The Secrets of the Pundit's Childhood Revealed?

So, a while back I was given maybe the most unusual interview I was ever asked to give.  Victor Garrison over at the "Appendix N Happy Meal" blog has a very strange series, where I guess he's trying to figure out cues about prominent game designers about their childhood play and interests in some kind of effort to figure out what makes them, and maybe our whole hobby, tick. 

So when asked, I decided to give it a shot.  And now you can see the results over on Victor's blog. Go check it out to find out a bit more about what the Pundit was like as a kid, and what he learned from that. As to whether that really tells us anything about the greater hobby, well, I'm not really so sure about that.   Do you think that Victor's project will achieve something?

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DCC Campaign Update: What we Need to go get are Some Cows in Heat

Today's adventure began with the PCs still in Highbay, still encountering apparently random attacks of Minotaurs from an unknown wizard, and planning not so much on how to deal with it but on whether they want to deal with it or just use this to farm XP.

Now:

-"Is there a body of water in this town?"
"Well, it is called HighBAY"

-"I'm not under threat from these attacks, but I'm going stand with the rest of you guys."
"...for the XP, right?"
"Yeah"

-Sezrekhan interrupts Bill the Elf's spellcasting to tell him that he must immediately go into the badlands to recover an ultra-powerful book of magic known as the "Libram of the Ten Spheres". Whoever has it in their possession, and can survive its super-dangerous ark-of-the-covenant-style effects, can use it to reach any of the higher planes, including the Crown of Creation. Just to make sure Bill doesn't fuck around, Sezrekhan puts him under a Geas.

-"My friends, this book sounds to me like it was a daemonic book of evil!"
"Oh shit, it's this asshole again! I forgot we still had Zeke Bodean with us!"

-"I hit Zeke with my staff"
"Does your staff do something special, like Bill's Primo Staff?"
"No"
"So.. you're just violently beating him?"
"Yup."

-"We could go get this book, but for G.O.D. instead of Sezrekhan!"
"G.O.D. is pretty much under Nikos' control right now."
"He pretty much IS Nikos right now!"
"Yes, but when I says G.O.D. I actually mean us. You know, for G.O.D."
"Right, and when he says 'us', he really means himself. You know, FOR 'us'"

-"Whoops, it's Minotaur-o-Clock again!"
"Let's go kill it..."
"Right you are guys. I'll just be right here in the corner absorbing XP."

-"You did not hit Chu."
"Chu did not hit?"
"Fuck chu! Fuck Chu all!"
"Are Chu done yet?"

-At this point, Chu the Warrior has become a truly bizarre hybrid between a certain idiotic regressive leftist, and a certain cast member from The Community.

-Trying to be helpful in the fight against the latest Minotaur, the Fishman tries to cast like five spells in a row, failing at all of them. Finally, he succeeds at Spider Climb, which he uses to scurry onto the ceiling.  Once the battle is over, Ack'basha grabs a broom to swat him back down.

-"Here, my followers, use this statuette of Bill the Elf, put it in the far corner as a symbol of pure evil. On every holy day throw stones at the statue."
"Hey! I'm right here!"
"Yeah, Ack'basha. I'm not entirely sure but there's a slight chance Bill might have real feelings, and if so, that was potentially mean."
"Come on, it's funny!"
"Well, yeah, it is funny!"

-The next day the Fishman heads off in search of some armor to buy, and someone someone he can sell a bag of heroin that had come into his possession.  He gets the former going easily enough, but for the latter he's directed to a place called 'the factory', over on 5th and Gygax St.

-Once there, he finds that its a warehouse converted into a weird nightclub full of demented freaks. Lots of people dressed in black, strange music and lights, a whole series of technicolor prints of a portrait of BOLT-0 on one wall.

-The whole thing is run by a guy called 'the director', who is surrounded by fawning degenerate sycophants. He immediately agrees to buy the heroin if the Fishman will pose bare-chested for a black and white short film.
"Oh you're absolutely hideous! It's really fantastic"

-"Ok... I'm getting out of this weird weird place and will never speak of this again."

-When the party meets up with BOLT-0 to learn more about the Libram of the Ten Spheres, they find out that it apparently originated from the sunken lost city of Atlantida.
(the joke being that "Atlantida" is a coastal town here in Uruguay)

-"QUERY: ARE YOU SEEKING THIS BOOK FOR SEZREKHAN OUT OF LOYALTY TO HIM, OR BECAUSE HE HAS FUCKED YOU UP IN SOME WAY?"
"When was it ever the first??"
"Dude, you get that you're basically his abused spouse at this point?"
"Yeah, but you don't know the whole story... I've done bad things too, it's not his fault, I deserve it!"

-"We want to have the book to contact G.O.D.!"
"BOLT-0 THINKS THAT IS ALSO A STUPID IDEA"
"What we should do is destroy it!"
"BOLT-O THINKS WE SHOULDN'T BE HASTY ABOUT THAT EITHER!"
"I suppose you think we should give the book to you?"
"BOLT-0 WOULD BE WILLING TO HOLD THE BOOK FOR SAFEKEEPING"
"Wait, would you even be able to read it?"
"BOLT-0 IS NOT SURE BUT BOLT-0 WOULD DAMN WELL TRY"

-"Ok, you guys, I have a plan to deal with the Minotaur issue.  What we need to do is go get some cows in heat.."
"MINOTAURS ARE NOT SEXUALLY ATTRACTED TO COWS"

-"Um... Bolt-0.. I went to this.. place, it had pictures of you on the wall. It was full of really weird people. What do you have to do with them?"
"WEIRD PEOPLE COULD REFER TO ANY NUMBER OF BOLT-O'S ASSOCIATES"
"Well, like.. there was this lizard guy with a beret and a cigarette holder.. and an obese gold mutant who'd painted his skin silver..."
"THIS COULD STILL REFER TO ANY NUMBER OF BOLT-O'S ASSOCIATES"

-The team decides that to deal with the daily minotaur attacks during their trip to the badlands, they're going to get some supplies.
"No, there are no such thing as 'Armored Carts'".

-They settle for attaching a bunch of spears to a cart, and decide to hire some mercenaries. Eventually, they get a bunch of Dutch Crossbowmen for some reason.
"Ya, we are Dutch crossbowmen.. isn't that weird?"

-On the trip, they of course encounter a number of Minotaur attacks. Plus one very confused Ogre who seemed to have been teleported by accident. The Ogre, unlike the Minotaurs, is not enraged or interested in attacking the PCs.
"Look, I just want to get back to my wife and kids. We were all vacationing together."
"Out of curiosity, was it in a Minotaur city?"
"Yes."
"Minotauria?!"
"THAT IS NOT A REAL PLACE!"

-They consider inviting the Ogre to join them, but when he realizes who they actually are, he runs like hell.

-"So are you guys just going to sleep through the night and let the mercenaries stand guard?"
"Well, inasmuch as possible given how many Dutch people are around"

-"Bill the Elf is taking a personal interest in making sure things are weird enough for the Dutchmen!"

-To everyone's surprise, the spear-lined cart works on at least one minotaur, who charges right at the cart and ends up impaling himself.


That's where we stopped for the night; the PCs are just about where Sezrekhan said they had to go, and are ready to try to find the Libram of the Ten Spheres.  As usual, just about everyone in the party has their own competing agenda about why they want it and how they plan to double-cross everyone else to get it.  We'll see how it goes down. Probably hilariously.

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Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Oversize + H&H's Beverwyck

Classic Rant: A New Historical Perspective on Gygax and the Mythos

Some recent reading has led me to a kind of fascinating revelation. I certainly hadn't heard of Lovecraft or his Mythos stories until I first saw them in the AD&D Deities & Demigods book. Now, of course, there were probably many literary nerds who were quite into the Cthulhu Mythos by that time. 

But really, was there a mass consciousness of these stories prior to D&D? Or was the transformation of the Cthulhu Mythos into a Geek Staple thanks directly to Deities & Demigods, and the Call of Cthulhu RPG?

Because Cthulhu has been hitting the big time in terms of pop culture these days, and that seems to be only increasing. And if my postulate is right, that means that as well as basically being the man responsible for the appearance and form of the modern computer game, at least partially responsible for the popularity of the fantasy genre in pop literature and film, it would mean that Gary Gygax was also directly responsible for the popularity of the Cthulhu Mythos.

I mean really, is there any single human being who has influenced modern pop culture in so many ways as Gary Gygax? Think about how different the entire pop-culture world would be had RPGs never been invented. Then ask yourself about how "irrelevant" RPGs are.

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(Originally posted November 30, 2010)

Off to the Races

No real time for a blog today. I'm off again to the "Tavernorca" local fortnightly roleplaying mini-con. I will continue running my Dark Albion "Inquisitors" campaign using material from the soon-to-be-upcoming Dark Albion: Cults of Chaos!

If I survive another night of all-night gaming with a bunch of kids, you'll hear from me tomorrow!

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Dunhill Diplomat + C&D's Crowley's Best

Nothing Spells Success Like When Your Enemies Hate You Enough to Deny Reality

I know I've been redirecting you to a lot of links this week; but there have just been a lot of links worth sharing with you, my dear readers.  And today's is no exception: witness the stupidity of the insular community of morons formerly known as rpgnet, who believe that D&D 5e, which has broken records and triumphed in press and reviews, is 'maligned' and doing badly.
Why the hate? Well, they just can't get over me.

LOL! Oh man, does it ever tickle me that these delusional cunts are wishing-cancer on the most popular RPG in the world because of little old me. Especially when the version of D&D that I worked on and that aligns with MY vision of the hobby has done so spectacularly well. Whereas their pet version (4e), was by far the least successful version of all time.

Note that I don't mean favorite in the sense of 'game we like to play'; lord no! 

It was their favorite in the sense of seeing something you don't like very much being 'put in it's place'. That's what 4e was all about to them: D&D being turned into what they always imagined D&D was like in all those critical essays
Anyways, all this fills me with the deliciousness of two of the sweetest tastes in the world: revenge, and being right.

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The Spanish Invasion... RPG Version

So I had someone in the Spanish RPG-publishing crowd send me a link to this article, along with a personal thanks for the role my reviews played in this development.

The short version: several Spanish RPGs are being translated to English and published.  Spain has an incredible record of making spectacular RPGs, that until now most of you would never have been able to enjoy.  Games like Aquelarre and Walkure are stunningly impressive, and of course a lot of you may be familiar with "Aventuras en la Marca del Este" (Adventures in the East Mark) by now.

Take my word from it: the above announcement is not likely to be the end of it.  You'll be likely to see a lot of other great Spanish games in the future, now that they've been "discovered".

You're welcome.

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Incompetent Game Writers Demanding We Pay Them More for the Games They Can't Earn a Living on

What a complete crock of shit this link is. Someone made the same argument before, years ago, and I refuted it already in a previous blog post. Entitled game designers do not get to set Price Controls, Helton, just so that they can get the rock-star lifestyle they think their imagined genius entitles them to.

Why is it that semi-competent assholes in the gaming industry always end up hiding in one of two demands: either that everyone start paying more for their products, or that we somehow reduce the number of people writing competing products?

People have the right to work at a job that pays a living wage, they don't have the right to work at a job they LIKE and make a living wage. It's bullshit to suggest that because I did a bunch of research and writing, I am "owed" something by those fucking ungrateful peasant gamers who don't appreciate my grandeur, or some crap like that. The truth is that if you don't cut it as a game designer, no one owes you anything. You certainly don't have a 'right' or deserve to get to follow your 'dream job' if you suck at it. What you deserve is to be stuck at a minimum-wage job for the rest of your life because you majored in Feminist Literature instead of something useful, and have no discernible talent, ingenuity or skills.

I know that I wrote Dark Albion because I WANTED to. Free choice. People bought it because they wanted to. Free Markets. It made me a lot of money, more than any other RPG I've written so far, more than what I was paid for 5e, and it got a ton of great reviews and made a ton of gamers who bought it really happy. 
By the way, you can get Dark Albion, the hardcover, for a very reasonable $30 on Lulu. Rather than the sixty that people like Helton or Chris Pramas think you unwashed masses should be forced to fork over to them.
You make the choice: $60 for the entitled assholes who think you deserve to work a shit job and then pay them more so they don't have to; or $30 to the guy who loves RPGs, his books, and you as a valued customer?

If you won't be satisfied with the RPG writing you're doing unless you make a minimum amount of money, you shouldn't be in the RPG-writing business. Though if you're good, you'll make good money.

Again, it's mostly mediocre assholes like Helton or delusional self-styled 'industry professionals' like Pramas who complain about how the hoi-poloi should be forced to give them more money because they think they're so special.


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