'Keep' Cheat Sheet + Tekumel Violence

1. First:

Quicky Keep, for if your PCs decide to attack it (click to enlarge)



2. Yet Another Appalling Tragedy Caused By People Not Listening More Carefully To Me

So Chris ran us through an Empire of The Petal Throne dungeon--I mean "City Buried In Accordance With The Sublimely Inscrutable Belief System of A Lovingly-Crafted Yet Ineffably Alien Culture Whose Imaginative Majesty Only The Most Refined Minds Could Possibly Hope To Grasp"--and, though my guy got through all right and I had a great time and got to use the Medium power to travel to the land of the dead and ask Ckutalik's previous TPK'd party how they got past the sacrifice-door, (which tactic is shaping up to be the "ask the Paladin if it's evil" of Tekumel) things did get a bit hairy. Prompting this post from our DM...--oh sorry, I mean our "CBIAWTSIBSOALCYIACWIMOTMRMCPHTGM"...

About 50 comments later...
30 comments later...
A few hours after that...

___________________________________

Caves of Chaos Is A One-Page Dungeon

Click to enlarge.

Don't get your suspenders twisted, copyright holder of record, this is just for educational purposes...

Y'all know how much I despise inefficiency. So I did this experiment to see exactly how much of the Caves of Chaos from the "classic" (translation: old) module Keep On The Borderlands I could fit on the map.

Answer: most of it.

The numbers refer to the number of each humanoid faction in that room--the color code on the right tells you which kind of monster it is.

If you've read the module even once, you can pretty much run any encounter in the caves using just this and the monster stats up to the point where the PCs start looting the dead (treasure is not listed).

Rooms where the room key gives some information not already on the map that's relevant in a fight are marked with a *. (Though generally this is not a lot of information--most of it is about as long as the notes that are written out in the margins of the map--"Gelatinous cube attacks if PCs are in room for more than 3 rnds and has treasure inside it" etc.. I just chose details that I could make fit.)

Room descriptions are obviously missing, but if you have any familiarity with the monsters involved you can pretty much make those up--there's a ton of filthy slimy guard rooms, the ones
with lots of guys in them are the common rooms and the ones with the bosses in them are fancy by local standards. The "independent" monsters live in bone strewn caves--shocking, I know. And if you can't figure out how to describe what the rooms where the evil priests and skeletons and altars over on the left look like, you should probably hang up your DMspurs forever.

One thing I forgot: locked doors. It'd be pretty easy to add a little "locked door" symbol to the map, though. If you have a spare half hour to scan the module and pop some on, I'm sure someone somewhere will be grateful.

(Another mistake I just noticed--for clarity's sake, the "orc head" note on the upper right should technically be orange, not red, but my screen's all screwy so I didn't notice 'til just now.)

Anyway, if I can do this in an hour-and-a-half using only the graphics program that came free with my mac to a dungeon that wasn't even designed to be "coded", the big companies should be able to get way more out of someone with, say, an actual graphic-design program and actual graphic-design degree and 8 whole hours to kill.

So remember: If you ever find yourself flipping back and forth when running a module even if it has absolutely nothing weird or complicated in it, it's because they're lazy.

It's Been 30 Years, They Still Haven't Done It. I Guess I Will.

Click to enlarge.(Unless you're running a PC in a "Keep On The Borderlands" campaign)

7th Week of Constantcon

This is the post I'll be putting up every Wednesday for the foreseeable future about Constantcon--our neverending program of RPGs played via Google +'s free multiperson videochat feature ("hangouts").

The point of this post is:

1) you can sign up to GM a game via Google + video chat in the comments,

2) you can join one of those games in the comments, and...

3) hopefully every question you might have about Constantcon is answered on here somewhere.

The weekly post will also contain all the collected wisdom on running G+ games we have accumulated thus far. New tips/discoveries for any given week will be below in red.

Everything else in this post is old news if you read this blog every day, I just consolidated it into one post.

The current calendar of Google + games is on the right of this blog page just under my bloglist where it says "upcoming games on Google +". If you can't see it, reload the page--if you still can't go here and hit "agenda". Calendar times are in Eastern Standard Time because that's where I am today and I'm the guy who's taking the trouble to keep the calendar up.

You can subscribe to the thread and the comments if you wanna keep up as new games are added.
_______________________
FORMAT FOR POSTING AN ANNOUNCEMENT OF YOUR GAME BELOW IN THE COMMENTS:
Day

Time describe the time you're available using at least one western hemisphere and one eastern hemisphere time zone so peeps can figure out whether they're around.

System(s)

Level

Do we need to bring anything? (Like, say, a 3rd level character) and anything else you think might make your pitch intriguing--setting, etc.)(if your ruleset is unusual, it may be best to tell everybody to just show up with stats, a race and a class and smooth out the specifics once the game starts rolling.)

Contact info: Please include a way people can contact you other than Google + so that you can tell who they are when they request you and you can discuss details if they're not already one of your G+ contacts. If your name is like "Jack Wilson" realize there's 200 of you on Google plus and you'll need to supply some alternate information if G+ users are looking for you. (Like: I'm the Zak Smith with the black and white picture and the asymmetrical haircut). _________________

Example:

Skooky McDungeonface will be DMing a Red Box game in Greyhawk at 1pm Italian time/4 am Pacific Standard time next Tuesday. Bring a 4th level PC and she can be reached under the name Skooky dawt McDee at yahoo dawt calm.

__________

How it works/getting started:

So step one is get a Google + invite from a friend.

Step Two: Once you get that you show up on the site and go "looks like facebook" then you leave.

Step Three: Forget you have it until you decide it's time to play GURPS Supers at 3 in the morning with someone in Madagascar who must be a good DM because he likes Motorhead as much as you do, at least judging from his comments on your blog...

Now what:


So once you have Google + you can get to your page by clicking like so...





...which takes you to a very Facebook-looking page.

Here are the important bits about this page:

-there's a green button on the right that says "start a hangout" which you can use to start a video session (only if you're not already in one on Google +)(though you can use Google + and Skype simultaneously--the people will be able to hear each other).

-If one of your friends has started a video session, there will be a green button allowing you to join in under their name, where this Larry Page guy has his message written in the picture. Click it and you're in.

This is what a video session looks like (only perhaps the people in your session may look a little less...festive...than the models in this Google PR photo I found on-line.) Anyway, important bits to remember are in red:

A-Hitting this button will make a little text chat window appear in the margin which allows you to type shit to the other people there. It's good for keeping track of dimensions of rooms, PCs names, etc. Also, if it's hard to hear someone talk you can type something in. Usually the audio's pretty good, though.

B-Hit this to invite new peeps to the session. You can do it by name or by "circle" (Google + name for a ton of people you've put in the same category)

C-This button theoretically lets you all watch the same youtube video but it doesn't seem to work yet.

D-The program senses whoever's talking and makes their head big. (Beardy is talking here, apparently). However, if, for example, the GM is holding up a map to the screen and you want the big camera to stay on one person, just click on their little head. To switch it back, click the little head again.

Glitches:

-Some people get asked to download a plugin when they first start a Google + vid chat and can't join until they've done it. After you download it, you should be cool.

-The thing freezes occasionally. If this happens, just use the text chat thing in the corner for a few seconds while it unfreezes. Sometimes people get kicked out by the machine. Don't worry, they'll rejoin seconds later.
_______________________

Tips:

-There's an all-Tekumel G+ gaming hub here now. (You can still post about Tekumel games below here, too, though.) (And, since many people choose games based on when they're available rather than by which game it is, I recommend not going too nuts with the "hub for each separate game" thing.)

-If you use the whiteboard at www.twiddla.com know now that you can roll dice on it. Just keep the little window that opens on the far right open when you start playing and type "d6" and hit enter and it'll roll a die. You can write like "d17" or whatever, too.

-Another twiddla tip: "control z" undoes the last thing you did, I believe.

-If Google + keeps kicking you out and there are 5 or fewer windows open, try shutting down your video so that you're audio-only. That might lower your bandwidth enough to keep you on.

-Alternative to G+: Skype offers a free 7-day trial of multiperson video chat--if your group has 4 players and a dm (5 skype accounts), that's over a month you can use multiperson video for free via Skype. (More if you can use a friend's Skype account, too). And of course, you can always pay for Skype.

-Some GMs have begun a practice of overbooking by one player (an alternate) since usually one person usually has to cancel by game time.

-5 people was but no longer is the vague maximum. G+ says it can handle ten but whatever, that's all lies. At one point, any more than 5 and it would go all screwy. Larger games do work but 10 is stretching it. If someone gets kicked off, use the "invite" function to get them back--it'll make it way easier for them to re-navigate to where you are.

-It's possible some GMs may find individual initiative works better than group inititative on G+: With group initiative you have to decide who'll roll, they roll, then tell everyone what they rolled. People tend to talk over each other so it can be a little clumsy. However, with individual initiative, each player and the DM can roll, then immediately type the number they just rolled into the chat window (so it'll say "Zak: 2, Mandy: 6, Skooky: 4") and the DM and everybody can just go in that order and you can all see it right there on your screen. Cuts down on crosstalk and is easy. You might wanna try it.

-Don't point your speakers toward your mike. (You know about feedback, right metalheads?)

-If your audio's screwy, use headphones.

-If there's an audio problem, the person who sounds most normal on the audio is probably the one whose computer's creating the problem.

-Close as many windows as you can.

-Some people's computers or connections just hate G+ right now and their computer will lag or be gimpy and make the whole session screwy. If this is you, you probably won't be able to play today but don't be discouraged--speed of service ebbs and flows. If you're screwed today you might not be tomorrow. Also, G+ itself may figure out how to handle the volume of online heads in the future.

-If your computer is one of the unreliable ones, try switching from a wireless to a wireful (cable, DSL, etc.) internet connection if you've got one.

-PLEASE BE AS SPECIFIC AS POSSIBLE WHEN ANNOUNCING A GAME: Please don't go: "Hey, if I run Palladium Fantasy, does anybody want in?" Go: "I will be running Palladium Fantasy RPG from 3-6 PM Eastern 8pm London time I can be reached at ConsiderateAndEfficient at yahoo dawt calm and if you want to play but that time is no good, tell me when is good and maybe we can work something out"

-Possible communications protocol: if everybody's talking at once and you need to say something, you can cover your camera with your hand so it goes all black so the GM knows you wanna say something.

-Consider consolidating all your recruiting responses in one place. i.e. you can advertise your game here and on your blog and on G+ and on twitter and whatever else, but it might make your life a little easier if you ask people responding to those advertisements to do it all in one place. It's easier to schedule if you're not talking in nine different places on the internet at once.

Of course, people will ignore you if you ask them to please respond in a certain place, so you might wanna close comments in any venue where you don't want to get responses.

-The video's a little fuzzy, if you want to show players a diagram or something, maybe use sharpie. Mappers may wanna do the same.

-Jeff's good idea: Once you have players for a game all ready to roll, create a new "circle" containing only the players in that game. Start a thread and have them post their character basics in that thread.

-However and ironically: once you have a group ready to roll and you know who is in, if you have something important to say (i.e. "tomorrow's game will be shirts vs. skins, please roll d4 now to see which side you're on" or "Sorry, gotta cancel") you may be better off using email than G+ to say it. This is because on G+, like facebook, important messages you send to people can get buried in their feed underneath dozens of other people posting about their cat.

-Remember: just because you're in a given time zone, not all your players have to be. People keep weird hours.

-Alexander Osias points out you can use this to schedule time zones. You may think "oh, I'll just use a time zone map" because maps are friendly and fun. But beware: daylight savings time makes things all weird. Use something with a brain.

-If you have a blog and are running a game that isn't full yet (or would like to start up a weekly game), I suggest putting a little widget in the corner of your blog (if you have one) describing the game and saying all the details you put in the thread below.

-2 hours seems like a good time. Though allow some lead time for character generation if it's a system with meat on it. If you can get players to make characters before they roll, do that.

FAQ

-Who rolls the dice in a videoconference game?

It's up to the GM. The GM can roll all dice, you can use the dice robot app on the Dragonsfoot forums (you have to register) (I'm sure someone who isn't me can explain it), or you can just all roll your own dice and trust each other because we're grown-ups here.

If you use the whiteboard at www.twiddla.com know now that you can roll dice on it. Just keep the little window that opens on the far right open when you start playing and type "d6" and hit enter and it'll roll a die. You can write like "d17" or whatever, too.

At this point it seems like most players and GMs would rather roll their own dice, though.


-What's the deal on moving PCs from one game to another?

We have an official agreement on that called The FLAILSNAILS Conventions. Check it.

-Is there some ap that allows me to draw maps everyone in a game can see?

You can use this. More info here...

Though it may be slow on some connections if you do it simultaneously with the hangout.

-I don't see any games I want to play yet on the calendar but I know they're going on...

A lot of GMs already have gotten continuing groups together over the last few weeks so there may be fewer "advertised" games than there were. Don't worry, people are always doing games, so just join Google +, add people to your "circles" and check them regularly--they will probably announce something soon.

-I keep getting kicked off the hangout!

Close all your windows and if it still happens, mute your video so you're audio-only. I have a crappy connection where I am now and the same thing was happening to me until I did that.

-I can't see the calendar that's supposed to be on the right!

If you can't see it, reload the page--if you still can't, go here and hit "agenda".

-Are Google + games fun? Are people liking them?

Yes. People have been playing on G+ for two weeks and the responses have all fit into one of 2 categories:

A) "That was awesome, when can we do it again" and

B) "I had technical problems so I couldn't play."

So, basically, if you can get your computer to do it right, it's fun and you'll probably like it. Some computers just take to G+ some don't. I don't know much about computers but have had no technical problems so far.

G+ seems to be an especially good place to playtest new game ideas.

-Whatever, buddy, I can't trust you--what does Jeff Rients think?

That.

-Why not use Skype instead?

Multiperson videochat on Skype is not, as of this moment, free. On G+ it is. But hey, you wanna list a Skype game here, no problem. If you want to list an all-voice game on any platform, that's cool, too.

-How many G+ games have you, guy writing this post, played?

Nineteen before I lost count... Two were with all real-life friends. The GMs and systems were: Me 4 times(3.5/AD&D mashup), Tavis (Adventurer Conqueror King ), DarrenE (AD&D), Welcome To Dungeon (AD&D), Jeff Rients (Labyrinth Lord/Basic/Expert), 3 with Arcadayn (Swords & Wizardry), Il Male (Labyrinth Lord), Empire of the Petal Throne twice with Ckutalik, Ulek Xek (S&W), Ben A (Gamma World), Dungeon Crawl Classics with Arcadayn, AD&D with Allandaros, and Neoclassical Geek Revival with Zzarchov. Way more since then, actually....

-Any noticeable difference between systems?

None at all. Systems all feel extremely similar so far. After playing we go "Wait, was that Labyrinth Lord we were playing?" Who is GMing seems much more relevant.

Played 7th Ed Gamma World which has 4e style tactical movement but GM Bennet Akkerman managed it fairly smoothly.
"How many squares away is the giant eyeball?"
"5."
Not that complicated, so long as the DM sets up the game so it can work.

Other than my mash-up and AD&D I'd technically never played any of those games before.

-I see an interesting-looking game on the calendar--how do I join it?

I have tried--when it seemed appropriate and privacy-respectiful--to put the GM's G+ name on there so you can contact the GM on G+. If that doesn't work, check the comments on this thread or the thread for the previous Wednesday for the GMs announcement--it should have his/her contact info.

-Why Google +, why not ______(some other platform besides Google+ or Skype)____?

It just happens to be what I know about and it's free--if you want to run a game on some other platform please go ahead and post it.

-Why should I announce when I'm running a game here? Why not just announce it on G+?

Because, even assuming everyone who might want to play in your game is already in your circles, G+ still isn't perfect: on your feed, if one person in your "Online RPG pals" circle announces "Hey I'm starting a game in 2 hours" and then 12 people announce "Hey, here's something WOTC did today that pissed me off and/or a picture of my cat", then your game will get buried in peoples' feeds.

Even if every gamer in the world eventually gets on G+ and adds you, until G+ finds a way to tag posts (and everyone agrees to use that system) and/or people stop wanting to tell other gamers that they have a cat there will have to be an outside sorting mechanism for games starting up. This is the mechanism.

-Is there some certain game system I should run?

Run whatever you want. Please run whatever you want. Sooner or later someone's gonna try it, you might as well be a pioneer. GURPS, OD&D, FASERIP, FUDGE, Mechanoids, Kill Puppies For Satan--whatever makes you happy.

Tips: 1) Be prepared to explain the mechanics as you go along, many people will be new no matter what system you use--this isn't that hard. 2) If you like to keep your life simple, start with a rules-lite system. 3) The only hard part is character generation--if it's D&D-related you can just tell people to give you race, class and 6 stats before the video session starts and smooth out translation issues then. I do this all the time, it's easy.

-Isn't playing with people you don't know weird?

Yes. That's why it's fun. If the game sucks you can always say you hear your mom calling and have to leave.

-How long is Constantcon going on?

Forever.

-Can I start a campaign?

Yes. You can do whatever you want. Stop asking.

-I want to do a game where______ is that ok?

Yes. Everything is ok. It's your con, too.

-Would anybody out there maybe possibly be interested if I ran a game of_____?

Yes to whatever you were about to say. Pick a time and post it. If nobody else is interested, I am. I'll play anything once.

-I see all the guidelines here about how to announce that I want to GM a game, is it ok if I just, like, totally ignore some of those guidelines?

Sure, just prepare for the possibility of people not signing up for your game and don't complain that I didn't warn you and that this G+ game thing is totally bogus and nobody loves you.

-Hey, I'm up to GM anything whenever, can I just announce that and wait for the game to assemble around me?

Well you can, but it will make scheduling really hard and take forever and require a million emails back and forth and re-announcements once you have a time and de-announcements to say you are no longer available "whenever" because you have games scheduled now and...

So if you actually want to roll you may be better off actually saying a day and a time if nothing else.

Remember: The more specific you are about when you are running your game, the faster shit will get itself organized. If you're worried people won't be able to make that specific time, just say like "3-5pm(flexible)"and if anybody wants to change it they'll hit you up.

-Can I just say I'm available to GM any time?

No, because you're lying, because you sleep, and maybe work or go to school. If your free spirit just cannot be contained to one hour, at least put a range of hours you are available (in two different time zones, as usual). If you say "I am available whenever" then you are begging several questions--do the community a favor and answer them up front so as not to generate more noise (as opposed to signal) than you need to. Anyone answering your thread is immediately going to ask what hours you're awake--please realize that ahead of time and deal with it.

-Help, I'm having technical issues with G+!

Post here. Or, if you can, on G+. People will probably help you out. If I don't comment it's 'cause I don't know.

-How's the video quality?

It ain't Stanley Kubrick--but do you need Stanley Kubrick? It'll freeze for a second here and there, but relax, you'll live. Audio's pretty good unless there's an actual connection problem. I can go in the kitchen and make pasta and still hear what's going on in the game.

-Why do I have to send you an email saying who I am on G+, why not just add you?

"I always thought it must be quite handy being called John."
"Why?"
"You can tell when you're going nuts."
"Sorry? I don't follow.”
"I mean, a real sign of megalomania, when a John starts thinking that 'John' will do. 'Hi. It's John.' Or: 'Yours ever, John.' So what? Everybody's called John."
-Martin Amis "The Information"

Plus if your screen name is DisplacerBeast28 and your G+ name is Fred Walsh I am not going to make the connection. And if I don't then I won't know who you are or why you started following me (art fan? porn fan? somebody's ex-boyfriend? Spambot?) and I will not add you to my "Online RPG People" circle.

A lot of people who follow me on social media are anonymous citizens who don't want to be followed back or play RPGs. So if you want in, please send an e-mail to zakzsmith at hawt mayle dawt calm and type your actual Google + name into the text of the email using the letters of the alphabet if you want to be added. "Hi, RPG, Fred Walsh I am holding a sprite in my picture G+" is enough. "Hi, add me on G+" isn't.

-I'm shy.

Wear a mexican wrestler mask.

-Won't this Constantcon thread get hopelessly long and confusing eventually?

Nope. Once a week I am going to close comments on these Wednesday threads and post new ones where people can post games they're running that week.

-Wouldn't it be cool if James Raggi, James Smith, and James Maliszewski all agreed to GM games in one week and called it JamesCon?

Yes.

-Do I need a webcam?

No, you could just use a mike and go audio-only. Do be aware that webcams are like 10 bucks though.

-The hangout window keeps shuffling from head to head and it's annoying.

G+ senses who is talking loudest and makes their head big. To tell it to chill just click on one person's little head below and their head will stay big.

-I need a G+ invite!

Complain here. Motherfuckers will hook you up.

-I like you, Zak, but I don't want all your weird readers hitting me up for my game. What do I do?

Then post your GM schedule game on your blog. And tell me you did so I can decide if I want in.

-I am grumpy/antisocial/a luddite/just really busy. Will you ever shut up about G+ games?

I am going to try to only talk about them once a week.

-When are you playing, Zak?

I get up whenever and am generally awake until 4am pacific time/noon London time. My schedule is totally unpredictable, especially on the weekends, but since I paint and play simultaneously I might roll whenever.

-Are the girls playing?

Yeah. Though their schedules are even weirder than mine. But, like, Connie, Mandy and Caroline Pierce have all played G+ games.

My Campaign World Is Tear-And-Share Size, What About Yours?

Art School Story:

Student: (pointing to a bunch of little drawings she did, napkin-sized, with colored pencil and ink) "I just wanted to do these, y'know, try some things--they were fun."

Blustery Teaching Assistant: (winding up) "Ok, y'know when you go to the candy store and there's candy? Like Snickers?"

S: "Yeah...."

BTA: "Well if you've seen the fun size it's this big." (tiny fingerspace) "But if you go and look over at the King Size it's this big." (big giant handspace) "So you say these are fun? Don't have fun! Be a king!"
_____

This points to one way professional creative types use the word "fun".

Like: a serious mainstream novelist writes a paperback detective novel. His friends go "Oh, that'll be fun!"

A sculptor makes a soapbox derby car: "Oh, y'know, it's just fun!"

Anthony Hopkins plays the villain in an SFXtravaganza "Well it was a lot of fun."

In this context, fun means, roughly:

An endeavor where you get to use your creativity, but one that is circumscribed and pre-formatted enough that it's obviously not that creatively ambitious and so you don't have to stake your creative reputation on whether it is groundbreaking or not.

Creative, but low stress. Like drawing a face on your hand and making it talk to a baby that isn't yours and that you don't really have to keep entertained for very long.

(Since this is being posted on the internet, and therefore has to be idiot-proofed just in case, let me here point out that, yeah, obviously, sometimes these "fun" projects end up better and in all ways more fruitful than the "king" ones. I'm sure Jane Fonda thought "Barbarella" was fun size, but it's one of the best movies of all time. Better than 'Klute' anyway...)

____________

Now, for me--a person professionally employed as a painter--Vornheim and its environs and all my other RPG stuff is fun. They are not my primary creative outlet. I don't feel the need to be terribly ambitious about it, it just has to work. Like my oven and my lamp.

If I wanted to create a world that was meant to be appreciated for its own sake, it would probably not have horses and dwarves and torches and wheelbarrows and other medieval europe stuff and it would be completely bugfuck insane and probably not really playable (or playable-friendly anyway) in the RPG sense and look a lot more like Naked Lunch or Twin Peaks than Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser but really not so much like those things either. I would try not to use any tropes of any kind of genre anyone else invented unless I was trying to blow the doors off it. That's my job. As an artist you don't try anything unless you are trying something to do something totally fucked with it. You may not succeed, but that's what your job is. You get paid to try shit that's so out there that it might not work.

When I'm GMing, though, I am trying to make a world that is good at letting people in--that my players can grasp quickly and easily. And my players are often not only new to D&D but to RPGs entirely. "Seen Labyrinth? Good--that's a goblin, alright" I don't want to explain the baseline assumptions of the world, I want to play. The fun is what people do together, not what I tell people, so the more they can wrap their head around it ("KK, a barbarian is like Conan, you know Conan, right? Sure, I wanna be that") the faster we get into the thing that the game is actually about--not the world, but what PCs do to it. I like to try to have creative stuff (example) in my gameworld, but I'm happy to let the overall gameworld basically be an example of its genre. It has Elves stolen from the Vikings and monsters stolen from the Greeks and tons of building blocks stolen from Mr E Gary Gygax. This game's a party--if the beer's your favorite microbrew and the music is all from Relapse Records and Southern Lord that's great but if the best thing anyone says about your party is the beer was good and the music was too, your party has failed utterly and totally. The game, for me, is about the emergent events, not the raw material.

Even if I had more free time, I would still do it this way. Cliches help the game become a game faster (especially with new players).

So putting together D&D stuff is a challenge not primarily to the creative part of my brain but to the problem-solving part. I need a world where KK can be Conan and Mandy can be a creepy pseudoCatholic antinun, and Frankie can be a sneaky blue elf and Satine can be a steampunk musketeer and Connie can be totally irresponsible and it all hangs together and is hard enough to create necessities which mother inventions and I need it all to be rules-lite enough to run smoothly and to have replaceable parts and to never get repetitive. I can use the same part of my brain that does my day job for that, but I also have to think like an engineer.

So for all the talk in reviews about how Weird With A Capital W Vornheim: The Complete City Kit is, to me, Vornheim has always been just "make a place that works better than what I could buy, and do it with a little style and taste". Vornheim is really just meant to be a city where D&D-type-stuff can happen.

Or, to put it another way: my campaign is not me being King. But I do care about how it works, long term, so it's not just Fun Size--it's not just about me toying with ideas.

Neither King Size nor Fun Size, it's this other size that I noticed when I was trying to think up reasons Connie should give me some of her M&Ms: it's Tear-and-Share-Size. As in "Look, Connie, it says right on the package, it's Tear and Share Size, you have to share your M&Ms". So that is the campaign--it's designed specifically to be used with other people, and a lot of the creative effort has gone toward making it fit that particular niche.
____________


ALL THAT HAVING BEEN SAID...

A lot of y'all are not professional artists and the gameworlds you make are your primary creative outlet. Which I tend to forget a lot. Like Gary Gygax was an insurance adjuster, right?

It makes people see things differently--like, here's a thing: ixitxachitl.

Is an evil psionic manta ray priest a good idea? Yes it is. I would draw an evil psionic manta ray priest. I would draw it in a picture and sell it. I would write a novel from the evil ray's point of view with all his evil ray thoughts in it and send it to my publisher and be like "that was weeeeeeird and cool". Whoever thought up an evil psionic manta ray priest has just thought up a good thing.

Is it a good D&D idea? Hell no, says me. I am tryna do a D&D game an evil psionic manta ray priest just makes no sense at all. What a mood-killer. Why is there an evil psionic manta ray priest in your D&D adventure you just wrote, DIY D&D guy? Don't you know I've got a whole Warhammer/Lieber/Vance thing I'm trying to do here? That just looks silly, a knight under water with a sword trying to hit a manta ray with an axe. I got enough silly going on, thanks very much.

Oh yeah, there's evil psionic manta ray priest in your D&D adventure because when you're done writing a D&D adventure you aren't going to go and sit down for 14 hours and draw pictures of whatever fucked up thing you want and sell them to rich people. You have nowhere else to put an evil psionic manta ray priest. Right. Sorry. Forgot.

What's my point? I don't know exactly. I guess I am just interested in how for a lot of people D&D stuff is the most creative thing you get to do all day. This is probably why some people make campaigns waaaaaaaaaaay more detailed than anything I would ever bother to put together, and other people put together campaigns waaaaaaaaaay more gonzo than anything I would ever put together. And some people do that. D&D is where they get to do their thing. And I guess I kinda would like to hear what y'all have to say about that, because what I really know about it is fuck-all...

So my campaign world is definitely tear-and-share. It's a party I throw for a specific group of people and it needs to rock them, and that's that. My interest depends on theirs.

Some people are big big advocates of the King campaign: Your World Is You, love your world, whether or not anyone else does. Which I guess makes sense if the you, in another life, would've written sword-and-sorcery novels. Not so much if you're not that kinda person.

And some people go for the Fun one--tr this, try that, it's all good. Oh I had 90 campaign ideas today and I will try 7 of them... This seems like a decent approach if you have a lot of experienced and dedicated players who don't need too much fuel to get a fire going. I feel like a lot of the games I end up in as a player are Fun Size. If I ever do the thing I keep thinking I might do where I just roll a totally random dungeon and run people through it on G+, that'd be a pretty Fun Size approach. I'm not sure I'd want the nightmare of trying to fit it into my campaign world, but it could be a pip...

Does System Matter...to the Rancor?

Jabba decides Luke is just some loser.

Luke is dropped into the Rancor pit.

Luke appears to be vastly outclassed. This foe is fearsome and many hit-died.

Yet, due to a giant femur and a clever use of the local environmental features, Luke remains undigested and the Rancor has a giant gate shoved through his rancorous head.

Jabba must thenceforth and thereby devise an alternate form of execution.

(campaign idea: PCs captured. Villain tries to execute PCs with monster. PCs defeat monster. Villain tries to execute them with new monster. PCs fight next monster and probably win. This goes on until PCs are 20th level.)
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Anyway, the Rancor fight--this is how a fight should go. You are weak and are supposed to die but you don't because you play smart.

So, I herewithbyforth issue this CHALLENGE in hopes that all will be illumined by its multicolored and bedazzling ludological insight...

Model Luke's fight with the Rancor as it went down in Jedi, in a system of your choice in such a way as to demonstrate that system's features.

Risus? FASERIP? AD&D? WFRP? GURPS? BRP? Burning Wheel? Tunnels and Trolls? Let's see it! Any system incapable of defeating the Rancor is hereby declared invalid and badwrongfun now and for all time.

example:

Kiel Chenier has done it for Type IV as follows. (Kiel I have re-purposed your G+ comment for public consumption without permission. If you for some reason object, speak now)...

Luke is without a weapon, so his unarmed attacks deal 1d4+2 damage.

Round 1:

Luke falls, taking 1d10 damage. He moves back 2 squares.
The Gammorean retreats 4 squares. Fails diplomacy check to be released.
The Rancor moves 4 squares. Uses Bite on the Gammorean (4d8+6 damage). Gammorean is killed.

Round 2:

Luke moves back 2 squares. He picks up a bone (1d6+5 damage), and readies an attack action when the Rancor attacks him.
The Rancor moves 5 squares and uses 'grab attack' on Luke (1d8 damage, target is restrained). Attack is successful.
Luke jams the bone in the Rancor's mouth. (Jamming a bone in a mouth would either be an attack on the monster's Reflex, or just a dexterity check. Either way, would take a standard action.) Luke is no longer restrained. Rancor is immobilized. Save ends.

Round 3:

Luke takes 1d10 falling damage. He moves 1 square under the rock outcropping, giving him cover. He makes a stealth check (+2 from the cover).
Rancor has no ranged attacks. Fails his Perception check. Saves against immobilization.

Round 4:

Luke holds his action until the Rancor attacks.
Rancor uses 'grab attack'. Fails.
Luke picks up a rock as a minor action (1d6+3 damage). Attacks the Rancor with it (hits). Then moves 6 squares to the exit. He incurs an opportunity attack from the Rancor (Rancor misses).

Round 5:

Luke uses a minor action to open the inner door. He makes a strength check to break the bars (fails).
The Rancor moves towards Luke (can only move two squares due to his size, squeezing through the doorway).

Round 6:

Luke picks up another rock as a minor action. He throws it at the door controls, making a dexterity check (Natural 20).
The door shuts on top of the Rancor (5d10+10 damage. Maximum because of the critical hit).
Rancor falls below 0 hit points. Dies.

It was over in six rounds.

As originally written, Luke is a 4th level Jedi and the Rancor's a 3rd level brute--but when I pointed out that the Rancor has to outclass the PC or it's no fun Kiel said you could just scale up the gate damage and make the Rancor 2-4 levels higher than Luke and it'd all still work out.

Your turn...

Liveblogging Willow

-Really? A baby in a basket? Really? just because none of your preteen audience would notice the obvious 10 commandments reference doesn't mean you have to...oh wait, screenplay by george lucas. ok, you did have to...

-creepy kids

-"this is a giant's baby". we found a giant's baby. That's a plot hook.

-If I was Tyrion Lannister I would totally roll up on this village and rule with an iron fucking fist. (if i was tyrion from TV. if i was tyrion from the book i would've died of boredom long ago)

-note: spotted pig

-"Caya" how do even you spell that? As Lenny Bruce would say, "So Goyish you can't even say it".

-...but you will be ignored, Warwick Davis

-hello totally circular halfling doorway. who is ripping off who here?

-oh, the bag-on-your-head-dance. totally.

-O-level pig farmer or 1st level thief?

-what a crappy gong. it makes no noise.

-wizard-picking time!!!!!

-this halfling wizard is a ham. fuck you and your eyebrows

-WAITASECOND--why doesn't the wizard help anybody defeat the evil whatshername?
just like Elminister. goddamn noninterfering setting-embedded NPCs

-speaking of evil whatshername--Snow White's mom called, she wants her distinctive likeness back

-ok, evil shaggy boarpigdogs...how long does it take for the halflings to take them? 2 hit dice, maybe three since.."This weapon also does twice the damage indicated to any opponent when the weapon is set to receive their charge."

-town meeting. rabblerabble

-"One of you (not me) must do this..."

-Wizard "I will consult the bones". Always wonder why the PCs don't try that more often. Fake augury. "Oh yeah, the shape of the clouds says you should open that door, dude"

-"Appetite for Destruction" predates this movie. Weird.

-Dear 1980s culture: Bumbling wizards entertain no-one.

-Sorsha looks like this chick. She predates this film by one year.

-When is he gonna start kilming?

-you're the greatest swordsman that ever lived? I totally believed you back in the day. I also totally believed that the Millenium Falcon was the fastest ship in the galaxy. Man, kids are stupid. I knew enough to like Appetite, though.

-Erik the Red is totally the equivalent of the stoic beardy horselord dude from 2 towers.

-"I still serve (whatever), you serve no-one!" then Madmartigan says "put your head on a Pig pole" thing. Best dialogue so far.

-Note: acquire pig pole

-why do quests always involve rings or babies or shit? why can't the quest just be, straight up: "kill this dude, he's bad. we all know this is a PG movie, but you and i both know the villain will fall off a cliff at the end, so let's just lay it out there now."

-ok, now Brownies! which are just people but small. even smaller than pecks. you can get a lotta mileage outta scale. as Swift noticed. surprised there aren't giants in this movie, woulda saved even more money on sfx.

-the fairy boss lady is the exact midpoint in the evolution from Good Witch Glenda to Cate Blanchett in LOTR. Looks like the former, talks like the latter "You must do this thingy" in the ethereal voice.

-why are the brownies mexican? oh yeah, Screenplay: George Lucas

-Bavmorda's a pretty evil name

-willow entering human-tavern-for-1st-time scene strongly resembles later iterations of said idea

-the brownies are very Pauly Shore

-Madmartigan reintroduced during ohnomyhusbandshome scene Fighter-using-disguise-skill-cross-gender totally works if the target's dumb enough.

-willow hit someone. 1st level thief using a warhammer. the low-hanging branch helped. whatta we got here, luck points? or was that just a 20? or maybe the baddie chewed through his hit-points-construed-as-luck tryna crawl up on the back of the cart

-Pre-Sorsha switchin sides, this is our group: Warwick, Val, and 2 stoners who the DM let play brownies.

-One of those brownies is making his film debut here--Kevin Pollak. You recognize him as the mechanic guy from The Usual Suspects. Which I strongly suspect is a Shadowrun campaign turned into a screenplay.

-Well I can't use a wand I'm a fucking shrew, dumbass.

-I kinda like the brownies. I am charmed. either Lucas' mind disintegrated in a coke haze in the 20 years between writing them and writing jarjar binks or there's some uncredited script punch-up here

-sorsha is clearly a FLAILSNAILS PC who picked up that helmet in an Oriental Adventures campaign

-the skullhead knight's horse has fucking goat horns

-wands suck. they look dumb. they're almost as bad as feathers. anyone who puts a wand in an adventure should have their tongue ripped out.

-mm to sorsha "your touch is worth 100,000 deaths" smooth.

-swordfight! shield-riding chase!

-SORSHAYOUSUCKATFINDINGPEOPLEINBASEMENTS!!!

-"he's a worthless thief!"
"I'm not a thief erik!"
"he's not a thief...are you?"
he's a fighter. superduh

-could you run the whole Sorsha part of this last 20 minutes in a real session as if she were a PC hostile to the rest of the party...? mmm..there'd be a lot of waiting. and sorsha wouldn't get to do much. she'd lose fights a lot, I suppose, but make most of her "tracking" checks.

-ok, now the crow is all "willow, you've done some shit, it's been a session or 2, maybe you have a level in wizard--try using that wand" "oh, not yet, I'm a goat..."

-and then willow tries to use the wand again, it kinda works but then turns the troll into a brainstomach thing which gets eaten by two wormthings then falls in the moat and turns into a 2 headed firebreathing thing like a pachycephalopatosaur about 400 times the size it was before. which, really, is what should happen when you use an item marked (MU) and you aren't one

-(that part is hands-down the weirdest thing in the movie)

-one of its heads just explodes after Val stabs it. that's awesome.

-the evil castle has counterproductive buttresses. they look like you could just run up them if you were attacking.

-so, wait, was Erik the Red's ruined army was just waiting at the bottom of the hill in the village for someone to come along and point toward something they could lay siege to?

-ok, so now willow has a level in wizard and can use the wand to resist the mass polymorph...mmmm...nope...

-Goatwitch: "No, we can still defeat Bavmorrrrrda"

-he tries again..ok he did it!

-first light the day before the battle. ragged banners. lookin' pretty warhammer up here.

-Trollsmyth is right. They don't really lay out the stakes of winning or losing in human terms in this movie. That might not've made it better, since either way we'd still have to look at Warwick Davis for 2 hours.

-this baby-killing ceremony takes a long fuckin' time. maybe Bavmorda lives in a red state.

-bavmorda in the rain fighting sorsha is pretty badass. she's way scarier than The Emperor in Jedi.

-what's this Peter Jackson? good wizard bad wizard telekinesis vs. telekinesis battle?
between this and Evil Dead 3 you pretty much got your whole script

-now the wand shoots ice? what is that thing? Wand Of Pretty Much Whatever

-2 old ladies-one of whom we barely know- in the rain fighting over a wand. that's a goddamn climax

-random wand bolt turns endtable into monster that chases willow=awesome

-Jean Marsh as Bavmorda is fucking rad. I so want her to kill Warwick Davis. I want her to have the evillest babies ever with Christopher Lee and then Peter Cushing presides over the bris which doubles as a black mass.

-OH IT WAS JUST THE DISAPPEARING PIG TRICK!

-Hey, back in the village, dig me, I'm second level! rock