weekend? Fuck yeah! I hit "buy." 

I was excited when it showed up. I wish I had done an unboxing video or something. But you can still watch one. 

Yeah, easy as pie. In less than a half hour I had a couple games downloaded. One was a scroller I had admired from afar for a couple years. It was Cuphead, a run and shoot side scroller that featured characters straight out of nightmarish old 1930's toons. It was originally a little indy game but got popular fast and you can find it in places like the XBOX game pass. And of course, in the Switch shop.

I got Cuphead to have a basic little game that does not need a big screen TV to enjoy (although it looks awesome on my 60 inch). This is what I would most likely play on a park bench or hotel room. But my epic game to enjoy at home would be the game most people buy the Switch to play. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Because I have a lot to say about this open world solo game, I'm going to do a part 2 about that in particular. But just a few words about the fun of the Switch console itself.

Less than half the size of my iPad, it seems weird to think of it as a console. But that is what it is. Unlike your iPhone or iPad, it is designed purely for gaming. And it seems a powerful little thing. 

The Switch surely gets the name for all the switching up you can do. First and foremost, the big feature is the portability of play, so out in the field you will play with the "joy Con" controller bits attached. 

When you slide the joy Cons in, you get a satisfying electronic "snap" sound. 

And when you want to play on the telly, you stick your console into the docking station where the HDMI cable goes to the TV. 

The dullest color pics I could find

When docked you stick your little joy Cons into the "grip, and viola you have a little controller. You can actually do this when not linked to the TV. The Switch unit has a kickstand so you can set it on a table.  The joy Con grip combo is fairly sturdy and does the job well, although if you desire the usual controller size that you are used to on other consoles you can actually get a variety of separate controllers. 

I may just get a basic controller if for no reason other than I play 90% of the time on my TV so far. I have travelled very little with it. I have used the console on its own usually kicking back on a Sunday to play Cuphead, a game that works well for a small screen. The joy Cons themselves have no battery, but the last a few hours when charged, and when attached to the console they are always charging. The Switch unit itself seems to hold a very good charge. 

Breath of the Wild? Well, it's a big, beautiful world in there. And such works best on a big screen. But I've had some moments with it off the big screen. You can get hundreds of games for Switch, but Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the big monkey in the room when it comes to this console. And I'll talk about my experience with it next post. 

Cheers. 

Are many (most) RPG content creators struggling with mental illness?

 

Since I sort of abandoned older edition D&D in order to actually find players with ease, I don't spend much time looking at forums or old school blogs. The last few months I have invested most of my game related time trying to improve my knowledge and skill with Roll20. And since most of my online group are Roll20 and 5th ed experts who have had patience with my shortcomings, I've probably improved about 3% or so each session. 

But I do look around what still passes for OSR. Sometimes at things that are informative, and sometimes things that are dumpster fires. So I learn little bits of info on some of the OSR's more, um, unique individuals. But a blog I have looked at here and there the last few months is Tenkar's Tavern, run by former New York policeman Erik Tenkar. Unlike a lot of OSR stuff I peek at, Tenkar doesn't interest me in a "here's an oddball to have a larf at" way. He seems to be more about news. And to a large degree, showcasing bad behavior among the ranks of bad actors who are trying to get paydays from the gaming scene. 

My interest in the old school has for sure waned, but I still have some. So, this seems a place where you can get info on that, and maybe even look at videos here and there on the subject. For instance, I think it was the first place I heard about the whole Satine Phoenix/Jamison Stone fiasco. 

I'm on the Discord for the blog, and it's a rare case where I interact with gamers who are not my players from time to time. I do my best to not "get into it" with anybody. I'm not doing the act in the OSR I was doing over 10 years ago where I was taking a "Howard Stern" approach to things. But something I wrote that I thought was fairly mild got me into it a bit with a regular there who apparently a content creator and is schizophrenic, in their own words. 

Some time ago I saw a bit somewhere that included a blurb by James Raggi, on his Facebook if I recall, where the Lamentations of the Flame Princess creator wondered why anybody would clean their toilet. Sort of "I mean, you shit into it right? Why have it clean?" So I brought it up in the Discord in relation to an upcoming interview with JR, and said he should be questioned about it. 

I have a couple of friends in Berkley who are roommates, and once when I was staying over one weekend, I went to put some leftover Chinese in the microwave, and it was a sight to behold. Gross is the best word. The debris of a couple dozen exploded bowls of soup and marinara was caked and baked into it. Hanging from the ceiling like stalactites.  Long story short, I ate cold Chinese. 

Did I say anything about it? You bet. To this day. "You guys have much younger, cute girlfriends. For that alone would you not clean it from time to time?" It's mostly a joke, but also a WTF? And certainly, they could have cleaned the toidy a bit as well. I don't know that any of it is out of mental illness, but they are folk musicians, so..

I have to admit I have let the john go for a couple weeks, mostly when I knew nobody would be visiting (I don't tolerate drop-bys). I'm not a clean freak by any means, though a little germophobic. So keeping it, or the kitchen sink, or whatevers clean is half my own notion of how I want to live, and half me not wanting anybody to think I'm a fucking slob. On the weekend if I am in town I work the bathroom, the kitchen, and other spots that go to hell very fast. It's just how I want to live. And there weren't always little birdies floating around me like Snow White. I've done it at times I was unhappy as hell. But at some point you just bite the bullet and get off your ass. But in my case, sure, I am probably a little OCD.

And that is where my comment came from. I don't just assume everybody has mental illness. Unless being kind of a slob is automatically a form of mental problem. We want to tag things nowadays, and sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it does not. But clearly here, though mocking for sure, I wasn't thinking I was making fun of somebody who had mental illness and had lost all touch with humanity and could not take 3 minutes to avoid having a cesspool in their home. No more than me giving pals shit for their lack of microwave cleanliness. 

But then, suddenly, anger in a comment thread:

Regular: You're not punching down on the mentally Ill, are you? I turns out people who create imaginary worlds that few people play are likely to have some degree of mental difference.

So here for the first time I heard somebody say the person I was goofing on a bit was mentally ill. I for sure never thought of it that way. Unless just somebody seeming a bit of a slob and an oddball is to be taken as mental illness. But now I'm not so sure. And even more importantly, most DM's create imaginary worlds that few people play. So, am I mentally ill?

Regular: Ho"How many books have you published? How many hours to you spend working in isolation?"

OK, he went on to say that he was schizophrenic, and he was clearly upset. In my defense I never heard about situations that were mentioned, such as Raggi laying naked in the snow lamenting his life. But long and short I apologized if I triggered anything (and Tenkar came in to defuse things a bit) and the conversation moved on to Critical Role or some such. 

Am I lacking empathy as one comment from the guy had claimed? I don't think so, again mental illness was not on my mind when I joked about the toilet. I for sure have empathy in lots of situations where folk are disabled. Mostly physically so. I have an older brother in a wheelchair over a decade. So for sure I relate to things with empathy. I almost got in fights with pricks who I saw parking in handicap spaces. I run to help open doors or get things off the shelf at the supermarket. When my parents got very old, I suddenly was very sympathetic to the elderly. But these are things I can relate to as it affected my family. Hell, my oldest brother was a raging alcoholic at 13 years old. I spent decades watching him struggle with booze and pills. For me personally there were times in my life I maybe should have had some help. As a teen my breakup with my first sweetheart was devastating. It probably affected my relationships the rest of my life in at least some small ways (I avoided marriage like the plague). And in my life my weight has gone up and down. I've always been very active, and when I have an accident or an injury that keep me immobile and out of the gym and off the mountain bike for a time, I start to pork up. But is that a mental or a physical thing? I guess it's all complicated.

One of my favorite sayings is "there but for the grace of god go I." But an even greater quote is by, I think, Abe Lincoln "many times in life I have been driven to my knees by the overwhelming conviction I had nowhere else to go. 

One of my best local friends was in Afghanistan. I knew that a few months ago when he and my other bestie, his wife, came over for boardgame night and I had Squid Games on. The "Red light Green light" segment, where a big crowd of innocent people are helpless shot at when they move and dozens of heads are shown with bullets blasting through them. He muttered "wow, pretty violent." I asked him if it was bothering him. "Yeah." I shut it right off. I still feel bad about it. I remember the year before going to their place one night and making them watch Kickass, one of my favorite movies. It had dozens of heads and faces being blasted to bits (mostly by a little girl). I never noticed it bothered him then. But now I know. He's not a wimp by any means. But he saw action in a fucked-up place. Saw friends gunned down or blown up. It doesn't matter that he goes hunting every year and blows the shit out of deer and whatnot. It bothers him to see people blown to bits. Now I know. Understanding. 

I have empathy. I guess just like me not assuming Raggi's toilet ponderings were just the thoughts of a "weird" dude and not a sign of true trouble, the upset guy with schizophrenia on the Discord just assumed I ran around "punching down" on folk with mental problems. I wasn't, at least not intentionally. Long ago I stopped being in road rage situations. I realized that you never know what somebody is going through. That they might be acting out from a place of desperation. They say depression is anger turned inward. That rings true. That was a long time ago, but it was a great decision. Don't assume. No more fistfights on the roadways. 

I still think joking about somebody not wanting to clean the toilet is fairly mild as far as insults go. A little mockery can be inspirational. Get called fat a lot and you might try to lose weight. I dunno. I can learn new tricks. I was fairly jokey about transgender people most of my life. As a teen I was a Culture Club fan, but then still called Boy George "Thing George." Some years later I saw footage of him publicly fucked up on heroine, and at that point just saw a person in trouble. Perhaps still slightly homophobic (I never wanted anybody to come to harm despite my mild discrimination) later in life, in the couple of years before I left Southern California, I became friends with a transgender neighbor. She was the first person to call me when I moved to a new state to see how I was. It all birthed new perspectives. 

Anyway, the cherry on top is that within an hour or two of the postings, Tenkar went on camera and spoke out on it. 

Mental Health and the OSR - Just How Prevalent Are Mental Challenges in Our Community? - YouTube

Now, you can't attack the message. He's a sincere guy, and it all has merit. Again, I just thought I was joking about a slobby metal head. I've known a few of them. And punk rock was my teens. I've seen lots of horrible toilets in some domiciles, and I never went to depression or mental illness as the cause. 

But as far as so many RPG creators having real mental issues, I don't have to think too deeply for it to start making sense. I think this hobby, especially the older school inhabitants of it, do tend towards things that I thought of as just "weirdo" and it maybe was much further than that. As Tenkar alludes to at one point, there can be degrees of it. And like most thinking people I have had my bad moments. And months. Maybe even years. Like a lot of people. Most people. 

So maybe I can be less "jokey." At least among strangers. There are a lot of oddballs in the OSR, but there often may be more to it. Hell, maybe I'm one of them.