The late Lou Zocchi - who knew?

 

I have not been known to write about game designers and other such personalities on this blog. The one exception is probably Paul/Janelle Jaquays, who was a big influence on my childhood rpg mindset. You can search Paul Jaquays in this blogs search function for several related posts, but maybe my most significant post about her was here almost 15 years ago. 

But today I read about this guy who passed away last week, Lou Zocchi. In my mind in recent years, I only knew of the guy as a dice designer. But looking a bit into his history, it is a safe bet that I have heard the name since I was a kid. And it rings dim memories from the deep past. Probably saw the name a hundred times in old gaming periodicals. 

Since I am posting about my Superhero gaming of past and present lately, including the first one Superhero 2044, I must have known at some point that Zocchi published the second, full color cover version of Superhero 2044 in 1977. Damn, that should be pretty important to me since that game inspired a lot of my future comic book gaming. 

And as a kid, before I got into rpgs, I had an elementary school buddy, a Korean kid named Michael Yim, who loved Avalon hill wargames, and Zocchi was involved in that early on. And including Star Trek related stuff, he has his hands in various ways in my precious Judges Guild, including printing some of their out-of-print material, which was likely most of what I got my hands on in the 80's. That shit inspired my campaigns for my entire life. 

And of course I knew the name Game Science. Mostly known for dice, he was an advocate for proper dice that truly rolled randomly. I mean, even as kids we suspected dice of being uneven. We all had dice we swore by. That D20 that seemed to get a natural "20" a third of the time. 

He also invented the D100, and I remember how blown away I was by it back in the day. I was still recovering from the D30. He also was the first to make D3, D14, etc. 

I remember we used to joke about what
a D1000 would look like. It would 
probably just roll off the table and 
phase thorough a wall into Liminal Space

So yeah, a revolutionary to be sure. Oh, he also blunted the D4..

I never owned one. I am sure it is less painful. Yeah,
admit it. You have stepped on the regular one
like a hundred times. Like me. 

So glad to read a bit about him, even though its after he is gone. The guy lived to a ripe 97 years old, so good on him!

Cheers!

Superhero Gaming finally going Full Steam Ahead

 

Almost a full year ago, I posted about my long and fruitless efforts to find a way to run my old supers setting Haven on Roll20. You can see links there about old posts about my Supers campaigns of yore, or just search the blog for "Haven" or "Superheroes" or whatever. But in a nutshell, I ran this setting, based on the Ancient Superhero 2044 Island nation of Inguria, since I was a teen, through a variety of systems. Superhero 2044 briefly, (you can read about my somewhat unhappy experience with early Supers rpg Supergame here ) then Villains and Vigilantes, then into Champions. 

In that post last year, I mentioned that after 3 years or so of looking for a game that would be doable on Roll20, I had found out about the Marvel Mutliverse RPG. 

Though I of course overthought the rules as usual, it turned out to be not at all as complicated as I first thought. But it was supported and linked though Demiplane into your Roll20, so it seemed my best chance at getting my Haven setting going again. So first step would be to study it so I could run it effectively. Then learn to use the Demiplane connectivity (which included paying for a Demiplane subscription). Maybe be a player in some sessions. Then get my own group going for it. 

All easier said than done. Like I said I overthought the rules. But eventually I figured out that the basic task resolution was fairly simple, if not a little wonky. But the various powers and abilities weren't something I needed to memorize at all. I just needed to know the basics of how they tied into play. So much like spells in DnD, I leave it up to the players to know how it works and then tell me. Done and Done. 

I then played in some games. I played in a couple of sessions by a guy called Morganwolf, who has tons of live plays on Youtube. He runs it at conventions and such, and overall promotes the system, which I think is not exactly popular yet as far as I can tell. Morgan uses published adventures, and you have to play existing Marvel characters. He is good at it, but I am not a fan of using pregens. And I was late in signing up, so got stuck with Black Widow. But I had some fun with it. These sessions don't exactly give a lot of leeway for role-play, but the little I got to do was having Black Widow at Avengers Mansion drinking Vodka and smoking Russian cigarettes.  

Then sometime later, I found a little group through the Marvel RPG Discord. They were gaming very infrequently, and it was set in the Marvel Universe circa 1980. But we got to create our own characters, so the opportunity was there to better learn the system through character generation. My character was a version of my old gaming days Champions character Manx McCallister. He was a human cat hybrid, who got stuck in a teleporter pod his Quantum Scientist parents were working on and got spliced with his pet cat, much like Jeff Goldblum and his not pet fly. 

OK, I at first was going to use Fritz the Cat for his image, but settled on a more human version.

Manx is a Physics student in college, so has science stuff
in addition to feline agility and some knowledge of "Cat Fu"

These handful of sessions were fun, though our characters seemed to be secondary to the goings on of various existing Marvel heroes. But here I met the guys who would make up half of my group. More on that in a bit. 

So I knew the system a lot better, was now versed in character creation through Demiplane, and just needed players. So I started reaching out in the Marvel RPG discord, with less than satisfactory results. Since most advertises sessions there where for one shots with existing Marvel characters, somebody looking to do actual campaign play with original characters got a lot of attention. But honestly, a lot of the dudes (and yes, the members of the Discord were almost all dudes) raised red flags for me. 

For example, one guy seemed OK with some good ideas, but eventually told me he would have to use his phone to play, because he lived in a tent. Another guy wanted to run a Star Wars Stormtrooper who was dancing all the time. Ugh. 

My setting is sort of a kitchen sink pastiche
but this was going a bit too off the rails

 

Month in and month out, I was having trouble finding good fits for me. The guys from some of the games I played Manx in were up for it, based mostly on how much fun I think the role play of Manx was in those sessions. But I would need more. And ones who did not seem like lunatics were few and far between. But slowly it came together. Here and there I found somebody who might work. A guy who had streamed tons of his Marvel games on Youtube. And eventually a girl, who was super rare on the forums (and she has been in my Saturday DnD games for a few weeks as well and injected some new energy into that). 

So holy mother of fuck, it was off to the races. As of last week (had to be off this last Sunday), we are three sessions in. 

OK, so here is what I decided to run. In my old Champions campaigns, I would have two different groups. One was The Protectors, a government sponsored superteam that for years of play was the main situation. Supers fighting super stuff in the streets of New America City. But also as an occasional side thing I did Justice Incorporated, which was a kind of heroes for hire that was more street level. So like a cowboy, and field hacker cyberpunk, a ninja, a depowered genie called Blue Jinn. Things like that. I figured Justice Inc would be a good start. 

And I had used my Inkarnate account, which had been sitting idle (and getting paid for annually) for around four years, to recreate and update my old Haven setting map. 

Inkarnate doesn't have great futuristic
city and town tools, so I just used images

Justice Incorporated of old was a sort of side hobby of rich Japanese/Irish industrialist Patricia Elizabeth Kyono, who in my old games served as the "good" corporate CEO to counterpoint the evil ones. She was a good bit older, but still hot as hell. 

I actually may still have my mini for her 
somewhere. A female in corporate garb. 
But this one I made with AI captures her. 

So since it has been over a decade since I did anything with the Haven setting, I have had it be that there has been almost nothing in the way of supergroups or supertypes in general, things have been quiet and the world plugging away in the decades following WW3. I still have the Science Police (inspired by such from Superhero 2044) who try to handle meta human and science gone awry situations these days. 

So after a couple weeks of letting the players do up their characters, we were about set. Again, this was a long time in the coming, so I was pretty jazzed. And a little nervous about a few things. The oddball way I would start the campaign, that these would be more powerful than basic street level dudes Justice Incorporated had in the old days, etc. But I wanted them to be Rank 3, which in this system was sort of mid-level supers (Rank 4 would be heading into Thor and Iron Man territory), and just in general trying to manage expectations. 

Well, my expectations were by far exceeded. I can only say that these three sessions so far have brought me great joy, and the players are enthusiastic as I could ever hope. I have a DnD campaign going on, and its OK, but this is just bringing back old feels from the Old Haven campaigns. 

I want to talk about the actual sessions, but this would be a gigantic post, so I will save that for the next one. But for now, here are the great characters:

Igneous. He is a descendant of Titans, 
and has walked the earth for centuries. 
He has great strength and some rock powers.

Ghost is blind since birth, but has Daredevil
type sensed and almost supernatural ability to 
sense things down to almost the molecular level. 
His mentor is actually a now in this 70's Matt Murdoch.

Paladin is a descendant of an ancient order
of fighters against the supernatural going 
back to biblical days. 

Crash is a wealthy, partially cybernetic
cyberpunk who has almost mental powers
to use to tap into technology and the web

What can I say about Ra-Ta? He is a small grey alien who flies around
in a small UFO while studying earth. His players often works late, so only
shows up for the last half of some sessions. But it is pretty funny. An absurd
character that actually works with what I am doing. He comes and goes. It works 
for this character. His player is hilarious and the character cannot speak English
so he does a sort of high pitch gibberish (that Igneous can understand for some reason)

Seraph. She is a member of an ancient
winged race. She is just a loner who 
lives kind of homeless on old warehouse
rooftops. Loves fresh fish. 

The endless durp about "10-foot pole" gaming

 

"10-foot pole gaming" is a term I just made up. I could just say "old school" or "classic" or whatever. But I think the 10-foot pole thing as one of the more cartoonish elements of old DnD. Sure, it would have its uses in classic dungeons, or even in the woods to shove down a hole of an abrasive gopher. 

But the image of somebody with one in a dungeon, where there can often be tight squeeze turns (you ever try get a mattress up the turn in a narrow flight of stairs?). Always reminds me of Granpa Munster trying to get through the doorway holding his shovel and the angle requires a couple of tries. I always thought that a simple 5-foot-long quarterstaff would be about as useful. Tie a torch to the end for extra utility. I really feel the original including of this item in equipment lists was a wink and nod to the old saying "would not touch it with a ten-foot pole." 

But I was thinking about this stuff after about a week or so of sampling some of Erik Tenkar's vids. I like to see some of his takes on things going on in gaming and controversies of the years. But lately so much of it seems about how you are having "bad wrong fun" with your DnD while extoling the virtues of (very) basic DM and player styles. And how you are doing it poorly. Having fun? Fuck that. It's wrong fun. Shades of classic Dragonsfoot forum comments. 

I dunno. That asshat Chevy just 
reminds me of a Dragonfoot guy

OK, I like Erik and don't want to get harsh. And I have not watched all (or even half) of such videos he has been posting for weeks. Maybe he does more explaining in some other places. "Hey, this is pretty much about BX gaming and dungeon delving especially. Not to be taken seriously" 

Which would be fair enough, though I am kind of doubting that. So the good constable will start a video, often with one hand up pinching his fingers in a "that's a spicey meatball!" gesture. Then go into his "tavernsplaining" the topic of the day. Usually some fuddy old approach to doors and thieves and listening and retreating and mirrors and clerics are more than healbots and do theater of the mind hex mats ruin everything and henchmen and yada yada. 

"You don't want story. You want spikes to jam doors. You don't want feats and skills and dice rolls. You want a mirror to peak around a corner. Didn't you see Private Ryan? Thar's ah snipah up thar!"

A favorite was about how old school fighters were not all same-same. They should be defined by their weapon they find! Again, if this was just about how to play BX or older shit, it would be fine. It's that type of game. I guess I personally did not sample all the editions. As a little kid I got the three little books and the Monster Manual. Soon after it was 1st edition, and I stayed with it for decades. The boxed sets were all Toy r Us to me and my friends. It was outliers who had the boxes of "baby DnD" who were friends of a friend. I swear to god the one that comes to mind from my teens was totally "Butters" from South Park.

Not saying this is Tenkar, 
it's just my experience

And by the time I was in my later teens, I was kind of tired of the ol' dungeonarooni. Don't get me wrong, the surreal nature of underworld spaces with monsters and nasty magic had big appeal to me. But my GMing was evolving. I was enjoying having things take place in the city and on the road more than the moldy ol' dungeon slog. Outside of Underdark forays, the dungeons I did were smaller lairs and not of the mythic variety. Sure I would go back to old dungeons again and again, but it was no longer what it was all about. It's one of the reasons I had some older times in the character continuity of my setting be known as "The Dungeon Age." It was a time when we were really young and our characters mostly romped in dungeons. 

I think by the time I was around 17, I was more into higher fantasy. Sure, things could be gritty anywhere. But endless dungeon crawls had gotten old hat for not just me, but it seemed that is the way the general gaming populace was going, for good or bad. 

As an aside, I think that since our girlfriends played with us, or just more females in general as we got older, was also a factor. They might like action, but the endless slaying and dark tones was not overall appealing to them. Some might have anti-hero characters who were even capable of murder, but being either a murder hobo or a fearful poltroon spiking doors was not fantasy to them. Making up interesting characters and the development of them during play was far more fun than adhering to notions of "proper dungeoneering techniques." More on all that in a minute. 

Equipment will always be important to one degree or another to players, but being anal retentive as a professional climber prepping for Mt. Everest is not often a priority. Shit, I think though the characters in my last campaign were going to The Isle of Dread they didn't even bring sleeping rolls on the journey. 

I always loved the old dungeon notions, but after those early years the chill at the surreal had less impact on me. They stopped being spooky. Getting into blogging and the OSR around 2009 brought back some of those feels. But it was fleeting. For decades I acted like it was the be all end all. I kept wanting to do a dungeon slog every few years but would end up doing something bigger instead. Like The Night Below, which was for sure a giant dungeon. Though I do recall some characters did prep like a cave climber might for that. But there was a lot of build up to the descent. But still, that was mostly just a long rope, lanterns, and some rations. 

So Erik clearly does not like 5th ed or its players. I mean, when he mimics a 5th ed player there is a lot of eye rolling or using a goofy voice to portray them. At first I thought it was kind of mean, but then I remember I have done this in the past years and decades to goof on some DnD people. Though nowadays I try to be more a Buddhist in my kind understanding (often failing). 

Erik seems to allude to some con running he has done with some old school gew gaw, and the modern players who attended going all slack jawed mouth breathers as they were told there were no feats, skills, or superpowers. 

So maybe he has just had bad experiences with the kids these days not falling in line with proper professional dungeon crawler standard operational procedures, like Hulk Hogans "Hulkamaniacs not following his famous demandments..

Or is Erik just talking to the BX fans out there? And if so, how long have they been doing the hard-core mapping, door listening, mirror using, torch conserving, no background having, fuck feats and skills and rolls and full on dungeon slogs. Decade in and decade out. In my last long time face to face group I ran the three little books plus Greyhawk for a few session break from our 1st ed. And it was fun. I did a few sessions at the Socal Minicon during the salad days of the OSR (the actual one) and a local convention soon after. It was fun to revisit.  But good gawd, for that to be my DnD now? 

I remember years ago watching some footage at a con circa early to mid 2000's of Frank Mentzer running what looked like an ad hoc session for some various con folk (like 12 guys and 1 girl). He just had a couple papers and dice in front of him. It was clearly old school in nature, probably his boxed edition (bestselling version of DnD!!!). But you could tell it was old school, because it took like 45 minutes to map 30 feet of corridor, and another 45 of fumbling around with and gang-listening at a door. Yawn, and that is a capitol Y. 

So after several years of my journey with 5th ed, how does it fit my style? Well, I have been into character development since I was a kid. Not only mine, but that of my players. It's kind of my joy. To preside over something they find so fun. And as far as feats and skills, hell, when I was as young as 15 I was just having players make stat rolls for this and that for things that would probably nowadays been seen as a version of "skills." CHR for persuasion type stuff and seducing, WIS for noticing things (prob inspired by Runequests classic "Spot Hidden") or whatever. 

Erik seems to hate lots of dice rolling. But since my earliest days, it was the funnest part of the game. So I don't mind skills and feats or whatever. And all the choices and builds? It is interesting to me. Like I say I love character development. and Creativity. I come from a Superhero Game background since childhood just like I did for DnD. So these aspects of creating a character are right up my alley. Sure, I have seen the dudes who were candidates to be in my online groups who want to run their Half Beholder Half Minotaur Cyborg Ninja Gunsmith. I have learned to weed them out real quick. My vetting of strangers online has become a specialty for me. And I may scoff at Game of Thrones novel page count character backgrounds a bit, but they can be interesting a lot of the time. And why should I give a fuck if they want that? It gets them to ask about my setting. 

OK, I only pick at Erik Tenkar because I like him. I have been on his Discord for years now. But I am just a bit baffled at his nitpicks at 5th ed players. But also these videos are performance to some degree for streamers. I think it is not so much vitriol as much as it is a bit of mean playfulness. I dunno, there are a bunch of these vids up the last weeks and months, so go watch and you make the call. 

Since This post is already getting long, I will probably watch a few more and post about some things. Hex Mats vs Theater of the Mind kind of stuff. Also, Erik is doing these posts as part of a collaboration with the Greyhawk Grognard guy (I don't know much about him) and Joe the Lawyer. I have not watched a lot of Joe's stuff, but I did look to see how his line of thinking was compared to Erik. I was surprised to hear that much like me he came up old school but now runs 5th edition, and he works at keeping those games old school in flavor much like to try to, so I might want to post about one or two of those video commentaries. But for now, yeah, this is too long. So cheers and have a great weekend. 

And god bless the dice rollers! Its fun!

Backrooms and Liminal Space Horror

 

My parents are European immigrants, and when I was a little kid, before me da' started working for movie studios (mostly Fox and Paramount..I spent a lot of time on those lots growing up) and still poor, he was a painter. Residential and commercial. On some weekends he would often be working in industrial buildings, new office buildings, and such. When I was maybe around six or seven, he would often take either me or one of my brothers with him to watch as he worked, because sometimes three sons were a handful for mom alone. Dad would be in some empty room or hall, and I would go wandering. Some of these complexes were huge, and often empty of furnishings and certainly devoid of people. So I would go off exploring, and the sound of dad and whoever was working with him, and the portable radio they were listening to, would disappear into the distance as I moved on. These were often places in areas like Marina Del Rey near the Ballona Wetlands, where Hughes Aircraft always had these huge buildings. 

I would go through carpeted office areas, down silent stairwells, and into boiler areas full of pipes and machines. I had dreams throughout my childhood of these places, sometimes nightmares where I felt an entity was near, and could hear dad singing to country tunes or whatever in the distance. I would call out and he could never hear me. I may have originally gained my fascination with mythic dungeons from these experiences. 

So when I discovered "Backrooms" and liminal space horror, I was a shoe in. AI search gives this info on Liminal space:

• Liminal spaces are transitional or transformative areas between two states or places.
• They often evoke feelings of unease or nostalgia due to their ambiguous nature.
• Common examples include hallways, airports, and empty parking lots.
• These spaces can symbolize change, uncertainty, or the passage from one phase to another.
• Liminality is often explored in art, literature, and psychology to represent personal growth or societal shifts.
• The term originates from the Latin word "limen," meaning threshold, highlighting the idea of crossing boundaries.

You have probably been in these spaces in your life, alone, as I have. Getting to work in an office building super early. Or going down an airport walkway at 3am. I have often enjoyed the eerie vibe of walking in a long wide corridor between two major Vegas casinos pre-dawn with nobody around with pop music oozing from speakers. 

You can look up the full history of this sublime horror, but it started I believe with this image:

This was a furniture store that was undergoing renovations (I think it eventually became one of those once popular model car racing track businesses). It does seem to kind of go on in an eerie way. As the concept grew, this became known as level 0. The main entrance area of the Backrooms Liminal Zones. Known for drab yellow 1970s or 80's wallpaper, humming overhead lighting, and wet shag carpet that gave off a moldy smell with each step. 

The lore iceberg has it that some old corporation was using some kind of quantum physics science to try and create an extra dimensional space to uses for storage and workspaces etc, and an existing dimension copied inner space areas from the real world to create hundreds of massive levels, often inhabited with twisted creatures whose sole food was people who accidentally "no clipped" into the Backrooms. 

This is based on the video game term "clipping." That is the code that kept you from being able to go through walls or locked doors or the floor.  People who somehow fell into the Backrooms almost always started in the moist carpet wallpaper halls, an endless maze of sameness. 

But other areas and levels were copies of real world spaces, almost always empty and where you might get stalked by something you do not want to meet. 

Empty shopping malls are a fun part
of liminal space fandom

When I first started getting into Liminal space,
I saw this image and was delighted. I recognized it
and had walked these stairs. This is from the 
Queen Mary in Long Beach, where over the years
I performed with my bagpipes at the yearly Highland
game there all over the boat. 

One of my favorite Youtube series is Infographics, which depicts current events, historical events, and fictional ideas in a cartoon point of view. They did one on Backrooms:

Not too many years ago a young man started making short films on Backrooms, sort of making the Creepy Pasta abstract concept more solid, and decidedly his. The films often featured scientists in hazmat suits, who more often than not would meet a horrifying end.

Also was turned into a video game at one point. This stuff just added to the lore and created an actual big iceberg around it. The government sponsored organization exploring and studying it, poor souls randomly no clipping into it, and many of the endless levels explained. The creatures of the spaces described and encountered:

Most of the entities in the spaces seem to be lost victims who one way or another are mutated into these forms. Often due to strange bacteria. Monsters lurk, stalk, whisper, and even sometimes howl as in great pain. Yeah, scary.

So for sure there are similarities to classic magical DnD dungeons, where the laws of physics do not always apply like they do on the surface world. And there is treasure here and there, mostly in the form of drinkable water, edible food, and strangely lots of bottles of almond milk. At least one of the odd creatures can also produce almond milk. Yeah, for sure sounds like something from the mind of a Gen Z'er with progressive, Trader Joe's shopping ideals. 

So lots of inspiration for dungeons. Or even a modern world tabletop RPG where you are lost there and must find your way out or at least survive. 

Half of my does not really like this expansionism. More and more levels, levels with the appearance of towns or even big red hued cities. And in current lore there are areas that are safer and lost people have gathered in little societies. Places with water and food, a quiet misty forest where the lost actually created village societies. Are having babies and growing the population. 

This would all be fine for an ongoing rpg or whatever. But the other half of me wants the horror of loneliness and sameness. Being alone in an endless maze of yellow wallpaper and moist carpet. The occasional stalking from and entity. Hopelessness. "I will never see home again." 

This is all on my mind because I heard last week a movie is coming out based on Backroom lore. It looks pretty good, thought the hero seems to be able to move in and out of the spaces (and of course he has to go talk to a therapist about it). These low budget horror films tend to do  well, so odds are very good a franchise will grow here. It will dull the chilling vibe of liminal area terror. But what the hell, I am all in for the rest of the Backrooms ride. Check out the trailer. Cheers.

Bittersweet OSR Memories - Socal Mini Cons

 

Around 2010 I had it going on as far as the Southern California OSR scene. My blog was blowing up (at that exact time it was listed in the top 25 of 177 top gaming blogs - I've come a short way baby), and though It was never some huge thing, I was a solid part of the gaming blogosphere and on Dragonsfoot. Before I bowed out of the scene to focus on my weekly game group, and before my general fed-upness with neck-beardness of the scene, I made several appeared at various events, all of which I ran OD&D dungeon romps at. 

I think the first was in late 2010, August, in an apartment complex rec room about two blocks from Disneyland. Bob of the Cyclopeatron blog (all these pics are from him, I think)  was the driving force behind a lot of this stuff. This was the third of such events, but I think this was my only one. 

The resident of the place and our host was Dragonfoot regular Bedevere (white t shirt, top photo on the left). A good guy, though I did not interact with him much. Trent Foster, a well-known old schooler online, ran a popular session. In the pics on his left, with tan hat, was an older dude named Thorkhammer. Seemed quiet in person, but at the time he was a loud voice on Dragonsfoot. He seemed to be going for the world record for making forum posts. Sometimes several a day, usually clearly just to post lots and lots. He was a well-known perv, if I recall. He wrote his own adventures about having sex with fish, and once in regard to a pic of some female players somebody posted he declared something along the lines of "look at all the lovely, lovely estrogen in the room!" Jeez. Also there was multiple forum regular Wheggi, who I found to be a cool dude in person, but a prick online. I remember one time he, a construction worker, called me a "desk jockey." Heh. Sick burn. 

But what the hell, it was long time ago. I quit the forums not long after quitting this blog for the first time and never looked back. Though lots of the forum folk seem to be looking for a community or want to have some kind of notoriety or demi fame in a small pond, I always considered myself getting into it to tell some deep dive stories about my gaming life since childhood. I actually restarted this blog when I moved to a new state, got into 5th edition, and moved to running games online and that seemed ripe for some interesting slice of life gaming stories, IMHO...YMMV. 

I could be Grognardia and go on about dead rpgs and old gaming mags, but I liked to tell flesh and blood stories of life experiences based around gaming. But even that got me heat. There was one angry troll on Dragonsfoot called "Ironface" (who seemed to be buddies with the above mentioned Wheggi) who followed me around for a long time, saying things like I was "bragging" by mentioning having been an athlete growing up, or talking about girlfriends I had back in the day who played in my games, which I thought had some historical value (in our last interaction years ago he said "aw, your OK" out of the blue and that is enough for me not to hold a grudge). 

Cyclopeatron Bob ran a Gamma World thing, and I played in it. We ran a Heavy Metal band in the wasteland and it was pretty cool. Though seemingly very inspired by the cartoon Metalocalypse. I have long wanted to run something similar with Mutant Future. 

Bob emoting well. Might have been the point
when I made a mild "r@pe" joke (our characters 
were based on 70's metal stars)

Later than night, the last game of the day, all the holdovers played in a classic homemade dungeon I did up for OD&D and it was a ton of fun. There was some convention, Socal Smackdown or something, not long after this, and most of the players from this including some others showed up for that. I talk about it here and I especially appreciate Bob at Cyclopeatron's description. Its still my style in a nutshell. Thanks, Bob..Cheers

"Yeah, it was a cool game. You're a great dynamic DM - loud, self-confident, acidically funny, and on your feet the whole time. I also really appreciated how you kept the game moving at a good clip?

The #1 sign your new online campaign is going to be a Banger

 

Around the holidays I worked on putting a new campaign together with all new voices and personalities. A painful process to be sure. I work very hard to try to vet and judge if a potential player will work out (and not be some lunatic, socially anxious snowflake, or LGBTQ plus individual with a chip on the shoulder- which all seems to be about 80 percent of potential players online). I have gotten pretty good at it. 

I stumbled upon a small group who had played together before, led by a young grad student who had run their previous campaign. That campaign did not reach a conclusion, and I did not get a solid reason why. Red flag number one. OK, cool. Grad student was super enthusiastic so I figured it just might work. His buddy he had been playing games with for years, a guy who was maybe at least 10 years older than him, showed up with him for a quick voice chat to talk about the campaign. The two ladies they had been playing with a while did not show up. Red flag two. But again, Grad student wowed me with his enthusiasm. 

Now, I want to say I normally avoid running for established groups. For a variety of reasons. They seem to have particular expectations, and it can automatically be an "us vs. him" situation. But I was lazy. I just wanted to get going without a ton of fishing for individual players. So I invited them into the Discord text chat. And here is where my doubts came in. 

It was the holidays and I wanted to wait till after the holidays, which would be maybe three weeks. No problem. But here is the rub. There was barely any chatter in the text chat. I might ask about characters, and might get a "oh, thinking of this or that." OK, no worries. They knew each other already. In most campaigns my players would be introducing themselves, mentioning character ideas, and maybe talking about the anime they liked. But hardly anything. Your chat should at least look something like this:

But hardly anything. I came across a young couple who wanted to play, and when they got in the chat they started the chatter. They hardly got a reply. I knew this was bad but went ahead and started the campaign. We had two games, sort of my "0.5" sessions (pretty much some casual doings and encounters in a tavern) with a little bit of action. It went fairly well, although the two ladies were mostly mute. The young couple were goers and tried their best to interact. After session two grad student (by that point I had realized he was gay and one of the "ladies" was trans, for what its worth) said he did not think it was working. So two wasted nights. Not just that, the couple said they liked my style, but that not only did they also see it as a waste of time, but that they had messaged the others in characters during the sessions to role play and stuff and were met with silence. They said that the experience with these others left such a bad taste that they were going to take a couple months off from gaming. Sheesh. 

So my advice is this: get new players into the text chat as soon as possible. Tell them to introduce themselves to each other and discuss character ideas. Then see what happens. If they are all over it, that is a good sign. Cherry on top is if they talk about nongame stuff and end a lot of sentences with exclamation points. You are probably good to go. 

My new group was like this. And not only that wanted to have side chats to talk in character between sessions. I was over the moon about this. Two games in and so far it seems all good. 

So again, get the text channel hopping. If it is quiet, consider asking if they are really into this. Or just abandon all together (maybe keeping one or two people you are more hopeful about) and get fishing and vetting in forums again. 

Cheers

Up from the OSR - "The OSR Bartender"

 

Just like any of the other OSR personalities I posted about, I have done little extra research on Erik Tenkar. Just like them, I speak mostly from experience. And in my early blogging days I had almost none at all. I was kind of aware of his blog, just like I was kind of aware of many others at the time. But whether by circumstance or something else, I just did not take a very close look. Before 2020, I knew very little. 

I will shamefully admit that I looked at the troll site Your Dungeon is Suck from time to time in those early days (something I may post about in the future). And it was probably in that often cringy place of gaming's most angry trolls that I first started hearing about Erik. 

Newsflash: he got goofed on

So up to around around 2019 here is what I knew:

His real name is Erik Stiene. 

He is a retired New York City Policeman (internal affairs I think). 

He had some controversies related to Gary Gygax's widow Gail. Having to do with the Gary memorial. 

So now I know more. I think it was around 2020 when he was hospitalized due to a heart issue. I could post a picture from his posts from around that time, but I honestly do not like pictures of folk in hospital beds. Seen enough of that in real life. But I guess it was a real close call. For some reason I started paying more attention. 

At that time most of his blog posts were essentially promoting the game material of other entities. It took me awhile to realize he was expanding past mere blogging, certainly a dying format. 

Erik was doing Youtube videos about this and that of gaming. One of the main reasons I started following is that he was a great source of news of what was going on in gaming. OSR related mostly. Zak Smith kerfuffles, Satine Pheonix and her shenanigans, and lots of calling out kickstarters for their dastardly deeds. That seemed kind of a specialty. Sort of like what Houdini did with mediums and fortune tellers.

How's that for a deep reference?

He and his wife do a regular "Gamers Health" video feature that I believe was inspired by Erik's health issues. More on that in a moment. 

Erik does regular videos with OSR pals like Joe the Lawyer, Robert Conley, Bad Mike (who I am almost sure I bought a bunch of Wilderlands of High Fantasy maps off of through Ebay over ten years ago), and a few old dudes I have no idea who they are.

Erik also has a Discord for years now, and I actually joined it not too many years ago. Interact a bit there and have even messaged a little bit with the good constable one or twice regarding this or what issue going on in the OSR. One thing I have found is that he and the Discord is sort of a safe space for potentially more sensitive gamers out there. Case in point:

Not too many years ago I saw a comment in the threads about an upcoming James Raggi interview, and asked that James be asked about his recent comments about why anybody would bother cleaning their toilet since they shit in it anyway. I mean, I found it funny. If not a little gross. That was enough to trigger at least one person who accused me punching down on the mentally ill. I thought that was kind of silly since I am not sure that was a serious attack on Raggi. But what the heck, OK. Erik actually was inspired to post a video on the subject, and though he did not mention me in particular, he clearly was thinking of me when he mentioned "somebody in the Discord being insensitive." Read about my post on this here..

Around 15 years ago I would have had a field day with this. But being more mature, and more on a path to being a more enlightened person, I actually gave it some thought. I still don't think it was an unreasonable comment. But I started to realize Tenkar was providing a bit of a space for folk who would be anxious about things. I mean, if we have been playing DnD for long enough we have seen a shit ton of this. People a little bit on certain spectrums. I mean, around that time on he and the wife's Health feature, they talked about maintaining hygiene at conventions. Literally advice on how the viewers should occasionally go in the rest room and splash water on their stinky pits. 

Erik suddenly catching a whiff from the audience.

That is kind of the thing we all discovered when girls started paying attention to us, maybe even sitting up close next to us. But fuck it, there but for the grace of god go I. It boils down to advice on helping people, so I don't want to make too much fun. And from the rare times I have been to conventions I will agree, yeah, more of these dudes need to be taking their Star Wars and Naruto T shirts off in the bathroom and splashing hot water on their steaming flesh pits. 

But besides news and health advice, Erik is clearly a defender of the old shit. The good old Mythic Underworld stuff I once found so fascinating. It lost a lot of its luster for me before I was out of my 20's. All this stuff particular to lovers of old DnD that Tenkar is recently posting about (every day now). Encumbrance, low stats and no skills, rations, dungeon trope this and dungeon trope that. He is a warrior for that stuff that was a part of my DnD (and still to a degree). And it's all good. 

I was ride and die for early DnD as well for most of my life. But when I moved to a new town and started running DnD online around 2020, I adapted to 5th edition. I no longer hated skills and feats and this and that. I no longer referred to newer DnD as "superhero games." I was running campaigns for people in their 20's and 30's. They don't give a shit about that old durp. But that is OK. I still have an old school vibe to my stuff. I don't do dungeon tentpole campaigns anymore. I slowed way down on that in my 30's. But I still love my Judges Guild and Arduin Grimoire stuff. I still use some old material for these kids I run for these days. And they eat it up, not always knowing it is old stuff I am tapping into. I just finished a year and a half Isle of Dread campaign for players 25-35, and they loved it. 5th edition has its issues, but I don't care. It has grown on me. 

But Erik Tenkar promoting the old stuff is all good. And talking about secret doors and treasure allotments may be pretty much preaching to the choir as far as his cronies and viewers are concerned. But he is expanding things from his simple blogging days, coming up with new angles. And from what retired policemen get as far as pensions he doesn't have to do it for the cash. It's clearly for the love of the game. 

Find the OSR Bartenders blog here and easily find him on YouTube. Cheers. 

https://www.tenkarstavern.com/