I’ve talked about my old love of Runequest here, here and here. And, well, over the years I probably at least mention Runequest in posts a dozen times so if you want to seek them out just type in Runequest in the search bar. Oh, I talked about in one of my articles for now defunct Film Goblin (the owner of the site was a hopeless, hardly functional drunk).
The point of this quick post though is about this impulse buy…I don't buy many physical books anymore.
Running Cthulhu of late certainly has me thinking about Runequest just due to the basic role-playing similarities. Then it quickly leads to me thinking about Glorantha, Probably my favorite game setting of all time.
It was one of those alternatives to dungeons and dragons. I discovered early on as a kid hanging out at Aero hobbies in Santa Monica. I ran a dragonnewt for a long time there, at least in young person time. Probably for like a year. but when owner Gary and the older dudes decided to move onto another game, like Traveller or Empire of the petal throne, we younger people went along with them. How I discovered so many games early on in the hobby.
It was my older teens and onward when I’d much preferred playing with my own friends or groups rather than a hobby shop with a bunch of stinky, aging wargamers and college aged nerds. That along with playing sports, surfing and of course girls I graduated from that dusty musty place to get a short campaign or two of RQ going with friends between my late teens and early 20s, but there were just so many things I loved to run. Primarily DND but I loved champions and also Cthulhu here and there. DnD always had to take the lions share of game time, but I had other loves and in every group I put together I would unleash another genre on them. They would resist but then love it.
Then probably something like a break from RQ that lasted decades before I ran a shortish campaign of it with my group around 10 years ago in Santa Monica.
Well, now I’ve got this bug again and I just decided to get the main book of the latest edition just to have a read through and see if I wanna go through the player finding process for it. It’s fairly thick and heavy book. More reading than I generally like to do these days ha ha. But I’m really going to buckle down and try to get a few pages in a night.
Its a really thick jampacked book. So much information on the cults and societies and all that. Far more than I remember in the ancient second edition book. Too much really I think. In the day we had to fill in a lot of the gaps ourselves. But I also realized I should’ve maybe gotten the quick start rules. there’s just so much crunch in this book. So much background info. And the Quickstart rules come with cool maps of Glorantha and of towns and stuff. I actually didn’t get the quickstart because It didn’t seem like elves and dwarves would be in that book. But they’re not in the main book either. For that you have to get the Glorantha Bestiary.
I may just go ahead and get the quick rules anyway. The main book is kind of intimidating. Prob still gotta get the Bestiary.
But, damn, I just want to run some Glorantha. I have used Gringles Pawn shop and the Rainbow Mounds so much for D&D it is time to experience them with Runequest again! We'll see. But it's fun reading.
Here’s a recent image of Orcs from the new DND (Players Handbook?) and it sure seems to have some kind of gaucho thing going on..
notice they’ve also managed to add in a body positivity orc in there.
Since I’ve done posts about orcs in the distant past, I just mention this in passing. This image related to the newest D&D shows a group of orc hunters and they appear to be some kind of South American cowboy types. Gauchos. my main complaint actually would be that they just look too human in general.
Even weirder since starting some years ago the woke low foreheads of gaming decided that orcs are racist, and that everybody thinks of them as Black people. Although me or nobody I’ve ever known since I was a child ever once uttered words that would make you think we thought they were Black people, this is the actual racism that woke people tend to show when you peek beneath the hood.
yo, G…
For all we know this is just this particular artist rendering of a particular situation and that’s fine. But I will repeat as I have again and again I love, nasty cannibal, rape you and then eat you Tolkian orcs. But that seems to be kind of a singular thing in my case. Most old schoolers like their DND orcs to look like those stupid pig head orcs from the original monster manual that are clearly a misinterpretation of the Hildebrandt brothers artwork orcs.
But whatever it is I’ll also repeat like I have again and again that attaching racist things to fantasy creatures that have been around forever is stupid as fuck.
I think I first heard about the darkest dungeon video games at some point early last year. Or, since the game is several years old, I may have been hearing bits and pieces over the years. I had started watching a lot of YouTube on my TV in my home office because I started working mostly from home during the week. As I would plug away with multiple databases and files opening on my two monitors I was discovering all kinds of things. About video games, politics, comic books. Anything that struck my fancy. Anything I could have on in the background that wouldn’t affect my productivity too much.
So I heard about these two video games; Darkest Dungeon one and two. Essentially fairly low animation based dungeon crawlers featuring multiple kinds of characters going into fairly brutal dungeon environments. One of the most interesting things about them was the characters could get stressed out by things like torches going out, monsters harming a teammate or from all kinds of things. if the stress would get bad enough you get afflicted. Kind of like sanity. They might get some kind of syndrome like a kleptomaniac or a sex addict. But also, at least in the first game, a character dying was permanent. You lose that character then you can no longer access them.
Vestal going ape shit
When I found out recently that the second one was still only available on computers and not consoles, and that the first one was available on Nintendo switch that decision was made. I wanted more games for my switch. I’m taking a break from Breath of the wild which I’m probably in the last 8 to 10% of as far as finishing it up. And the other game I have is called Cuphead and it’s hard as hell as far as platformers go and I got kind of tired of that one around the holidays. As I said I had been watching YouTube videos about DD for a long time and now that I’m a couple weeks into playing the game, I’m still watching those videos because it’s a steep learning curve.
Crusader goes bat shit
And this last weekend I had started paying attention to the individual characters, character sheet menus, and their statuses, and all that. I would play a couple hours, going through a couple of the dungeons set ups. Practice using the menus. Over several hours of restarts I think I’m finally getting the basics. Knowing enough to think a little bit more long-term. This game from what I’ve heard has many hours in it. as far as this game and breath of the wild goes, the Nintendo switch for an older little system sure does not skimp on the size of gameplay.
I want to have a real good idea on how to play this thing before I go for the long game. I’ll prob post again about the experience when I get about another 30 or 40 hours into it. Gets apparently more brutal and hard as you go along. A true old-school killer dungeon Master haha.
Gravedigger goes bugnuts
below is a relatively short and very funny video about the game.
and of course, like any good dungeons and dragons video game the inspiration is there for your own real life games with people. I don’t know about the sanity style mechanic, but it certainly inspires you to run a killer, easy death campaign. And besides the town and all its facilities, the dungeon areas and the final castle just alone are inspiring for locations. Not a direct adaptation, but I can see running a campaign based on this. Characters coming to town by carriages and helping you or your ancestor whoever left you the place you get the joint cleaned up Tegal Manor style because oh boy is everything corrupt. Almost as much as characters who come here.
And yeah, you heard that right. Ancient module/setting Tegel Manor certainly comes to mine. The atmosphere the horrible monsters that also tend to have some gonzo humor in there, and even some portraits play large part of the game.
Anyway, looking forward to even more brutal game play.
That is a hell of a statement. That I love Sailor Moon. But it’s true. I don’t necessarily mean the character herself. Although I often find her completely and deliriously hilarious. The true embodiment of a silly, giggly japanese schoolgirl. But she’s not my favorite Sailor Guardian/Senshi. I mean the show itself. In recent months, it’s become my favorite anime. Yep more so than Dragon Ball Z. More so than Lupin the third.
Years ago, I had a girlfriend who loved the English dub. It was around the time I was in full-blown Dragon BallZ love and fascination. Those Sailor Moon western dubs seemed so lame. I had no idea at all about the original Japanese versions. It just seemed clearly made for little girls. But that was a conceit of the dub version. G rated. Of course DBZ did the same in their own way. Instead of being killed folk were “sent to another dimension.” But Sailor Moon was so deeply steeped in Japanese culture and tradition It was often confusing about what was going on. And it took place in real world Japan, in Juban, an actual Tokyo district where the manga author lived. The western dub removed as much of the Japanese cultural stuff as they could, and also a lot of the battles.
But thanks to my Roku and Pluto TV I discovered the original Japanese versions, and I was gob smacked. Early last year Pluto TV added a Sailor Moon channel. Showing all five seasons in order. And I was binge watching this shit much like I did with Lupin the third. Much like with that, I often just have it on in the background and over the months I probably watched the entire series multiple times. There’s a lot to unpack in there. in a nutshell, according to the first couple paragraphs of her Wikipedia her first few episodes are described thusly…
A 14-year-old underachieving young schoolgirl named Usagi Tsukino meets a magical talking cat namedLuna. Luna gives Usagi the ability to transform into a magical alter ego — Sailor Moon — tasked with locating the moon princess and battling the evil forces of the Dark Kingdom. When Usagi transforms for the first time into her magical sailor suit with Luna's help, she overreacts and reluctantly accepts her fate, not sure what has happened to her. At the time she does not know the enemies she will face, the friends she will make, or the experiences ahead of her.[4][5][6] As she moves forward, she accepts her fate, and realizes the importance of fighting evil.
In that first season, Sailor Moons fellow Senshi start showing up one at a time. First, she meets Mercury, then Mars, Jupiter, and finally Venus. Usagi/Moon has the adorable yet slightly annoying personality of a temperamental baby. It automatically sort of makes the other sailors who come along protective of her. Although Mars, who is pretty known no nonsense, outright hates her at first.
The original Senshi of the Inner Planets
Mercury
Sailor Mercury is the brains of the outfit. Basically a computer nerd but is good at almost anything academic. She mostly cares about studying and constantly lectures the other ones especially on putting in the work to do good at school. Her powers are water-based and her first attack appears to be the fairly mild aqua illusion. But it comes in handy pretty often as it puts up a mist that can obscure the battlefield which is helpful because most of their opponents tend to seem to be more powerful than they are.
Mars
Sailor Mars as I said it kind of no nonsense. She lives and works when not in school at her grandfather’s temple. She works there as a temple girl. Back in history, they seem to have more important roles, but in modern times they seem to be more like tour guides and janitors constantly sweeping up.
I didn’t really know anything about them until I watched this show. But the temple girls take up sort of a pop culture status in Japan. Mostly in high school or college who do it part time as a job and eventually move on from it. Mars original attack is called burning Mandala. It has nothing to do with Nelson Mandela. Apparently Mandala Is some kind of spiritual circle made up runes. In terms of how the attack is summoned and how it looks, it’s probably my favorite attack of all the scouts.
Mars is somewhat dismissive and unapproachable, constantly criticizing Usagi/Moon and calling her out for acting like a baby.
Jupiter
Sailor Jupiter is a tall tomboy and appears to have supernatural strength both on the athletic field or in battle. Attacks are lightning based and seem to be the strongest of all the attacks at least at first. and unlike the others, she also seems to show superior strength when she’s not in her sailor guardian form. Jupiter seems to have had a bad break up with some boy at some point in the past and it comes up from time to time. Like most of the girls she has a tendency to be boy crazy. She is the most mature of them though but bottom line at first they’re all basically 14 and 15-year-old schoolgirls.
Venus and her "Love Me Chain"
Sailor Venus is the last of the guardians to come along. And she has the most interesting background of all of them. The most experienced. In fact before the series was created, and before Sailor Moon was even conceived the creator of the manga Originally made The series about Venus. It was called sailor V. She wore The Sailor outfit but also wore a mask. In the Sailor Moon series, her background had her though originally being Japanese having lived in England for a time operating as sailor V. She fought not just monsters, but gangsters and other criminals, she was kind of famous and they made video games and action figures of her. When she meets the other guardians, the assumption is she is the moon princess that they are all looking for. She was a hero of Sailor Moon before moon even became a guardian (all this was left out of the english dubs). Her first main attack and probably my second favorite one is called Venus Love me chain. A ridiculous name for an attack, but it’s pretty devastating as she summons up a supercharged chain that she can grab things with or smash people with, and all kinds of uses. Potentially the most versatile of all the attacks.
Around mid series, Chibi moon appears (cringingly called Mini Moon in America). you can find a lot of criticism of this character amongst the fandom online. Truly kind of hated much like Scrappy doo. But her background is interesting. She’s a daughter of Sailor Moon and Tuxedo mask from the far future. luckily, she’s only around for a season or two. Although in the final season, what appears to be an even younger version of her appears, but it’s not actually Moons daughter, but the representation of the goodness of Galaxia (more on her later) that was pushed out of her body.
Later in the series, more sailor guardians start showing up. Sailor Uranus and sailor Neptune arrive, and as they seemed to represent the outer planets of the solar system, they are known at least by fandom as The Outer Senshi. like all new sailors that come along later in the series after the original core group, they seem to have ulterior motives and come off as potential enemies. But most interestingly about these two is they are clearly lesbians, are a couple and Uranus dresses and acts more like a male. and non-Japanese dubs of the series they are typically portrayed as cousins, though you don’t have to look too closely to see an intimacy there. it’s not exactly shocking as in the original Japanese versions at least a couple of enemy characters have been portrayed as gay and trans. Though they look female enough that American dubs at least they are portrayed as females. This was the late 80s and early 90s so pretty ahead of its time stuff. I haven’t seen a ton of that kind of thing in anime but I am pretty particular about my faves. Sailor Pluto, another Outer Guardian, is their ally.
Pluto, Uranus, Neptune, and "The Messiah of Silence"
The final season known as Sailor Stars introduces the concept of a past Sailor Wars, where the sailor guardians are somewhat common throughout the universe. They were really kind of like Green Lanterns, protecting certain planets and sectors of outer space. rather than resurrected or awakened space goddesses, they’re kind of avatars of planetary bodies. The final boss is Galaxia, who it seems has been behind all of the guardians troubles from the very beginning was a Sailor Guardian, who was possessed by the forces of chaos.
In the final season known as "Sailor Stars" the Sailor Starlights appear. Three sailor guardians from Deep Outer space who played the role of pop singers on earth and the songs they sing our messages trying to attract their lost princess. Again, gender lines are broken here. The Starlights are female but their mortal pop star forms are male.
A very small part of the manga, they are a very large part of the final season of the original series.
Lots of this fifth season is serious is a heart attack. Dragon BallZ style power creep is in full effect and Galaxia represents a complete invincible power who decimates everything at will. The final battles where Sailor Moon finally comes through with her full power and the great warmth of her light saves the universe. But not before everyone dies (the Sailor Senshi actually die and are resurrected at least a couple times in the series) and it appears like all the Sailor Scouts have been brutally killed (In silhouette it appears their torsos are blown open). But it was never in doubt that there would be a happy ending. But silly Sailor Moon truly goes through Jesus like trials, emotionally and physically, and proves herself finally to be worthy of the princess title.
The run of the series is full of repeated musical themes, from typical Japanese pop to moody blues and uplifting jazz. Title song of the final season, “Dont give up” it’s one of the better and more dramatic pop songs. but considering what happens later in the season and all the death and degradation, it can be later looked at as more of a finger snapping dirge. A call for help. and one moment of this opening song, you see the fanged silhouetted face of anyone of Moons many enemy women smiling as she plummets to earth backwards. I love this song and it’s towards the top of my playlist.
Even though there are often dramatic situations and dire circumstances (The sailor guardians tend to get their asses handed to them by their enemies in almost every encounter despite their powers) it is indeed a silly show. But the deeper I got into it the more I saw the more adult humor within it. Sailor Moon often comes into the battlefield with hilarious speeches. Such as when they fight a demon who is making the food rot in a supermarket Sailor Moon enters and proclaims. “You have angered the fresh Highland vegetables and mouthwatering shabu shabu beef.”
Often theres little things that just make me laugh out loud. Such as when the girls are on the beach and Mars is looking around with binoculars and suddenly a man's bulging crotch comes into view. Mars Freaks out and shouts and tosses aside the binoculars.
Then there was a time Sailor Moon is stuck in some bushes and crying like a baby as usual. Then a little bird flies in and lands on her butt and starts pecking on it and moon starts giggling. One of my favorite comedy moments is when one of the beautiful full grown female enemies of the scouts refers to them is having square bodies. Sailor Moon declares “actually for teenage girls are bodies are quite typical” I find these little moments outstanding and I’m sure you won’t find them anywhere in the western dubs.
Some years after the original show around 2015 I think, They did a full reboot of the show called Sailor Moon crystal. This series throws out most of the superfluous content that was never in the manga and adopted the art style used in the original books. I had my doubts, but it’s actually pretty good. Better animated and despite some silliness still being there because of course Japanese schoolgirls it’s much more dramatic in tone. And instead of all the pop music it’s more like a classical gospel score. It’s actually very interesting to compare the differences. and watching the newer one lets you know how much filler they created for the original series to pad out the Manga stories. and during the run of the original series, like a lot of anime, they made several movie length episodes to play in theaters in Japan at the time. The Pluto TV channel shows all this stuff.
Sailor Moon creator Naoko Takeuchi
Since I started writing this post earlier this week, I actually went by a local authentic Asian market the only one in town I think. Haven’t been in there in quite a while. But they feature some anime and Manga merchandise in the back. And they had these Sailor Moon character figurines, and the only two left were my favorites, Mars, and Venus. They were only 9.99 and they’re very well detailed and I could see these selling the convention for 30 bucks or more. Had to snap them up. Of course, I told the girl at checkout they were for my niece ha ha. Cheers!
The death of Dragonball and DragonballZ creator Akira Toriyama had me thinking about Dragonball. though I don't know that I am really touched by the passing. I have only seen a tiny bit of the actual manga. But I love the series, and I don't really know how involved he was with it. But it would not exist without the guy, so I gotta give props.
I discovered the show some time in the early or mid 90's. There was no Adult Swim at the time (I think). But it was being shown daily on one of the Los Angeles off channels cartoon blocks. I think I caught the last 30 second of an episode. The characters I would come to love bloviating about some threat or another. I was vaguely aware of its existance before that, but I decided to try and catch a couple of episodes. Like a lot of anime you suddenly discover you have no idea what the fuck is going on.
I soon saw that they had tapes of these US dubs at my fave video store, so I was able to dive into the first episodes of DragonballZ Goku and his young son visiting what seemed to be old friends on a tiny tropical island. A threat from outer space by guys with similar looks to Goku's. The appearance of Piccolo, who seemed to be an old enemy, though when they showed flashbacks to some previous version of the series where the character looked much older.
Then I noticed a very small collection of episodes of the original Dragonball, with a young Goku. So I got it; there was a series with Goku as a kid, and Z was a continuation. I was fascinated. then I discovere US dubs that included killing. In the TV dubs I saw when somebody got destroyed, somebody would say something like"wow, you really sent HIM to another dimension!"
I loved the world as persented in it. In Dragonball the world seemed to be like the Judges Guild Wilderlands; vast wilderness punctuated by points of light villages, with cities to follow in the later show.
Young Bulma. Later in life she would go on to have sex with and bear children for an alien who destroyed entire civilizations and sometimes even ate them. Bulma was kind of a ho'
Piccolo was my favorite early on. The antihero of the series. But I liked them all really, and had a fond spot for Krillin, Yamcha, and others. And I loved Goku. Such an innocent but powerful good guy. It was so cool that most of his friends started as enemies who became friends, won over by his good nature as much as his power. Gok and others were killed time and again (I think Krillin held the trophy on how many times). They would travel through hell and go visit King Kai who would make them stronger.
As new arcs and enemies came in, I became more obsessed. I was never emotionally attached to things my friens loved, like Star Wars and Indiana Jones. But my heart was in this series. The Planet Namek saga. The androids. The Cell Games. It just went on and on.
Fuck around and find out
Then after years passed I saw Dragonball GT (I think it was called) which did not have any input from Akira and seemed to be a different show, with Goku a kid again and running around with his grandchildren.
But into the 2000's it got back on track, but by then I was sort of tired of the constant power growth. And those early sagas were so dear to me, they seemed to be enough, like the earlier seasons of Mad Men or The Sopranos. So besides a peek now and again over the years to see what god level dudes they were fighting, I kind of let it go. But this weekend I seriously wanted to get the Crunchyroll free 7 day trial to watch some early eps, but I had a lot to do so might just do it next week.
the unsung hero of the series
And also, I never saw as many of the original young Goku eps of Dragonball as I would have liked. I'd like to check out the backgrounds of some of those more mysterious characters, like Yajirobi the fat samurai who will eat anything (including demons and dinosaurs), or Lunch/Launch, a peaceful young girl next door who would turn with a sneeze into a blond femme fatale with a machine gun. I may have to seek those out.
But here's to Akira for creating some of my favorite characters of any genre, and an amazing world for them to punch the shit out of each other in.
I've run three major Call of Cthulhu campaigns Since I was a teen. Two set in 1930's Los Angeles, and two in 1930's New York. Ah, memories. that last one was about 10 years ago for my long running Santa Monica group. I ran a lot of 1st ed over those years, but also managed to get in campaigns (of various lengths) of a bunch of genres. White Box DnD, Metamorphosis Alpha, Runequest, Traveller. But that Cthulhu one, though only maybe a dozen sessions in length, was fun. I called it Fangs of New York, and the first session was set in a Times Square upper story banquet hall at a new years eve party.
I recall though having fun with that little campaign, but even at that time I was sort of pining to run the system in other time periods. Ancient Rome, Ancient Sumer, maybe even the Old West. I felt like I had my fill of the 20's-30's.
Up until the recent holiday season I had a decent 5th ed DnD group going. A fun bunch. Everybody was from off the Roll20 forums, and by this time I had learned to vet prospective players. Heavily. There is a lot of chaff to shift through to find the goods. And everybody was very cool. The most fun for me was a young couple, maybe in their early 20's, who were very enthusiastic noobs and I had a lot of laughs with them. But of course if you have a couple in your group, you aren't just getting somebody who might leave the group for whatever reason. You are typically losing TWO. That is the nature of a couple. They usually want to play together. But whatever is going on with them, we have not heard from that besides one chime in last month saying the wanted to play one night, but it has been silent since. The way I figure it, the thing young couples do best is break up. So my assumption is there.
As it was the holidays, I called a few weeks break mid-December. I had not taken vacation time from my job for months, and wanted to use some of it.
By the time New Years Eve came around, I had gotten the notion to try and get a Western themed Cthulhu thing going. It just popped into my head. Hey, if the DnD campaign is done, I want to jump right into something else.
I tested the waters with a post in the Roll20 forums, and just like my expectations told me I did not get much reply. I tried a few spots in other places, and eventually was lucky enough to stumble upon a Call of Cthulhu Facebook page with a huge membership. My post there got a huge response.
I did not vet that hard. This was a niche genre, but plenty of people were interested. I actually had to choose several from a dozen or so inquiries. I had a couple of shortish Discord chats. The only one who did not continue by the night of the first game was a guy who wanted to run a Paleontologist. He had been running Cthulhu for years, but not in the format I wanted to do it. He wanted to play with Zoom, with video, and with theater of the mind. Well, in face to face or online I use battle maps, mini's/tokens, and Discord for voice. And everybody else I chose were into it.
Ultimately, I ended up with mostly folk from the FB page who had played CoC, and also some of the remnants from the D&D group.
So three easy going sessions so far. I mean, this is not DnD, and it has been years since I ran CoC. So I had to get more into a narrative style. Not relying on constant combats. Though I had to look for balance. Unlike my usual old campaigns of CoC, this was a more violent environment, and almost every character had guns. I set this campaign in 1886 Washoe County, that includes Reno, Carson City, and Virginia City. Towards the end of the gold rush in the west, and towards the end of what could be called The Old West in general. I mostly picked the time because most western weapons and tropes were around, and also because it was the year the University of Nevada opened in Reno.
So far the characters are A female Doctor, a teenage female Chinese carnival trick shooter (both from San Franciso just hours away by train; and of course I'll want some adveturing there eventually), a two-fisted banker (from Virgina City who has survived dozens of robbery attempts), A writer based on Beauchamp from the movie Unforgiven (Duck of Death sez I), and former nun turned entertainer/dancer.
Jordan, from the DnD campaign, has been on a long Canada trip so has yet to make it. Not even sure what he would run. For both of the guys from the DnD, they were kind of noobish to DnD, so for sure had zero CoC experience. They were not very interested until they heard I would be doing old western theme, and also they saw it was an easy peezy system, so they were in.
So yeah, so far so good. So far just sort of settling into their lives in Reno, and encounters with cultishness related to Yig (losta snakes!), and Yidhra.
I was at some game shop many years ago reading through one of the books and saw her entry and was fascinated ever since. She was for sure not a Lovecraft invention.
"...where Yidhra walks, the hills do not forget"
So yeah, as a believer in positive visualization I finally get to not just use this Outer God, but in a Western Cthulhu game. Boxes checked! I hope this campaign goes awhile!
In-game trying to find a way to describe to somebody a weapon or other item with bonuses, or a character level, was always weird. There were not many ways around it. You just meta-described out of game and that was that. At least it's what I did.
As far as character levels it seemed easier to describe a magic-users. And I don't mean using the dumb names for levels like prestidigitator and charlatan or whatever. I would just have the mages guild use designations for members such as "Ah yes, Peldifferous is a "mage of the 7th circle" or something like that. Spell ability is a good in-world judging gimmick for MU's. For example the Mages Guild in my main city of Tanmoor restricts even the lowest tiers of membership to 4th level or higher (there can be some exceptions for third level, such as a glowing recommendation from a high-level member). Easy enough to test them by having them show proof of appropriate spell ability. I remember having to do this in a Skyrim quest and it was pretty cool.
Of course, some old school classes, such as druids and monks, had some non-spell ability level requirements there probably had to be martial tests for at later levels.
For most other classes; fighters, thief/rogue or whatever, you had to abstract it a bit. How they perform their craft out in the field or what not. Reputation.
Mr. Satan is an example of how imperfect the system can be.
But for weapons and items that give pluses I no longer sweat it. I've recently started just letting characters understand what the numbers mean. An amulet of Extra AC that is +1 is almost useless. But a +5 one is certainly something you want to count on in a big battle. A shield with such even more. A plus 1 sword is about the same as an exceptionally crafted one, but a +3 is decent magic. It makes a difference.
A character only needs experiment a little to understand its magical quality. "Hey, I think this dagger is +2."
Any other abilites the item may have is another matter. However its done, identify spell or what not, I don't really like to spend a lot of time on more minor items. If they have some kind of meaning beyond a little help in battle, I spend more time on it. But "hey, it seems like it is maybe a +3 axe" and getting on with the game is usually good enough for my players. And a little metagaming sneaking in never hurt anybody. YMMV.
So Cal native, grew up at the beach surfing and playing sports. Got into comics around age 7. Started playing Dungeons and Dragons in my early teens, and have gamed on and off over the decades, usually as DM/GM. I play the highland bagpipes, drums, and occasionally work at California Ren Faires with my hippy world music friends.
