“Don’t Drink and Game”

Obviously if you’ve read a few of my posts from a year or so ago, you know that I am no stranger to “mind altering substances” at game time. With my love of brewed liquids (and I ain’t talking coffee and tea), the title of this post is obviously a ruse. These days I enjoy several ales during the games I run, with Bass Ale, Fat Tire Ale, and Blue Moon being current favorites (all usually on sale in 12 packs at your local Rite Aid store). I know this sounds like a lot to you, but I am over 6’2”, currently built like a Samoan, and for sure ain’t no momma’s boy Sunday drive drinker. Although I have cut down lately so I can chop down that Samoan build 5 or 50 lbs, my years of practice give me a certain amount of tolerance. And for sure when driving from a session I’ll knock it off around an hour and a half before ending the game (I privately refer to this as “Engine Cooldown Period”), and often take a walk a few blocks to shake the mist out of my melon. Maybe grab a vitamin water at the local market before heading back to the car.

Almost everybody in the group but Big Ben (total tea totaler – although now that I think of it I don’t think he even drinks tea) enjoys a few drinks. Dan Dan the Power Game Man almost always has a sixer of Rolling Rock he’ll suck down 5 of. Andy, fairly slight of build, like 2 or 3 ales. And little Ben often has a tall can of something. Paul is not much of a drinker, but a couple of times has brought along a few Jack Daniels Lemonades. Our lady player Terry likes a couple of ales as well.

And as you may know from past posts some of us like to smoke a bit of the pipeweed before the game and maybe during a break. The fact is I would probably do this more, but during the game sometimes if I step out on the patio for a quick inhale Dan will come running out thinking it’s a chance for a cigarette break, and this can cause all the other little penguins to come waddling out to see what the fuss is and take part in whatever substance they prefer. But for the most part I would not say that anything is getting used in excess. If I am getting a ride, I might drink an ale or two more, but nothing crazy or shameful.

So sometimes I think about gaming, and how for the most part my experiences outside of the group have been fairly sober. When I was running KOTOR sessions for an established group of middle aged Star Wars dorks in Hollywood the other year, it seemed like at least one of them was a beer drinker but did not do it at the table. So I ran those sessions, that were already treated like I was working for these guys, stone cold sober. And that was one place I really felt I could use a few drinkypoos, being surrounded by what amounted to very weird and ultimately unfriendly creeps. At another session I went to last year, the host made it very clear to anybody that was playing that no substances, alcohol included, would be tolerated. And hell, in that case, being a fairly mellow and happy drinker (much nicer guy than sober me) things might have worked out differently if I had had a couple of belts when something unpleasant and unfriendly ended up going down. I just might not have walked out of that game less than an hour into it, which I don’t think any DM worth his salt wants a player to do.

I’ve had a couple of nice drinky games outside the main group the last year or so though. At last year’s Socal Smackdown con I had brought a little cooler with some beers in to get me through the session, and Cyclopeatron who was in attendance even hit me up with a nice rum and coke from the hotel bar. And earlier this year Cyclo organized a little pub game in Anaheim (or was it Fullerton?) with me and Trent Foster running our early sessions, and I had quite a few pints in that one (full tab for me and my driver Terry’s drinks? 90 bucks).

But one of my attendees at the Smackdown Session, Gary his name was I think, asked me to run some sessions at his place for some people in the future, but that no drinking of any kind would be tolerated. Needless to say, those games never panned out.

What is it with the drinking hate among many gamers? This is not a new phenomenon. In the 90’s, when I was running games for a group of mostly women in the latter part of it, those were some smoke and tequila soaked gaming. But each and every person there parties. And not falling down drinking. They were several hour weekend sessions, and we would do a shot and a toast from time to time. Well ok, I was putting beer in that mix too, but I lived a 15 minute stagger away so no big woop if I was feeling pretty wet on the brain by the end of the session. Hell, I was a much younger man then. But I also remember going to some games in the area on a Friday night some guy was hosting in the late 90’s. . These were terrible games, with a GM who kept no notebooks and totally made things up, badly as he went along. But I stuck with it because I think I was low on players at that time and was sort of trolling one player he had who I felt was a right fit for my group. But by game two I was bringing a six pack along to dull the pain and boredom. A couple of games later I was alone with the host working on some GURPS character for another game, and when talking about drawbacks for a character, disabilities or whatever they called them in that system, he made a big point of telling me alcoholism would be considered a weakness, and that he personally was creeped out by it. Ah, I see. My sixer on a Friday night habit was freaking the boring little douche out. I think I was done with that group at that point.

What do this people think is going to happen? Am I, or anybody else who wants a few refreshing adult beverages, some kind of old west Indian savages who will go nuts and kill the whole family if we get our hands on firewater? What’s the deal with that?

You only have to read a few threads on Dragonsfoot or RPG.net to see that there are drinkers out there in the game community. But that seems to be not the norm, and for the most part gamers are some kind of dorkish prudes who see it as evil. They probably would even see drinking half a Near Beer as some kind of pathetic persons personal struggle with Satan. I don’t get it. If you have kids, then I understand not wanting smoking to go on around your property. But a few beers? What is the real harm? Would these people see prohibition come back to save all the poor sick souls who enjoy a handful of suds during a several hour sit down were pretending and mind expanding seem to go hand in hand?

I myself would not want to run a game on mushrooms or acid or have players doing so, but I think that is a far cry from a little alcohol. Nobody is going to come to your game, have a few drinks, and wreck the place. They aren’t going to offer any to your kids (if you have kids why are you having weird strangers over to your place anyway?). What the hell is the real harm here? Stick up the ass may be the best explanation I can come up with for each and every time I have encountered anti-drinkers in the gaming scene.

Playing D&D with Pub Stars

I guess if a fortune teller told me a couple of years ago that I would be running a Dungeons and Dragons session in a busy pub, I would have told her not to listen to those spirits again, because they were full of shit. But there I was, at a Santa Ana British Pub, running a sort of Tegel Manor prequel game for seven players, and drinking pint after pint of delicious Elvish brew (Bass Ale).

Cyclopeatron put this together, and it was an interesting experiment. Basically, we took over a back area, slid some tables together, and I did the 5 hour session while Trent Foster ran at another table nearby. It was a stormy day in Southern California, and I really thought I might face the prospect of this falling through if a lot of players decided not to forge out into the weather. I told my regular player and designated driver Terry, and great trooper, to bring along her Mythos card sets in case I had to go ahead and fold whatever players showed up for me into Trent’s session (who was willing to have up to 12 people play).

But as it turned out, I had a full boat. Seven players including Terry. Wow. I think Trent ended up with a couple players less than I had, which surprised me. I think some kind of word of mouth, somewhere, is getting around about the breezy little OD&D sessions I’ve been doing since last year. It was really gratifying to me to have such a great showing.

At Around 11AM the pub was filled with hollering and shouting soccer hooligans, but before long the TV matches were over and it quieted down a bit. We took our time getting characters set up, I ordered up two pints at a time, and tore into some delicious Cod and Chips when it finally showed up. I had a nice cozy booth type seat to adjudicate from, and it was the perfect amount of players for the space we had. Just enough room for everything and everybody.

The pub manager was a hilarious Manchester lady names Jackie, and her often mean and sarcastic attitude in the morning blended nicely with her more warm and friendly chatting in the afternoon when things quieted down a bit. Personally, I think she had tilted a few herself in the back, which is always a bringer of cheery feelings. One of my players that day was also English, from the London area (there was an old London map in the bathroom that he could see his old neighborhood on), so the combination of the Euro accents, pub atmosphere, and rainy day was super conducive to good gaming feelings. It was all quite perfect. After making sure of taking care of Terry’s Cod lunch and a couple of pints for being my designated driver, the day cost me around 90 bucks, but it was well worth it for a great day out. To me this was more fun than a day at Disneyland or Knott’s. Limey manager Jackie said that for next time she might arrange a buffet and some booze discounts to cut back on costs a little.

As far as the scenario, I did a sort of Tegel Manor prequel, set in a time before that mansion become the most haunted place in the world. I used some of the Tegel personalities from the 100 portraits in the Tegel Manor adventure, and had them still be alive, and a family trying to hold off the encroaching curse of the area.

Later this week I’ll post a bit about that Tegel Manor Prequel session, and also about tomorrows Night Below session, which I think will be quite brutal and very likely the last game of the campaign.

Meanwhile, go to Cylcopeatron’s site to see a couple of photos of the sessions from that day.

WOTC I do not wish you well

In a recent post over at Cyclopeatron. Cyclo talks about a new trading card element for D&D from WOTC, and of course it is just a lame move by this company to try and recapture a collectable card fad that had its heyday over a decade ago; plugging it into a game with a name that has serious geek zeitgeist. This was the first I heard of it, and I still do not know all the details, but jeez, what utter shit this once mysterious and wonderful game has been made into by these modern marketeers. No wonder so many of us hold on to the retro.

But what strikes me even odder is the commentary you hear from blog followers who do not play current WOTC products, but “wish them well.” What kind of “happy happy joy joy” mentality does somebody have to have to wish this corporate crapola well? Who that does not play with current WOTC merchandise would give a flying rats ass about WOTC and it’s chickenshit schemes for its product. These well-wishers are more Pollyanna than the chipper gay policemen from Demolition Man.

OK, you say “it’s good to get new people into the hobby.” Why? Because you can’t get/keep a group together? Do you hope D&D will take off gigantically like the mid-80’s again when groups were too full and closed to new players, starting a soup line of hungry players wanting to play at your table? Or is it so it becomes more mainstream and therefore you no longer have to have some weird guilt/shame thing in your gut when you are around people who are talking about wine and cars and The LA Lakers and who think this kind of activity is for the proverbial geektards?

I mean, when I started D&D the late 70’s, you talked about it in school in whispers. Just like comic books and being into Sci Fi movies instead of cars, it was like we were part of this little secret society. “We” watched Star Trek and Dark Shadows reruns, “They” watched C.H.I.P.S and Movin’ on (you may not remember it, but it was an action drama featuring truckers that all the dipshits in “special” classes watched in the early 80’s). Even in elementary school I remember the class voting on it's favorite TV show, with "That's My Momma"( a piece of junk Sanford and Son rip-off) getting the winning nod, and me being jeered for voting for Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

By high school, I would sneak away after football practice to run Tegal Manor for the Fantasy Role Playing Association meeting in some unlocked classroom. If word got out to my teammates what I was doing, I’d have probably gotten goofed on relentlessly in the locker room, and the cheerleader dates would have dried up. I loved that this was a small, underground, niche hobby. That was half the fun for me.

Patton Oswalt, D&D playing geek comedian, puts how I feel well here in one of his rants about underground geek culture:

“…Admittedly, there’s a chilly thrill in moving with the herd while quietly being tuned in to something dark, complicated, and unknown just beneath the topsoil of popularity. Something about which, while we moved with the herd, we could share a wink and a nod with two or three other similarly connected herdlings.

When our coworkers nodded along to Springsteen and Madonna songs at the local Bennigan’s, my select friends and I would quietly trade out-of-context lines from Monty Python sketches—a thieves’ cant, a code language used for identification. We needed it, too, because the essence of our culture—our “escape hatch” culture—would begin to change in 1987…”

I don’t think anybody needs to hate WOTC, and if they actually play their products then more power to them. But if you don’t, you at least wish them well? Do you actually know the people who work there? The top brass all the way down to the lowest goof-off file clerk who after hours pisses in the office coffee pot? Fuck them. I don’t wish them anymore well than I do any other souless corporation in this country. That they are in the game-making business holds no mystique for me, and does not for sure automatically garner my well-wishes. James Raggi I wish well. Geoffry McKinney I wish well. Goodman I wish goddamn well! WOTC I wish them all a jolly springtime standing in the goddamn unemployment line.

Wizards of the Coast, please fail horribly and die a miserable bankruptcy court death. I still have my copies of OD&D and 1st edition, and it is all I will ever need for my D&D.

Too Many Blogs?

When Bob over at Cylcopeatron first posted a list of gaming blog rankings (by follower) some time back, I was surprised by two things. First, that my blog at that time was somewhere around the top 25 percent of such blogs. And second, there seemed to be less blogs than I thought out there. Bob posted such a list again recently, and two things stuck out at me. Firstly, there were now a lot more blogs out there. Secondly, a lot of low-follower blogs had grown substantially in the amount of followers.

Now, my blog hasn’t exactly grown that much since the first list, despite fairly regular posting. Well, here’s the thing; I don’t think amount of posts, nor necessarily the content, matter that much anymore. A couple of years ago it did. Grognardia has such substantial growth in large part because of sheer amounts of posting, not necessarily the content. Other large follower blogs were either around a long time, or had a female or porno connection of some kind. Not to say by any means that these guys did not have great posts, which of course they do. But it is kind of arbitrary in many cases. If Playing D&D With Porn Stars was just “Zak’s D&D Musings” without mention of gangbang girls running elves, he’d probably have somewhere around 200 followers (or less). Don’t get me wrong, he is obviously a smart and talented dude, but lots of smart and talented dudes (and I don’t necessarily consider myself one of those) often have only around 200 followers.

After that first list at Cyclo’s, I saw one blog that was basically just a dude posting text from Edgar Rice Burroughs with no personal commentary, shoot up fairly quickly from around 20 followers to around 50. Perhaps that is in no small part because Bob at Cyclo asked that his readers support these low-follower blogs (many of which had few followers for obvious reasons). I saw another blog who had followers somewhat less than my count, shoot up past me soon after that Cyclo list. Why? Well, the content certainly did not necessarily improve. But I’ll tell you what, every new blog I look at has this one guy as a recently subscribed follower. He figured out that the more you sign up on other blogs, the more of them will do you a solid back and follow you. His comment in Bob’s recent post was “wow, I’m inspired to try harder!” Harder doing what, signing up for every other blog out there? All that takes is having time on your hands.

That’s all great, but I don’t personally care about amount of followers. It is not at all indicative of my content, nor that all of them are actually reading it. I tend to look at and subscribe to the folks who comment on my post. That is how I learn about and join other blogs. I have no interest in starting my own low-end fanzine nor advertising some new game or scenario I have created for sale. I’m just a gamer doing some gaming, man.

I think the blogosphere as a community thing is great, but in the case of classic gaming I think we are starting to have a glut of blogs that don’t have much to say or much to offer. It is becoming more important to some to have a blog and have a lot of followers than it is to game.

I personally don’t have the time to join up all the others blogs out there, and especially to actually read them all. And to join just to get followers would seem kind of hollow to me. I just do my gaming, and do some blogging because I’ve been at it a long time and feel I have a lot to say. This blog has become a place for me to vent about gaming past and present. A lot of negativity has come out of that, but that is part of the vent. The truth is I love gaming, it has been a big part of my life, and it has mostly been a positive experience for me. The blog, not always so much. One guy freaking out epically on his blog because I tore up one of his creepo players some time ago actually cost me a few followers on my blog . Did he have a point? To a degree. Did I? To a degree. In our own ways we overreacted (and both of us could have talked to the other before acting, but we are dudes and dudes can be dumbasses sometimes). Do I care that some people found my rantings too offensive to continue with? Not a wit. I’m not fully the person I sometimes appear to be on my blog any more than I (or anybody) am always the person I am when I get ticked off at something in life in general. That is why I do that blog. Good or bad, I always have something to say. Either something happy about my gaming experiences, or to let off some steam.

In real life I am usually the biggest person in the room, both physically and in personality. I live large no matter what I do. But do I care if I am a big dog in the blogosphere. Hells no. I have something to say for now, and I hope at least a handful read and have something to say back to me about it (good or bad). I’m actually getting something out of blogging about gaming that I think a lot aren’t. I care not for amount of followers. I care about what I have to say and what others have to say back.

A lot of blogs will be gone in a couple of years (I don’t plan on doing this forever). But as long as I do it I will try to live it by one thing – “blog because you game. Don’t game because you blog.”

That makes sense. I think…

EDIT: I also should add that in the last couple of months I have had two unrelated computer problems that slowdown my own joining of other sites, and my commenting on them. First, my home computer got hit by the Thinkpoint virus and is still messed up, so I spend less time on it. Second, many comment functions on other blogs do not work on my office computer. Only those that allow a pop-up can be commented upon. Other problems exist, such as Bob's Cylopeatron site not loading due to adult content (which he told me does not exist on his site), and also my links to his site don't work for some reason. So to those whom I don't respond to as far as joining your blog or commenting upon, I plead severe tech problems! If you visit my blog and comment and I don't check out your stuff, be sure and remind me to give it another try!

The Serious sides of Gamma World/Mutant Future

Today in his “Free Friday” post, James over at Grognardia started a discussion on taking this genre more seriously, pointing out a Jim Ward article at “Wizards of the Cost (spelling mine).”

This hit home for me, as it reminded me of a bit of a conundrum in my recent attempts at doing a Metamorphosis Alpha game (using Mutant Future). We have played around four games or so far, and in the most recent game a couple of weeks ago the party came close to where they are going to exit the level and find out about the world “outside” the fields they know. The next session should be both interesting and exciting as they find out they are on a spaceship, and just how large the universe actually is.

But as far as Grognardia James’ post is concerned, it really struck a chord with me. You see, those first few games came off just so goofy. We had big fun with the powers and disabilities (nobody wanted to be pure human because we had such a gas with the random mutations), and character creation was a hoot. Unfortunately the hilarity did not stop with the wacko mutations.

In Gamma World and Met. Alpha games of my youth, we had some giddy fun, and there were laughs galore in the games. But we always approached it with a certain degree of seriousness. There may be insane powers abounding, but the game is still set in an apocalyptic setting. It is a game of survival even more than D&D, and at least in the case of Gamma World you are adrift in a decaying world full of danger. Now, I actually played in Cyclopeatron’s Gamma World (my first time sitting down as a Gamma World player in around 30 years) one-shot earlier this year, and the game was full of good chuckles. But even though this GW setting was more akin to what you would find on a classic heavy metal album cover (our characters were mutated rock stars of the far far far future), and was almost more high fantasy than any kind of serious science fiction, it managed to find enough of a dramatic tone to balance out the goofiness.

But goofy is just how my first few of these recent games I ran. But before this most recent game I put my finger on the button of what kept certain seriousness from drifting in along with the crazy mutants. And what the problem was comes right down to me. You see, without even thinking about tone, I went into the games laughing more than anybody. And I set the scenes and encounter with a certain comedic tone without even realizing it at first. All the laughing is great, but this isn’t fucking Toon or Paranoia or some other game where laughs are first and foremost. It’s basically Gamma World, and it should be more frightening and chilling than pure guffaws.

So before this last game I decided that the world could be as goofy as hell, or whatever the players wanted out of it. But for me, as GM, I needed to try and not share in the laughs. I had to approach my game setting and the session more or less serious as a heart attack. Instead of describing an encounter with a flock of sheep that turn out to be carnivorous with a big grin on my puss, I need to think in terms of just how scary this could be. A pleasant postcard scene of sheep on a hill, then suddenly this flock is tearing into you like fluffy wolves. Lovecraft could easily present this weird situation in a non-goofy manner, so why can’t I?

The funniest movies are the ones that act like they are not in on the joke. Austin Powers was funniest in the first movie because he wasn’t in on the joke like he seemed to be in the later films. And the funniest Jim Carry movies have everyone in the foreground talking about some serious matter, while in the background Ace Ventura is jumping around with an alligator or whatever clenched on his ass. Or, you can even turn that around a bit. The home invasion and rape scene in A Clockwork Orange has in modern times become sort of a comedic punch line, but at its core it is one of the most frightening scenes in any film ever made. It all depends on approach.

So in the last game I took a more serious stance, and although the players still had a jolly good time with their sicko super powers and crippling disabilities I think there was a bit more respect for the setting, and what I was trying to do with it.

The things that happen in any role-playing game very often elicit laughs and humorous ironies, but sometimes it is best if the GM doesn’t act like he is in on the joke.

Top RPG Blogs

It's kind of unreal, but according to Cyclopeatrons RPG blog post, TEMPLE OF DEMOGORGON is in the top 25 out of 177 Blogspot blogs (as far as I know the most popular RPG blog venue) in regard to number of followers. I had zero idea it would be that high.

I know it is arbitrary to a degree. A lot of it has to do with age of blog, number of posts per week, and support of other blogs. But I hardly have that big an output compared to others in my range, many of those are much older than my blog, and I am lagging in my reading and commenting (currently my work has tough socializing filters). I've also turned off many readers by the rawness of some of my stuff.

I want to thank TOD supporters, and especially those who comment for reading for whatever reason - fun read or trainwreck. I'm going to work harder on checking out your blogs and commenting (if you do indeed blog).

Long live the gamers!

The Loud Mouthed DM

I've never had a review of my DMing style appear anywhere, and I haven't had a photo taken of my game table since the 80's (I think).

Well, here is a very rare example of both. Bob "Cyclopeatron," who sat in for my Socal Smackdown OD&D session, posted briefly about it and you can check it out over at Cyclo's blog.

This is the first time I have ever been referred to as a "Loud Mouth" in a positive light, and I thank you Bob! Just remember, me drinking makes my voice louder - and you drinking makes my voice sound louder to you!

Cyclopeatron reminded me too that this was an old school session with some historical significance. There were a few guys present who got into D&D in it's ancient past just like I did, and I was glad for their presence. Considering the prominance of board games and miniature battles at this con, it may actually be a bit of a miracle that this session occured at all!

Again, thanks to everyone who was there. I'm really glad that session happened, especially considering my current shakey confidence in my own regular group.

Cheers, guys

Con Man

This weekend I went to the Socal Smackdown con in Anaheim. Yes, I attended a game convention. No, hell did not freeze over.

At the Minicon event a few weeks ago I ran an evening OD&D session, and it was well received by some of the guys. As a matter of fact, Mark (known on Dragonsfoot and other places as “Fred C. Dobbs”) suggested I continue the game at Socal Smackdown, a new convention affiliated with the dudes from Brookhurst Hobbies out in the OC (Orange County). Mark is an original con-attending Southern California gamer as far back as the 70’s, and as he and a couple of the other players were interested in continuing their characters (at Minicon I proclaimed that “I don’t do one-shots” and that I would like to make it possible to continue somehow after that day). Long and short of it is Adam at Brookhurst hooked me up with a Saturday and a Sunday afternoon session at the Hilton. It was icing on the cake because it turns out running a game got you “volunteer” status so I got in free.

The Smackdown was held in the Hilton Hotel on Convention Way right next to Disney. Now when I was a kid going to Disneyland, The Hilton was there, but a lot of the surrounding area was just parking lots and dirt fields. Damn I feel old. Now it is a ton of big hotels and as before a bunch of little crappy ones. Very congested area now as far as buildings. Anyway, the Hilton was a hundred and ten bucks a night and I wanted to go cheapie for two nights, so I grabbed a tiny Super 8 single bed room just down the street for a sweet 57 bucks a night.

It was a cozy little room, with a nice big TV and a large sink area, so I was set up for party time like I tend to do at hotel stays. I had a big cooler chock full of ale and beer, my boombox, and my laptop. I even brought my mountain bike for quick store trips. As a single man in a small room, I of course was in drinking mode. By the time I was set up in the room (even managed a quick swim in the grimy little pool) and ready to go over to the con for my 2PM start time Saturday, I was already about 4 drinks in. With a small plush shoulder cooler I was even further prepared to have a supply of firewater (I mean, why stop at that point, eh?). There was a decent turn out of players besides Mark and some of the other guys, so the dungeon crawl was on and I had a head full of steam. Bob “Cyclopeatron” hit the bar early on and brought me a rum and coke which just added fuel to the fire.

It was a fun session, and the four hours just flew by. So OD&D represented and was large and in charge for awhile there in the RPG area (the poor fella in the table next to us had a pretty poor turn out for his Pathfinder and had to cancel, after setting up a computer and a printer and all kinds of stuff). Nobody really bothered me, which is rare for when I have some strangers in a game. Well, this one older dude rolled his eyes and groaned when I said we are doing 1st level characters, and then he wanted to run one of his existing, high stat characters instead of rolling one up, but it didn’t ruin it for me. Everybody else was a good sport and added to the fun.

Well, I was set to sit in on Mark “Fred C. Dobbs” homebrew fantasy game later that night, so I hit the Super 8 again to wolf down some Subway (BLT) keep the alchohol train rolling, and made it back to the Hilton for the “Argent” session. It was an RPG based on a boardgame Mark had going at one time, so it was a bit different. I did enjoy the session, and created an exceptional barbarian character who was fun to play.

A lot of Sunday afternoon games had little turnout, and mine was no exception. The focus at this con really was boardgame type things. Very niche. So Sunday afternoon Mark and Mat’s characters hired on some henchmen and took a couple of hour wack at the dungeon, even pretty much clearing out the 2nd level. After that they were taking off from the con early, so I wandered around the tables a bit before going back to the hotel. There was a lot of Battlemech (or whatever) and Flames of War and other board games going on. One that was fun to look at was Monsterpocalypse. In it you put down a cityscape complete with buildings, and set up monster action figures to battle army units. It reminded me a lot of the old Rampage video game I loved, but some aspects of it I found too silly. Some of the monsters had stupid clothing, like the giant gorilla with army medals like a general, or a giant Cthulhoid monster with a giant pirate hat on (c’mon, dudes). The guys who were promoting the game were very friendly of course, but as far as any of the folk playing various games I didn’t find many who were all that friendly. I should have actually tried to get in on some gaming (the zombie type games looked fun too), but I ended up going back to the hotel to relax with the intention of dropping by the con late night just to see what was going on .

But hell, I had a big Subway meatball sub I picked up (Subway was the only reasonably priced place around), a six pack in the cooler still, some Jack Daniels, a large screen TV, and my laptop. Not to mention nice air conditioning and a toilet 5 feet away. The lure of a cozy solo party was just too tempting. I hung out watching TV, listening to tunes, and worker on my game stuff until I passed out sometime after midnight. In the morning I packed up and drove back to West LA.

I surely would have spent more time on the con floor trying to get in on games if I had popped for the Hilton, and who knows maybe I’ll get one or two of my regular players to come with me for a couple of days next time. Oh yeah, I’ll do it again. I’d like to do another old school game like Glorantha Runequest or something.

I know, anti-climactic. You were probably expecting a rant here, and given some of my previous posts I don’t blame you. But I actually enjoyed the experience. The con was small, but it was fun to be in on the ground floor of a new event. I don’t really see myself going to any of the big out of town conventions or anything any time soon, but a small event fairly close to home is all right with me. Let’s face it, around 4 years ago I was dying to run some games and was still in my several year temporary game retirement, so I feel fortunate not just to have my own regular group, but to be getting out there a little bit into the game community at large. It is sort of a new Renaissance for my gaming, so I’m going to ride it out as long as I can.

Dungeon Wallop among Dark Clouds

So last Saturday was the “Minicon” event in Anaheim, and the earlier part of the day went well. I’m pretty heartened by the fact that I played a con style game session with pretty much strangers and still had a good time. I had at this point in life given up entirely on that, but enjoyed the game and the other players. No, I don’t think hell froze over (but I’m sure I’ll find out if it’s hot or cold down there soon enough).

One thing I didn’t mention in the last post was the fact that I attended this thing with a bit of a dark cloud hanging over my head. As you might have read in this post a few weeks ago, I played in local guy Christian’s 3rd edition game and did not exactly have the kind of experience you want when you sit down at the game table. My post ended up having more teeth than I expected. Although my only real direct criticism for Chris was the presence of a waste of space player that he had as his prime player, I think he was struck by fingers being pointed at the DM by comment makers regarding the situation. In retrospect, I agree with lots of them, and might have more to say on it in the near future.

But the (sad) fact is Christian was not only going to attend the Minicon thing as a player, but also as a GM. Well, within a couple of days of my original post Christian pulled out of the event entirely. The online community is a fairly small one, and the ramifications spread to places like Dragonsfoot and OD&D Discussion forums. Wild. And naturally the only thing you can take from that is he was not going to attend because of me.

So I was showing up to this thing with that hanging over me. I wished Chris had at least tried to talk to me about it, but looking back on it now all I can really think of is what a pussy move it was. We could have been at this thing shaking hands and laughing about it, but now I guess there is no smoothing things over – assuming there ever was anything needed smoothing. So I have some unwanted advice for Chris, but I will save that for another day.

There were also quite a few personalities from Dragonsfoot forums in attendance, but I’m pretty sure none of them were folk that I got into some “spirited” debates with there. Pretty much all of them were cool on me, and a couple went out of their way to come up to me and press flesh before they took off for the evening. One of the DF opinionated souls, Mobad, even sat in for my evening session.

So Cyclopeatron’s Gamma World went great, and afterwards I was in a great mood for running my OD&D session. But would anyone be there to play it? It was almost 7PM, and the gamers were slowly making their way out. Like I said, I did get a chance to briefly talk to some Dragonsfoot folk in attendance who had been in other sessions, including Wheggi and Telecanter. I’m hoping to get the chance to talk to some of these guys more in the future, and also hoping the Minicon can maybe be a twice a year thing rather than one.

So I did indeed have a small contingent of folk there specifically to play my OD&D, and I was very jazzed about that. But about half of my eight players for the evening were drop-ins who were (I think) planning to play in another evening session, but as it turned out mine was the only late shift session. We had the big beautiful room to ourselves! I took advantage of that fact and got my boombox out of the trunk so I could play some Vasen and a few of my video game soundtracks (Chrono Cross and Vagrant Story) during the dungeon wallop.

OK, game recaps are generally boring, so suffice it to say that it turned out to be a very fun session. Everybody was enthusiastic and into their characters, which were a nice mix of all the possible types (no hobbits, sadly). They moved around the 1st level mostly, fighting various low level pests with great humor. I even managed to kill a character, a cleric, in my giant centipede room. The player rolled up another cleric on the spot, and even got much better stats so I don’t think he minded the demise at all. He just continued plugging away with the new guy. Awesome. It all went by so fast, and before we knew it 11 o’clock hit and we had to wrap it up. I made sure everybody got my email in case we had a chance in the future to continue with as many of the players as possible. At least a couple are interested in me doing a session in or around the Socal Smackdown convention Labor Day weekend. That will be great if we can work it out.

So I think the big thing here is that I played with and DM’d for a bunch of strangers, and it was not the shitty experience I have had with that sort of thing in the past. I found that I can have some fun outside my own group, and that is a good thing. Heartwarming, really. Like that a-hole the Grinch’s heart growing all big.

One thing I want to mention is that around 9PM there were huge explosions outside nearby, and I almost freaked. Then I realized we were practically next door to Disneyland, and the fireworks show was going on. I cannot believe that I was so into the gaming that I had long forgotten that Disneyland, a place I loved so much as a kid, was right there. Pretty cool.

Mutants of Metal!

This last Saturday was the Socal “Minicon” game day. I was actually scheduled to play in a morning game and an afternoon session, and also to do a dungeon crawl session of OD&D in the evening.

As it was almost an hour’s drive to Orange County, I eventually decided not to play two sessions then have to run my own game all worn out, so I decided to show up for Cyclopeatron’s afternoon Gamma World game as the one session I would play in.

As any regular reader can probably tell, I don’t do much playing outside of my own group (although these experiences tend to make for some entertaining posts). I have most often found it to be a disagreeable experience at best. I really just prefer to hand pick my players for a regular group, and if I get the rare itch to sit down as a player, I try to get somebody in my group to run something.

But if I was going to run a game at this event, I decided I needed to also play in somebody else’s session. Bob “Cyclopeatron” seemed like a decent enough guy online, and he had a truly interesting idea for a Gamma World one-shot.

I hit the road around 1PM, and if you are from anywhere in LA you know Saturday afternoon traffic to The OC can be a bummer of a bitch. The I-5 was a big part of the trip, and at one point it turns into three lanes and is just a nightmare. So as you can guess I was running a bit late for the 2PM session.

The area was right around Disneyland, and it tripped me out. I haven’t been to Disneyland in over 20 years, and things in the area had really changed. When I was a young man the area around the park was pretty open, but it had really developed since then. Residences and big hotels and shopping areas – Oh my! I was a bit disoriented by that, but found the location of the Minicon pretty easy once I got away from the big traffic.

The event was being held in a large glass community room near the pool, and it was a great and well lit room for gaming in. There were three tables in the room with upwards of 8 people at each, with a fourth table outside with a game going on. For sure a great turnout! I found Cyclopeatron’s table, introduced myself, and after going back out to get better parked the game was on.

OK, here is the basic premise of the scenario. This Gamma World setting was set in a very far future, in a time when all living things had been so mutated and interbred so much that all things contained human, animal, and plant genes. I had seen this premise in some old sci fi of the 70’s, and found it interesting.

Our characters were a band of heavy metal musicians. In this world, this kind of performer was a respected sort of bard, and travelled the lands bringing rock to the huddled and heavily mutated masses. My character, “Child Eyes,” and another player’s charcter were The Tipton Brothers, and we seemed to be the main force behind the band. We came from a famous rock family. Our mother had recently been killed, our home destroyed, and our family heirloom and relic “The Gibson Guitar” had been stolen.

In our travels we found a flyer for another band, “Zygotus,” who featured the Gibson in their photo. We had found our guitar, and we needed to go to the local town of dogmen to await Zygotus’ arrival for a big concert. There was a lot of arguing with the local town guards, because we didn’t want to leave our weapons (swords, axes, exploding ninja stars, flamethrowers, etc.) at the door. They seemed to have the ability to scan us for powers and weapons, so we didn’t have much choice. We spent a lot of time at this, and quite frankly I was worried that we would ever be able to finish up this game in the one sitting we had for it. My boy Child Eyes Tipton wanted to confront the band right there on stage at concert night. That would eventually happen, but there seemed to be a lot of the typical screwing around with minor things and issues that I don’t think have much place in a 4-hour one time session. In the end though, this wasn’t really a big issue.

We got to confront Zygotus on stage, reveal them for cyborgs and robots, win the hearts of the people, and get our Gibson back. We ended the night and the game with our band (which I don’t think we ever named but I was referring to as “Van Tipton”) bringing true flesh and blood rock to the masses.

I know the way I tell the tale might sound lame, but this was actually a really great session. We had a lot of laughs with our weird characters, and all the heavy metal imagery was fun. The only thing missing was actual heavy metal to listen to (I had my boombox in the car, but the room was just kind of crowded with other gaming for tunes to be played). Also, Cyclo is a fairly soft spoken guy, and in a room full of loud gaming it was hard to hear what he was saying sometimes. But he had a strong grip on his scenario, and things moved along pretty well despite a lot of piddling around by our characters.

Cyclopeatron got applause from us at the end of the game, something I cannot really recall from any game I have played in. My own damn regulars certainly don’t throw a clap my way, and I give them my heart and soul.

Anyway, congrats to Cyclopeatron (real name “Bob”) for a great showpiece game. I think he really needs to put together a scenario pack featuring themes and situations from this session (using Mutant Future of course) and make it available (to sell or otherwise) to the old school retro clone community. I think he might have a Carcosa level hit on his hands.

OK, that was my session as a player. For the night shift I ran my OD&D game, and I’ll follow up on that in my next post later this week.