Nerd Pride and Pop Culture going Full Circle

Every now and then I get the urge to write something, well, critical. No worries, I won't get political. There is enough of that going around unfiltered as it is. No. What I aim to write here is about our hobby and others like it. How it was a stigma once, how that somehow changed and how I suddenly stopped being a nerd because I'm not socially awkward enough. I've been pondering about this one for a long time now and think I should give it a shot and be done with it. This is also a very personal and very long post (sorry).

Remember, remember ...

The early days of our hobby are, incidentally, also the early days of pop culture as we know it today. People tend to think about this as progress, but it really isn't that easy. Because the funny thing about popular culture is that it's always about what's popular at a certain point in time. Things that had been popular back then in the 70s made life pretty hard for those liking stuff that's now quite popular and accepted. Something changed and it had a somewhat positive effect on those who got stigmatized before. But ask yourself, is it really progress or is it "just" change? Because if it changes again, it might as well change back, you know ...

So lets say it's a struggle, like with languages, for example. People trying to conserve the "old ways", people trying to change THE WORLD completely and those that really don't care what happens outside their preferences (just like the classic Alignment system, isn't it?), all constantly finding compromises that also result in minor changes of what is perceived as popular culture.

Okay, so things are in motion and will always be. That's not a groundbreaking discovery, right? We should just lean back and enjoy our 15 minutes of fame. Right? Yeah.

But first remember those early days of being a role playing gamer. Being laughed at in school, people saying (either in the open or behind your back) that you are strange and socially unacceptable because you like talking about the fictional exploits of your Barbarian and not about sports. The days of the Satanic Panic, that most certainly didn't effect all of us, but most definitely had an effect on many.

People had been very serious about this one ... [source]

Most people aren't even reflected enough to really know what irks them and are just randomly mean because of a subconscious feeling that something is wrong with you. You know the kind, they just make bad jokes in public about you being ugly and are happy that enough others are laughing. Sad fucks.

I experienced some of that in the 90s, like my parents thinking I was in cult or a potential player getting told by his parents that playing those games is evil and forbidden by god. And I got the strange looks at school, got put into the role of the outsider. I was just lucky enough that punk was already popular (!) enough among pupils and I got a crowd to hang out with soon enough. Solidarity among subcultures, late to the party and all that. Others had it worse and I knew some of those getting bullied, heard about more.

At some point I had to take a position and I embraced my interests instead of conformity. I also had a brown belt in Judo, so that helped a lot (those few occasions I got bullied, well, lets say it didn't happen often). In many ways I was lucky like that and I am aware of it. But still, getting stigmatized is a very individual experience. It hurts and there is damage done to you.

People will keep telling you that those problems are minor compared to [insert other stigmatized groups for comparison], so get a grip, grow up, have some balls ... you know the shit people say when they are not able to relate or sympathize.

Now, why am I going there, you might ask yourself at this point. Well, it is part off the healing process to accept that you were hurt. That damage done for being stigmatized and excluded is real and it is personal. Talking it away as "bullshit" just buries it deep and will have a huge impact on a subconscious level, with colorful varieties of pain and compensation for your friends and neighbors to behold and enjoy. Knowing that means changing it.

Another huge effect of this is what one might call a herd instinct. Others like you are out there and, damaged and awkward as they might be, they become the most beautiful people of the world to you. Those first weekends on rpg conventions had been like wonderful holidays among friends for me and I'm very fond of those memories.

Of course you'd encounter the same tendencies completely normal for every social group. You got the snobs, the cool kids, the popular ones and that could get tiresome fast. But somehow I'd never be alone. Even when excluded or looked down upon, others would have my back. And not only friends, but total strangers, too. That's very important.

Would I have called myself a nerd back then? Maybe as a weak attempt to appear like I'm embracing the social position others would have me take as something great. You know the feeling, I'm sure of it. What it really is, though, is something others made you feel, something others did to you to have someone below them. Someone to feel superior over. The very words "nerd" and "geek" had been invented as labels to make it so much easier to exclude and insult.

... and now look around.

The nerds and geeks arrived in popular culture now. If you tell nowadays that you are playing role playing games, people will take an interest because they saw those funny guys in Big Bang ... whatsitsnameagain? ... play that. Right? And people always liked board games, so that's not that different. Right? All of a sudden you are the expert, not the pariah. At least among the "uninitiated".

Yet another related phenomenon is people mimicking nerds are all over the place now. It's chic to act as if you are strange because you have been excluded from what is socially acceptable for far too long or with far too much force. In other words, what had been a stigma with all the brutal consequences that tend to come with that, is now a badge of honor. You don't even have to experience the one to be the other. 

Let me be clear here: I'm not saying that you have to eat shit before you could "claim to be a nerd", because that would be utter bullshit on all accounts. You can not claim to be a nerd, for one, because it's something others did to you and awkward behavior was the result of that treatment not something you chose (or because of something you chose). Now it's a party gimmick and that comes with a very different set of problems, but I'm getting ahead of myself here ...

Because the original problem being gone doesn't mean it had never been there to begin with. On the contrary, actually. It makes the damage done by it so much harder to grasp and healing far more difficult. In a worst case scenario it even adds insult to injury, as they say. Because all of a sudden I'm not a nerd anymore. It's funny, the "popular kids" are the nu nerds now and there is an elitism coming along with it I've seen labeled as Nerd Pride.

It's debatable, now, if such a thing really exists or if it's really a new phenomenon. But if I tell among (what I used to think of as) like-minded folks that I'm gaming for 20 years now, even blog about it, I get more often than not attacked for it as if I threatened someone else's territory. So something did change.

Or stayed the same, really, as we are back in the social circle again. Because the things I like and know about are popular now. That, of course, makes it relevant for mating, so it stands to reason that we (the former excluded), too, have to punch our chests and throw shit at each other now to make our mark and impress potential mates ... Just like the primates we all are. It's so cute, I could puke.

Pop Culture going Full Circle

I've seen a meme a few months ago that really brought that idea home for me. Add the Star Trek, Twin Peaks, Ghostbusters, Ninja Turtles and Tremors reboots and you are good to go (but there wouldn't be much of Williams left to look at ...):

[source]

See what I mean? A year ago I had the pleasure of seeing the complete x-files again, seasons 1 to 9, plus all the movies. That's 20 years old tv now and other than a few technological gimmicks, nothing has changed. Gene manipulation, factory farming, artificial intelligence, government corruption and conspiracy, it's all right there in the first season. Fashion didn't change, music didn't change, opinions didn't change. It's all still the same. Or more of the same, even.

You might think now that I lost track of the topic and went into a completely different direction right now, but trust me, we'll get there again. With all the stuff we like being mainstream now, we are targeted for our money with "geeky" and "nerdy" articles. Like, all the time. Star Wars had been popular, but now MORE people will like it, so here is some NEW Star Wars. Have the newest edition of D&D, because D&D is now cool again. Or here, the newest anime, come on now, you love this!, it's only 30 bucks! Or need I write the word "kickstarter"? Would I dare to? It just goes on and on.

Sometimes I think we went from being shunned to being milked for liking what we like. Not sure that's a big step forward, to be honest. People will fight for the right to take your money, though, and they will get quite creative to manipulate you into thinking that the next new shit is superior to what has been. Let me tell you, it is not.

There are other, weirder effects to this whole affair. I know people that would argue about Harry Potter up to a point were arguments change to insults, especially when I tell them it's one of the great stories about unjustified geek empowerment. The whole story of Rowling being a poor unemployed teacher, writing the first book in a cafe because it had been warmer than her apartment and coming from a village that just looked like something described in the books? Facilitated by her publisher to sell more books. The idea about an imprisoned boy, mistreated for being different, fleeing into a magical world? That's Rudyard Kipling's early biography right there*. And the boy with the owl learning to be a wizard? Well, that's The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman, glasses included.

Harry really is just the British school-boy variant ... [source]

But other than not being very original, it's also quite questionable, as far as content goes. H. P. inherited his powers, for instance. Him being special has nothing to do with anything he learned or did. He's just a special snow flake for no particular reason. But it entitles him to be right ALL THE TIME. There is also some inherent racism in the notion that [wizards] are a superior race [Übermensch?] to normal humans. This being set up as muggles (or whatever) being mostly stupid and ignorant works well with the myth that those labeled as nerds had been on the right track all along. There is just so much wrong with it ...

Or take the Big Bang Theory. Highly questionable, in my opinion. Those guys are not really nerds, for instance, they are vehicles for commerce. Comics, t-shirts, tv-shows, nobody seems to mind the shameless product placement in that show. They are also successful and while it was funny to see Steve Urkel try and fail in all things (and with women), those guys are a little awkward about this stuff, but not more than others might be (or not much more, at least). They are presentable. They are the assimilated nerd, as popular culture and the market would like to have it. Something that is funny, but with merit. Harmless, no need to bully anyone.

Steve Urkle now and then ...

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Haters gonna hate and all that, but google "criticism about TBBT" and you'll find some interesting perspectives (how sexist it is, how there are no black people in the first five seasons, how it really is not about nerds ... take your pick). That and Harry Potter are just two examples. There sure is more where that came from.

Ever asked yourself why people are so eager to re-do all those shows and movies and ideas ad absurdum, most of the time not even getting better at it, too? There had been reasons for this stuff being popular to begin with and mostly it had NOTHING to do with mainstream or popular culture. It's like now that they can use this stuff to reach more people, they also use it to lull all into shopping frenzies and make us forget that we do this all the time, all over again. An infinite loop of bread and games with a good dash of Gleichschaltung to make the transition into idiocracy smooth and painless ...

It was acceptable to bully those strange folks among us, but it's far more profitable now to have them all within the big social circle, making money and spending it. Them being all the same is also easier to control than having subcultures all over the place. Right? People could get strange ideas if left to their own devices. Next they are going to tell us there is no gender difference. You know, because there is a whole market waiting for men starting to wear make up. Oh, wait ...

Everything changes, nothing changes.

Society constantly changes towards compromise, I think that much is established. The main questions are to what end those changes happen, what the consequences are and where we position ourselves towards those changes.

Liking what I like and playing the games I play is no more connected with a feeling of solidarity among like-minded people, it more often than not becomes a fight for popularity. The shit they make fun of in High School comedies. And that shit gets old fast. Actually, if I never had started blogging, meeting this great community online, I might have dropped gaming entirely by now.

As it is I'm (mostly) suspicious and cynic towards the commercialization of my interests. Nowadays it reached a  point where only spending the coin will make you important in the eyes of others. That's not true for all people or all the times, but true often enough. We are reduced to monkeys for a buck and a thrill and I get the feeling that some like it that way. Or at least don't like questioning it.

And asked what I am, if not a nerd, I'd say I'm non-conform, as in I am as an individual opposed to conformity. Put outside the main social circle to begin with, I decide to stay there. I go into a German RPG Shop and they don't know the OSR. I see TV Shows in English, often before there are any German synchronizations and I only know a handful of people I could talk face to face about it. I write about games (write one myself, even) in a language that's not my own. That's nothing special, it's just the consequence of my preferences and it leads where I am comfortable right now: outside the mainstream. And let me tell you, there's still a lot to discover and love in the fringes.

One might say the view is better on the outside, too. But I think I don't do it for the view.  No, it's only healthy to keep the mind busy like that on a regular basis, to see that although things did change, people will always try to make themselves superior to others, so someone always has to be at the shitty end of the stick. But it only affects you if you are part of the game, if you participate. And that stupid game might as well change in another direction yet again (I already see some of that happening) and ... well, you get my drift.

There is one final thing I'd like to share about getting bullied: getting victimized by others is never to be trifled with, but the blame-game also never helped anyone really and has the contrary effect of keeping you in the position others chose for you: that of a victim. The first important step to overcome that shit is not looking at what has been done to you, but finding out how it changed you. The second would be to learn to confront people about it in the open as soon as it happens. Right then and there. In the face. Step in for others, too, if you can. It'll mean the world.

I also don't have all the answers. Just more questions.

But I'd like to close on a more friendly note. The friends I made and the DIY-spirit in this community helped a lot in keeping me sane. Honestly, thanks for that, guys. There is a level of enthusiasm beyond wearing an idea like someone else's skin and that's contributing to the things you love for the things themselves. I see that daily in my stream and it's inspiring. One could say that I think the way I do now because I am into role playing games and DIY. I hope I'll never be done with this and I know I've still a long way ahead to get somewhere with it. But that's okay. It's the change I chose.

* I remember an English tutor telling us Kipling's foster parents went as far as putting him in a small room below the stairs as punishment, but have yet to find a source to confirm it.

Weird Movie Sunday: THSMwtEIW (Short)

[I like movies. I see a lot of strange movies. I always think they might be good for something in the game. Then I decided to make a feature out of it.]

If you read the title and instantly think you need to see this movie, you might like it, too:

The Horribly Slow Murderer with the

Extremely Inefficient Weapon

Made by a guy named Richard Gale. It is unusually cruel, as the title indicates, and it's a very special brand of creative dark humor. It's only 10 minutes and it is free, so if you haven't seen it already, you might just do so right now. Have fun!

That's it from me for today. More gaming stuff tomorrow...

For your Inspiration (Suspiria)

I was recently reminded of the soundtrack to the psychedelic horror movie Suspiria by Dario Argento. It has a very haunting quality to it. I don't use music in my Games, but I always found music stimulating when thinking about the Game. So here we go, Suspiria by Goblin:

Tomorrow I'll be back with something a bit more substantial. Until then, enjoy the weirdness...

D&D, Wolowitz and Nicolas Cage

I was on the fence about The Big Bang Theory, but season 6 has been a blast! Anyway, in episode 23 they play D&D with Howard Wolowitz as a DM. His impressions of famous actors are a sight to behold. If you didn't see this already, check it out:

His Nicolas Cage is just awesome! This would be a DM for my imaginary celebrity D&D table.

(Another light post, I know. More serious stuff will follow in the next 2 days...)

About a serious issue...

Honestly, think about it:

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If you dig this kind of humour, give Movie 43 a shot. Funniest movie I've seen in a while, but I have a weird sense of humour (so don't hold me accountable...).

(Only light posting this month, I suppose. Maybe I get something done this week.)

Some Adventures of Philip Marlowe (for Free!!)

Philip Marlowe, P. I.

This is about the radio versions of some of Raymond Chandlers short stories, saved for your pleasure on the OTR.Network Library.

Found it a long time ago and thought I'd share. More than 31 hours (63 episodes) of noir-goodnes for the ears!

If I remember correctly, they even had the old ads (the first story went on air around 1947...) in there, too. Very entertaining. Have fun!

Dungeoncrawl Reality Check

A nearby town from where I live is reestablishing it's historic underground for tourism. I thought it's worth checking out and we were not disappointed. Taking pictures was not allowed inside the dungeon, but I'll share what I can.

A little history

The guide told us they can say that parts of the dungeon existed already 600 years ago. At that time it was a small trading town with a port and circa 4.000 inhabitants. It was used for storage, as a last defense or escape, as a meeting place and even as a place to live. The town is build an a slope and the soil is very suitable for tunneling. And tunneling they did. A lot. As of this writing they've rediscovered 600 rooms and they believe there are up to 600 rooms still to be rediscovered. They started doing so because this had happened:

It went 4 meters down from there on... [Photographer: Martin Kaemper]

More beer in dungeons and other interesting facts

All in all we saw about 600 meters and maybe 10 rooms of the underground, ranging from the 14th century up to as early as 1940. Here are a few of my observations and knowledge I could gather:

• They had pieces of slate incorporated into the ceiling, because they leave splinters on the floor as soon as they break. It's what you'd want to know when the earth moved and passage isn't save anymore. I thought that was clever...
• The temperature down there was somewhere between 15° and 17° Celsius and it's really damp, so it feels actually colder. Forget storing books or fabrics down there for a longer time.
• We were told there is something like underground weather. For instance you can tell it had rained on the surface, because the walls start to glisten as soon as the water gets down there.
• They stored all kinds of stuff in the dungeon, but mainly beer. That's because alcohol kills germs and it was healthier than drinking water.
• It was very easy to distinguish different tunneling phases alone by the materials used. Parts of the dungeon even got sealed between centuries just to get rid of waste. A dungeon is always changing if somebody is living in it.
• No even or straight passages. The ceilings in the tunnels never had the same height, with very low ceilings being the standard. Rooms, though, had always higher ceilings and came in a lot of different shapes.
• We were between 6 and 10 meters below the surface, at times with up to 4 tunnels over our heads.
• They had discovered very low tunnels (about 1 meter high) and one of the theories about that is, that they used those to send message dogs through.
• We had to wear building-site helmets and it was an interesting experience to see how that alone narrows the perception.
• Orientation and navigation were really difficult. There never was a clear line of sight, too. Mapping would take forever.

That's about it. We'll go there again, into a private part of the dungeon. 1.5 kilometers and for 2 hours. Maybe I'll be able to take pictures then. Two pictures I was allowed to take to give you but a small impression of it. They are from the tourist information and public:

It's a very small portion of the dungeon!

Sorry about the flashlight...

I'm really looking forward to see more of this enormous underground labyrinth. I'll keep you posted.

The Wall is Down

In the last 24 hours I was asked two times, why I had the content warning (people did ask before, but anyway, now I think I should address this). I asked that myself a couple of times. Mostly I wanted this to be a courtesy. You know, I'm still not a native speaker, so, expressing myself in ze English, I will make mistakes. Different languages, different customs and all that.

In Germany, for instance, nudity isn't that much of a problem, gore, though, might be. And the enormous popularity of the word "fuck" shifts to a great degree from place to place. It might be just a filler, it might hurt some sensibilities. One never knows.

Now I realize, this content warning might, on the one side, discourage readers from going behind that wall and, on the other side, give the false impression there might be something dirty behind that content warning. Nope, no dice. It's all pretty kosher.

So, yes, the wall is down. Now I feel naked (not that I'd show a picture of it...).

Manipulating Matter (Dungeons, Traps and Magic)

Wrath of the Titans is not a very good movie. The story is uninspired and the acting is not very deep, either. But the set pieces are something else and nice to behold. Especially the underworld and the labyrinth are beautiful and got the DM in my brain chatting up a storm, so to speak.

What follows are some pictures (found in an interview about the development here) and a few ideas I got about it.. A video with some scenes of the labyrinth moving and shifting can be found here.

It all starts at an impressive door of magical enhanced stone:

Hephaestus opening a magical door.

To open the door, the stones have to be arranged in the right order. To move the pieces, magic is needed. This is pretty nice aspect for an "ultimate heist" dungeon crawl. One mission could be to find a draft of how the stones need to be arranged, the other one is an mechanical issue, so to speak.

To make it an entertaining experience for the players, it will need some sort of subsystem to make it work and produce some tension on the way. And it shouldn't be about not being able to open the door, but more about what ressources are needed to get there.

One of the missing pieces in D&D, for me at least, is the lack of rules for creating and manipulating (magic) environments. Sure, there are some connectors (how to create magic items, some spells, skills, etc.), but mostly it just gets waved away. How all those evil wizards are able to build the traps, doors, entire dungeons or creatures they have in their lair is just beyond the rule book (as far as I'm aware of).

How to manipulate matter

This idea is pretty vague right now, but I'll explore it further in another post. So far I'm thinking about giving Magic Users the possibility to sacrifice a spell slot to gain the ability to manipulate a certain kind of material to an extend related to the spell level used and how hard it is to work with the material. With racial modifications (it should be easy for dwarves to manipulate stone, for instance). Materials could be wood, leather, stone and metal (with some exotic variants for living matter and undead). Very experienced Magic Users should be able to manipulate more than one kind of material, but specialists working together should be an option, too. A somewhat different, but nonetheless very interesing approach to this is the Eberron class that James C. introduced a few days ago over at A Dungeon Master's Tale.

An ever shifting Megadungeon

After opening the magic door, the heroes enter the labyrinth. Here's a picture of it:

A megadungeon?

This is how a Megadungeon should look like, isn't it? Vast and intimidating. One of the characters in the movie calls himself "The Navigator". He is not of much use in this, but in a D&D game, this is were a thief should come in handy. And I don't mean scouting, but more like evaluating safe passage and finding shortcuts. So here is another thing about Megadungeons: just "exploring" a big, complex structure like this is pretty pointless, a group needs a reason to be in there, something to find, something to go to.

But I digress. What really blew my mind was when the dungeon in the movie started to change.

Inside  a shifting dungeon.

Let's say there are some static elements in a dungeon like this. Factions in the dungeon might fight for those never changing elements and might even build traps to protect those save havens. The sections inbetween are always changing. Mapping is only in a basic sense possible. There might be patterns involved how it changes. But not for all parts. Some might malfunction, some might be controlled by someone. The hazards of such areas might be animated objects, magic traps, undead, creatures that are able to live in such an environment and the changing elements themself. Random encounters would be more likely, if the group finds a safe passage through the shifting dungeon (because the dungeons inhabitants will know about it) or very rare, if they are in unsafe areas (for the same reasons).

With the possibility to tinker with the moving parts of the dungeon (sabotage by the thief, magic manipulation by a specialist Magic User, maybe clerics can be involved, too), a whole new set of adventure opportunities arise. Preparation becomes a crucial  necessity and that's what I was looking for.

That's it so far, the rest will follow. Here is another nice pic from the movie:

One more for flavor.

Troll Poison

This is my comment about the Dwimmermount fiasco or just gaming material. Whatever works best for the lot of you.

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Troll Poison

The troll might be a deadly creature or good for the experience, but the poison that can be distilled from his body fluids is one of the deadliest existing and very, very rare. The alchemical process to reverse the regenerative powers in the trolls blood is considered one of the most dangerous procedures for even the most skilled bloggers alchemists. But the results, if succesful, are terrifying.

Applying this greasy and purple liquid poison to a sharp or pointy weapon/utensil (needs to deliver at least one point of damage), it doubles the damage dealt with it every round. No save, just dissolving until the victim vanishes completely from the face of the earth. Healing won't work (but it helps to keep the victim alive a bit longer, even if in agony). Cure poison won't work, the damage is done. Resurrection is possible, but extremely difficult. There are rumours that fire and acid might stop the poison from working. Needless to say, it is very dangerous to try this. Surviving this will scar the victim for life (loose 2d6 CHA for all but friends and family), with no means, magical or otherwise, to get rid of them (short of a wish, maybe or imbibing a bottle of that stuff).

Imbibing a bottle of this poison is extremely dangerous, but legend has it that it might be rewarding, too. The trolls hit points are the base damage, double that every round for 4+1d6 rounds (save vs. death -5 every round for half damage). The pain is beyond describtion (no actions for the time and for 1d4 turns after that) and the body suffers (loose 1d6 CON, consider the character marked, maybe pale and thin...), but surviving this torture restores not only former wounds delivered by this poison (CHA back to former value), it also gives the character some troll abilities (according to damage taken):

1-49: Infravision up to 90 ft
50-99: heal 1 point/round
101-199: heal 2 points/round
200+ : heal 3 points/round, limbs keep attacking when severed and can be reattached after the battle

Trolls, however, will sense this and attack the character on sight. If he is famous, they'll even go as far as searching for him (characters level 9 or more: there is a 1 in 6 chance every day for 1d6 trolls to show up, if they can't get to the character for some reason, they'll wait and more trolls will show up...).

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Best of luck to James Mal and all his future endeavors. Don't let the head hang if the shit is up to the chin...

P.S.: The "Social Status Table (NPCs)" I'm still banging my head against, is a bitch and will take some time (or rest). Good thing I didn't get paid for that.

The Ranger went to Sea and got a Name

Find out about your pirate name! Saw this over at Gothridge Manor (thanks, matey!) (I wonder, is that proper pirate slang? To say "matey"?). Anyway,check it out:

My pirate name is:

Mad Jack Kidd

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. Even though you're not always the traditional swaggering gallant, your steadiness and planning make you a fine, reliable pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Might be useful for all those guys with troubles finding the name for their new character... But enough light posting for now (I had a very busy week). Next up is An Exorcism of Ideas, Part 3 (about social status, ARRR!).

I would be happy to read about some results in the comments.

Japanese Rules Cyclopedia!

You gotta love the internet (sometimes). Look at that:

Some monsters, all in color, not the sparse black
and white selection from the American version...

Obviously there was a japanese version of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia (I didn't know that...). I think it looks amazing and gives the game quite a different tone (which is not surprising, but nice to look at). Record of Lodoss War seems to be a direct connection..

Here is another example:

A star map. They definitly went in a different
direction with that stuff.

A gallery with more pictures can be found here.

The source is mystara.thorf.co.uk (same pictures as the gallery, but with more/complete texts). It seems to be inactive for some time now, but it might be worth a look or two. Anyway, this is a gem. I'd be very interested to know if they changed some of the rules and if so, how they did it.

Welcome to the 21. Century

A friend of mine showed me this today and I was reminded (again) that we live in the future, one step away from what Cyperpunk 2020 wanted to be. Have fun!

Now I'm back working on that damn Social Status Table...

EDIT: It's robots playing "Ace of Spades", the drummer has 4 arms. It's awesome :)

My top 7 games

Swords & Dorkery didn't start it, but it's the first time I'm seeing this (edit: not true, I also saw this at Over the Misty Mountains, still don't know who started it, though) and I'm happy to oblige: here are the 7 games I played the most.

Source: Midgard-Wiki

1. Midgard- Das Fantasy Rollenspiel

Was my first love. 5 years of ongoing campaign, nearly every friday for at least 5 hours. Those were the times!
As far as systems go, it's a very skill-heavy and low fantasy roleplaying game made in Germany. And one of the oldest at that. Other than the newer/better/faster approach in current game design, a new edition Midgard was always about growth without bloating and not about "the new different".
Maybe I will be playing/DMing it again some time in the future.


2.  Vampire: Die Maskerade

Cover (German version)

It was innovative at the time and we played it before the hype. Our way of playing this was more punk than goth (with a little bit of Rammstein and Tarantino in the mix) and we had a lot of fun for a year or two.
One campaign in Hamburg and one weird german road-trip thingie with human characters (later on one found out he was a werewolf, the other became a vampire, they were brothers, it got complicated...), a heritage, some mafia involvement and the end of the world.
If I ever were to DM an urban fantasy game again, I wouldn't go for the V:TM rules. Instead I would loot whatever I can carry and run it with Witchcraft (it's free, check it out!)

Rammstein - Asche zu Asche

3. Cyberpunk

Source: drosi

What a game! It introduced me to William Gibson and Akira, that alone is reason enough for tribute. I was young at the time and didn't bother thinking about the rules, so we played it RAW. And a lot of one-shots whenever there was an opportunity. But never a campaign (which is a shame, I know).
Two of my favourite scenarios to run were "The Delivery Guy" (get the package delivered, whatever the cost!) and "The Health Inspector" (red tape vs. urban brutality).
Most remembered scene. The characters (a health inspector with some backup) try to enter a diner. Some heavy shooting on the parking lot, one manages to get inside only to be confronted by a crazy gun-wielding clerk.
Clerk: What THE FUCK do you want!
She: A Currywurst? (made me laugh hard and gave her the advantage in the end)

4. D&D 3.0

Source: D&D Wiki

A bad time for gaming. I had some experience (not a lot, mind you) with AD&D as a player and thought the 3rd edition was rad. I loved it for all the wrong reasons and soon after hated it for all the right reasons (my opinion, really).
The good: Rappan Athuk. It was brutal, it was evil, I loved it. They came down to level three ("Beware the purple worms!") and fought some legendary battles (some players are still haunted by it...). All the players bought the handbook.
The bad: Mostly I didn't like the combat rules, the time consuming preparation and the flood of D20-material (I bought way to much of this stuff).
The ugly: Too much power gaming.


5. HackMaster

Source:  wikipedia

Some time during my D&D 3.0 experience I discovered Knights of the Dinner Table and loved it for all the truth in it. As soon as they started publishing HackMaster, I was all over it.  A complete and new set of rules, basically AD&D in a funny dress, quirks and flaws, exploding dice and they gave all that classic modules a rerun! What's not to love? It is a bit heavy on the rules, but it was coherent and it never felt as bloated as D&D 3.0 (and friends).
My weapon of choice at the time was The Temple of Existantial Evil (they were funny like that). We played it a little over 3 years. The final showdown in the moat house was a 12 hours game with 8 players. Very good memories...
I probably won't DM it again, but I stole all the rules I liked and use them in my houseruled D&D aberration.

6. D&D Rules Cyclopedia

One day (maybe 3 years ago) we met for a game without having a plan what to play. HackMaster was to much of an effort (as were most other games I could propose). Around that time I had discovered the OSR-blogosphere for me and the D&D Rules Cyclopedia I had owned for something like 10 years now (but never really used) was my new favourite book. The only other Basic-D&D-thing I owned was the adventure DDA 3: Eye of Traldar and we decided to play it RAW (going as far as reading the flavour text aloud, crazy, I know).
It's not a very good adventure, to be honest. But we had a blast playing the game fast and easy and kept meeting doing so. And soon I started tinkering with it.


7. Bastard RPG (this doesn't exist yet)

Yeah, I'm working on it

Yeah, this is some kind of trick, because I forgot to mention Runequest (I DMed it for a very short time and loved it, my players didn't). So as my 7th top game, I have to blame the OSR for the unlimited supply of houserules, design ideas, tips and tricks, gaming philosophy, setting inspiration and various clones. The game we play today does exist in one form or another in this small corner of the internet. Ever changing and evolving. And one day in the future I will present my very own collection of borrowed and/or altered rules to my players, printable and free for all. A bastard as complete as possible. Blogging is one way of achieving this and contributing to the community that made it possible. So thanks guys, this game was made by you :)

Well, this was a trip down memory lane and I think a good way to close for the year. I hope to continue posting that regular in the months to come. After all I have to create a world engine, some monster advancement tables (ghosts should be next), a few new classes (Dwarves need to be done, a Undead Hunter is almost finished and I have a somewhat new take on the barbarian somewhere to exploit, stuff like that) and some rules to tinker with (weapon mastery is long due, more about magic and maybe some CSI: D&D...). Anyway...

...I wish all of you a nice start into the next year!

A halfling in peril...

It just happened the other day that I needed to show the guys what a gelatinous cube looks like and this was one of the first pictures showing up:

You gotta love that halfling! Picture by Shockbolt on deviantart.

I thought it's awesome and wanted to share...

Things to come (+joesky tax)

My D&D campaign is now officially paused. This is a good thing, because I'll now have the time to take a very hard look at the D&D rules and see what flinches. I did this before on this here blog and at least it helped me to fine tune my house rules and to understand better, what D&D is about (maybe...).

No D&D for my group in the near future.

About the blogging experience.

I'm really not sure I want an audience, to be honest. Of course I want to share my ideas with the OSR and all that. But I just don't think the quality of my ideas match the quality of the things already written in our small community of the web. To me at least it seems clonky at times. And that's for two good reasons: I'm neither a skilled writer nor is my level of rules transcendence very high.

So the reason to blog at all is to GET THERE. Find a voice, get the knowledge, get used to write something on a regular basis. Don't fear the trolls (or pay the bridge toll...).

And for that I might need an audience after all.

But what to do, what to do?!

My regular group will, if Ze Gods are in a good mood, engage in Witchcraft for a while now and I'll be all over D&D variations only in theory. I'll try to post two or three posts a week. Focus should be on some of the following topics:

• Futher deduction of house rules from THE GAME. My goal shall be to be able to write down rules in a few sentences (as it should be). But to get there, I have to dissect it first.
• Every aspect of the game should be open for revision. I want to go deep into the rules and make them my own (classes, experience, etc.).
• What do I need in a game? What is necessary to achieve that?
• A working setting is is as much part of the rules as anything else (at least in D&D), so before I'm going to  DM another session of the D&D Bastard of my choosing, I'll try and develop a setting, monsters, random tables, etc..

Also I'll try to be a good boy and be more active in the community. Blogging is a lot of work. Nobody mentioned that.

Shameless self promotion (skip that, gentle reader, it's hard to stomach for myself, too):

I'm so glad Jeff Rients is back and not only for the obvious reasons (his blog is one of the best out there and you know it). No, it's also the only blog list I'm on. There, I said it, I want traffic, maybe even some comments. So if you're a blogger and willing to have my blog in your list, I'd be very happy about that (and return the favour, of course, for whatever that's worth).

----------------------------------------------------------

JOESKY TAX

A plague nobody wants to heal with magic, because (1D8+):

1. It's justified, the gods think it's a good idea and put the lid on healing it.
2. The gods are the reason for the plague, nothing to do about it.
3. They fear to get the plague themselves. Nobody needs a dying pantheon.
4. Finding the cure another way will save the world from something more dangerous (not that anybody is telling...).
5. This is no plague, it's the transformation to something new (they say).
6. The gods are not affected, but the channels to the gods are. It taints magic.
7. To heal it makes the cleric loose faith permanently. Nobody knows why (or do they?).
8. To die from the plague transforms a victims soul to ambrosia in the netherworld. A freak accident, but the gods like ambrosia very much.
9. ...

Black Sabbath introducing Classes in D&D (Reskinning Classes: Prologue)

The OSR made me do it!

Especially this guy. But it's no new idea to customize Classes in an RPG or even to build new Classes to make the players happy. As a regular feature in my Campaign, players may unlock new Classes (it's just my fancy way to give them the feeling they've achieved something...). There are already two examples on this blog. For this series I would like to talk about the basic Classes in the Rules Cyclopedia, though. Like, my view on the Thief, why should a MU have Mana, Cleric spells at 2nd level (but...), this sort of thing. And when I started thinking about this, I considered linking some Black Sabbath to it, you know, for flavour.

And soon I realized it's ALL Black Sabbath!

Dig it! The Wizard:

The Fighter:

The Thief (okay, tricky... Paranoid maybe?):

The Cleric (now, this is a freebie):

The Elf:

The Dwarf:

The Halfling (sorry, nothing comes to mind but this):

Well, it wasn't that easy after all. But very Old School. Next will be an intimate look into the Wizard (Spell lists, Arduin Mana and Cantrips to blow funny smokerings).

The Ranger lost in Slovenia

A 3D map of a giant petrified Purple Worm with a Mad Wizard in it? Sounds cool?

Check it out over at prekomorec!

Behold the Quest for Prince Charming (Addendum)

While writing my last post I was on a quest for a picture of a good Disney Prince (for the Changeling Class below). I would have gone for funny, but this is what I got then:

"You want to kiss her awake? Save vs. Dragon Breath!

(A mint might give you a bonus...) "

This one was nice, but I couldn't use it (may share it nonetheless):

There were also a lot of frog pictures,

because... er... nerver mind.

One picture wouldn't leave me alone, though:

What did this guy do wrong?

But I missed something. And then it hit me:

Then the DM in my head says: "Yeah, yeah. You mean, when a Changeling gets drained to level zero, he not only looses his Charm Power, he also gets very hairy and a bad attitude. Funny that. Ha Ha." That bastard...

MIA

Another Ranger joke (couldn't help it...)!

Well, long time no posting. You know what they say:

The official OSR Meme (is this still funny?)

At first I was very busy, then I was very ill. Now I'm back in the woods.

Tomorrow I will write INCREDIBLE REVELATIONS ABOUT ELVES and a little something about Armour Class.

All after a good nights sleep...