Kids Dread

Happy Halloween!

I had a much longer post that had nothing to do with the holiday so I decided to put it off until tomorrow. In the meantime, I did want to mention that I ran a little experiment in horror gaming with my boys.

To bring you up to speed, I've been playing "Dungeons & Dragons" with my six and four-year-old boys for well over a year now. We've kind of fallen into a rut, though, as my oldest has developed an unsurprising but still frustrating (to me) view of what role-playing is all about. Every "session" now consists of a brief combat scenario, staged on a battlemat with a combination of Lego mini figs and pre-painted WotC miniatures. The game mechanic is a simple "highest roll on a d20" wins this round of the fight. Attempts to introduce more complicated scenarios and/or mechanics have been resisted, mostly because my young boys are very comfortable with the way things are currently played.

This weekend, I did manage to try something different. I ran them through a very short sessions of Dread.

For the uninitiated, Dread is a dirt-simple horror RPG that uses a Jenga tower for resolution. If you knock the tower down, you die. Pretty simple and a hell of a lot of fun at conventions. As it turns out, it also works quite well for kids. There's no character sheet to speak of and the kiddies had a lot of fun with the physical nature of making pulls from the tower.

Monkey Update (Email Post Attempt #2)

My wife and I have decided that there is no way that we are going to get our house on the market by the holiday season. That takes the pressure off us a bit and will (I hope) free up some time to start blogging again. Unfortunately, adjustments made to my routine to accommodate the house push have effectively eliminated my quality blogging time. I'm still struggling to work it back into my daily schedule.

 

Posting by email might help so here is my second attempt. I wasn’t happy with how things were formatted last time and I need to work out the kinks before I can consider it to be a viable option. Now, anybody know how to work images into an email post? (I’ve included one as an attachment here)

 

 

Now, just because blogging has been light doesn’t mean that I haven’t been thinking about gaming. It’s October and I’m starting to really feel the need to do some spooky gaming. I also tried out some new iPad software for game prep called Index Card and I’m really loving it. I sketched out my Moon Soldiers Must Die! Game as a collection of possible scenes and it was all the notes that I needed at the table. Yeah, I could have used paper (or real index card)s but for some reason I found this to be more fun and easier to manage.

 

 

In other news, I’m getting close to nailing down a list of Space Words for my next inspirational PocketMod. Anybody have ideas for evocative words that could appear on a system or sector level space map? I’ve got 240 words but I’m definitely going to need help if I want to pad things out to the 360 required for a d30 version.

 

 

In other other news, Robin Laws’ Hamlet’s Hit Points is on my mind again. I’m currently working through some ideas for turning it into some kind of game engine. I hope I’ll have more to say on that later.

 

And The Winners Are... (Dungeon Mapp Giveaway)

The randomly selected winners of the second DungeonMapp iPad app giveaway are: Mitchell F. and Granger44. Please send me an email at risusmonkey@gmail.com and I'll get you your codes.

Thanks to everyone for playing and don't forget to drop my EN World to suggest features for the next version.

The Grid

This morning while driving to work, I queued up the Tron soundtrack and it got me thinking...

What is the world of Tron if not a pseudo-technological spirit world? Like the spirit world, seemingly inanimate things are personified based on symbolic meaning. Thus, you have computer programs that appear as humans dressed in neon jumpsuits.

Imagine these as characters: Oracle, Google, Deep Blue, Pong, Zork, Lotus, Acrobat, The Gimp, Eliza, Watson. Regardless of the intended purpose of a real-world piece of software, it's animate analog on the Grid would have a social life and would have at least a rudimentary capability to fight it out in the arena.

Additionally, you have ready-made monsters and hazards in the form of viruses and malware.

I imagine that hardware is represented by a fixed location and that you would need trains or tubes to travel down wires. Perhaps you'd use limited-range aircraft to travel between wireless hotspots?

Yes, this is all very similar to Cyberspace, which was done to death in the Cyberpunk of 80's and 90's. But it's also a bit different. Yes, it looks technological and futuristic. But it is decidedly *not* scientific. It's not even pseudo-scientific. It's spiritual and could plug in seamlessly into Gurps Cabal or Mage game.

Aesthetics/Physical Laws

• There is no sunlight
• Nothing erodes (though things can be damaged or suffer bit-rot)
• Older programs have lower resolution (but only as far back as the original Tron)
• Weapons and gear must fit the Tron aesthetic (you don't see guns in Tron)
• Programs carry data disks that can be used as weapons, ID cards, and as an interface to reprogramming.
• Programs require a kind of energy "juice" (the only form of sustenance). 
• When anything breaks, it shatters like glass.
• Objects can rez in or de-rez (I'm specifically thinking of personal vehicles here).

Users (or Programmers) can descend into the world as avatars. They are, in effect and actuality, gods.

And like the recent Tron movie, *other things* may come in from the outside. Connected to a magical cosmology, these could be faeries, angels, demons, the human dead, or even Lovecraftian entities. Similarly, it should be possible to access other spiritual realms from within the Grid.

Adventures would most likely involve the machinations of Users, walking avatars, intrusions from elsewhere, and ambitious programs trying to ascend into the real world.

Another DungeonMapp Giveaway (for the iPad)

Way back in the day, Derek Proud let me do a giveaway with his (at the time) new mapping software for the iPad. Well, Derek just released Dungeon Mapp version 1.2 at the App Store. It's loaded with new features and looks to be a handy tool for GM's who need a quick battle map or a helping hand in managing game stats, initiative, and stuff. To celebrate the new release (and to spread the word), he's given me two more codes for a free download of the software (an $8.99 value).

To be entered into a drawing for these codes, simply comment on this post by 10:00 PM EST on Tuesday, October 25th. At that time (or shortly thereafter), I'll pick two names and will get back to you. And having a non-public way to reach you would be helpful (either an email address or a Google+ account or some other method).

One last thing, Derek is soliting feedback and siggestions for his software at EN World:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/312666-dungeon-mapp-1-2-a.html .

And Finally, Savage Worlds...

Despite my intent to play games with as many new people as I could at DC Gameday, I ended up following around Scott Moore (Rel at EN World and Circvs Maximvs) like a sad little puppy. Actually, I wasn't sad at all. I practically leaped at the chance to play in his ongoing Sky Galleons of Mars series of Gameday adventures. 
 
This time, he'd be using the brand spanking new Rad Sands of Mars supplement for Savage Worlds. That made me even more excited because I have a dirty little secret: I had never until that moment played Savage Worlds. Sure, I would gaze upon the light but pleasingly fiddly rules with fond admiration from time-to-time and I did have a serious geek crush on the game several years back. But it never seemed to make it into my primary rotation.
 
That may change because the game is a hell of a lot of fun. I say that knowing full well that Scott could scribble a few rules a post-it note and run it as the best game ever. But I could really see that the system hits a sweet-spot between the beer & pretzels of Risus (obviously my go-to system for cons) and a heavier system like Gurps, Mutants & Masterminds, or any of the 21st century incarnations of D&D.   
 
It's been over a week since the actual game and my notes are no where near as detailed as I'd like them to be, so I'll spare you the detailed play-by-play. Suffice to say, however, that I was able to play a mean bitch captain of a flying ship who was struggling to make a profit hauling cargo between the ancient cities and human colonies of Mars. My crew, played by a fantastic cast of Gameday hombres, hit a gaggle of Space: 1889 tropes: a fantastically strong drunken ex-Quaker craftsman, a Hill Martian healer with a dog-like pet thing, a Canal Martian "Face Man" with a shady history, and High Martian barbarian prince who was an absolute terror in knife fight. Special props to Kennon Bauman [Universe at EN World and CM] who aced the German accent for Herr Doktor Professor Walter Nurnst and turned up the Mad Science to 11!
 
So, beyond convention war stories, I would like to point out something of general interest to the community. Scott employed a card-based optional rule that you see in games from time to time. At session's start, he handed out one card to each and every player and told us that it could be played at any point over the course of the session to do something cool (as specified on the card). Under no circumstances were we to tell Scott what card we had. Mine was a seemingly innocuous card that could be played to cause an enemy to critically fail a single attack roll. One would assume such a card would be played in self-defense. In this case, however, I struggled to maintain a poker face when it became apparent that a different application of the card could practically save the scenario for our party. We were in a stand-off with an enemy who had a powerful Martian lord at gunpoint. One false move and he'd shoot. I played my mean bitch captain to a "T" and let the bastard shoot, knowing full well that the gun would explode in his hand and a powerful and potentially very grateful Martian Lord would be safe from harm.
 
It worked perfectly and nobody (accept me) knew it was coming. If that isn't the definition of a "Dirty Little Thrill" (as per the Risus Companion) then I don't know what else it would be. I'd love to give my own players the chance to do something similar in my own games.

Microscope at DC Gameday

The above photograph captures the results of last Sunday morning's amazing session of Microscope, Ben Robbin's innovative game of world building. This is the fourth time that I've played the game and I think that I've reached the point now where I can stop counting.

As facilitator, I made every effort to keep things rolling quickly. This was the first time that I've played where we really let it rip on scenes. Everybody got a chance to be a Lens and we still managed to work in five full scenes (with three more that were dictated).

It helped that we were able to arrive at our "big picture" fairly quickly. Deciding that it would be best to explore genres that we don't usually get to play, we went for a post-apocalyptic Lovecraftian Supers concept and the history evolved in many ways that were both surprising and awesome.

I transcribed all my notes to Corkboard.Me but since they appear to have moved the read-only feature to their paid accounts, I'm a little hesitant to share it publicly. I want to preserve that session for posterity.

To that end, I'll include screenshots at the end of this post. But first, I do want to thank Lowell Francis at Age of Ravens for his idea of using Strange Lists for inspiration during the game. All the names of my Gifted characters were drawn from my list: "Blue Badger" (a psychotic Wolvierine), "Grandmother Sword" (Helen Mirren with a Mind Sword), and "Coppersteel" (a post-apocalyptic Iron Man).

I also should mention that even though we discussed and agreed with the recommendations against using Immortals in the game, we went ahead and used them anyway. The Blue Badger appeared across several periods, as did Grandmother Sword. Both of these characters had super powers and Immortality seemed natural, especially late in the game when the Blue Badger's return from Africa was one of the highlights of the history.

This bodes well for my hopes of using Microscope to do a Highlander-style game.

Anyway here are the pics (in order):

Dragon Slayers Redux (DC Gameday Fiasco)

DC Gameday was a much needed reprieve from my current push to prepare the house for sale. Until the shit is *done*, blogging is going to happen in fits and spurts. That being said, DC Gameday left me with a bunch of stuff to talk about. I already mentioned the awesome game of Risus that I ran on Saturday morning (though I omitted mention of the running gag of "the things men stuff down their pants"), but I played in three other games as well.

Saturday afternoon belonged to perennial Gameday favorite, Fiasco.

This was my third time playing Fiasco and the second time that I played the Dragon Slayers play set (see my February AP of a skype game played with ze bulette and Telecanter). Of course, the game was awesome. Three of the four people at the table were old EN World friends and everybody brought their A-game. Whereas I was a previously a little intimidated by the free-form/gaming-without-a-net aspect of Fiasco, I was *much* more relaxed this time around. This game also benefited from a reasonably sane amount of flashbacks (meaning that I could actually follow the plot without diagrams).  

In case you are not familiar with the playset, the idea is that the characters are fancy-pants adventurers who just made off with a dragon's hoard. Shit hits the fan when questions arise as to the dispensation of loot; party rivalries and secret agenda's boil over; and annoyed townsfolk look to bring the high-and-mighty low.

As usual, the setup was really inspiring and I still hope to make use of similar techniques in future games that I run (regardless of system). The idea is that with a modicum of random rolls, players consult a table of interesting hooks to fill out relationships, key locations, motivations, and critical props. Characters emerge organically from this process.

Our characters were:

• Lucretious (formerly Barry Potter): A handsome but definitely skeevey warlock with a penchant for fire blast, demonic contracts, and human sacrifice. [Myself]
• Mother Mercy: A cleric of good on a sudden, downward spiral into sin and degradation (thanks, in so small part, to Lucretious. [Liz]
• Thteve the Barbarian: A 7-foot mountain of muscle with a cursed axe and a speech impediment. [Tony]
• Shev (sp?): A virginal assassin contracted to kill Thteve. [Garrett?]
• Mognal: The obviously virginal thief, groomed for sacrifice to Lucretious' demonic patron. [Scott]

As is typical with Fiasco, the plot was a bit convoluted. The gist, however (after untangling the flashbacks) involved a dread curse placed upon Thteve. Prophesied to conquer the world with his Dreaded Bloody Axe, if only he could recite the incantation precisely, a haggard old crone cursed him with a speech impediment. This may or may not have been at the behest of Lucretious and his warlock mentor. Because Thteve was also foretold to stop the opening a gate to Hell on the Crow's Feast, Lucretious did eventually contract with Shev to do the deed *after* a certain dragon's lair was plundered. 

Another obstacle to Lucretious' glorious apocalypse was Mother Mercy, who had recently advanced to a leve where she could potentially heal Thteve's lisp. But thanks to some planning, the two of them were barely speaking. And at the lowest level of the dungeon, Thteve was pushed to the point where he abandoned Mother Mercy to die in a horrible trap. Lucretious was there to save her bacon, but it did cost her her immortal soul.

That left Mognal, who thanks to his unsullied innocence was destined to be slain on the altar to open the gates to Hell. His virginity persisted throughout the story, despite his best efforts, even to the point of nearly missing the opportunity to make sweet love to two wenches and Mother Mercy, all at the same time no less! 

Alas, nothing really ended well for anybody. Shev died horrily on the altar, but with no one to utter the blasphemous words to make it "worthwhile". 

Thteve avoided the assassin's blade and even had his curse lifted when Shev slew the old crone by mistake. But his the midst of a bloody rampage, he accidentally blew himself and half the village to bits with an unfortunately placed axe throw into the explosive personal effects of the local alchemist.

Mognal discovered that the wenches and their husbands had double-crossed his double-cross wherein he was hoping to make off with all the dragon's hoard. While peeping in on the celebratory group sex, he was fatally raped by a bull.

Mother Mercy suffered the ultimate degradation when she was caught with her leather pants literally down as her entire congreation passed by the episode's final confrontation to celebrate the Crow's Feast holiday. She spent the rest of her life in lonely and very chaste penance.

After besting his rival and demonic school-mate Frank in single combat, things went down hill for Lucretious. He failed to sacrifice Mognal and was forced to flee in bloody terror from a rampaging Thteve. Narrowly avoiding the Cursed Axe, he was none-the-less trampled by an angry mob and limped off to skulk in bitter solitude to the end of his damned days. 

Moon Mistress Is A Harsh Master AP

Wow, it sure was great to be playing Risus again. And it sure was great to be reunited with old Gameday friends and to meet new ones as well. This morning's session of Moon Soldiers Must Die: The Moon Mistress Is A Harsh Master was a smashing success.

I did a fair bit of planning for this session, if only to come up with a satisfying situation to throw at the players. My idea was to draw inspiration from The Tempest by way of The Forbidden Planet (natch) and combine it with the the iconic pinup of the Dr. Grordbort books.

It all started with a wedding.

I encouraged the players to create characters who were guests (invited or otherwise) or hired help at a celebrity wedding between Baron Brannigan Blunt (of Blunt n' Lee Exploitable Commodities) and the mysterious Moon Mistress.The Moon Mistress was a relatively new phenomena among the Empire's social elite, having arrived from her hidden lunar paradise to cries of "We hate the Moon but we love you!"

The player characters were:

Rocky Johnson: Cub Reporter (4), Amateur Detective (3), Crack Shootist (2), Chivalrous Gentleman (1).

PP-69: Tin Can Robot With Heat Ray Eyes (4), Master Tactician (3), and 3 undefined cliches that never were assigned (I made use of just-in-time character creation to great success).

Biff Poww: Good Looking Guy Who Always Looks Good (4), Spaceship Captain (3), Shootist (2), Stupidly Successful Pickup Artist (1).

Tosca Kys: Professional Femme Fatale (4), Glamorous Socialite (3), "Yes, I Can Do That In Heels" (3).

Professor Alexander Sloan: Man of Science! (4), Consulting Detective (3), Planetary Explorer (2), Antiquities Dealer (1).

Wilhelmina "Willie" Wilder: Ace Pilot (4), Acid Tongie (3), Greese Monkey (2), Undefined Cliche (1).

Among the player characters, only Professor Sloan and the glamorous Mis Kys were invited guests. Captain Poww was almost certainly not on the guest list but it didn't seem to matter and young Mr. Johnson was covering the event for some sleazy gossip rag. Miss Wilder was hired to drive the bride and groom away from the wedding reception at the Chateau du Snoots (in the Venusian highlands), as she was having a hard time earning a real position as a rocket ship pilot due to her unfortunate gender issue (i.e. being female). PP-69 was a veritable genius among the mechanical marvels commandeered to serve drinks to the who's who of Venusian colonial society.

Image captured from Dr. Grordbort's Infallible Aether Oscillators Promotional Video

Cutting to the heart of the matter, the wedding reception was interrupted by an assault of Moon Soldiers, who seriously wounded the groom and absconded with the bride in a rocket car. Men and women (and appliances) of action, the player characters leapt into the fray and mowed down Moon Soldiers, picked up the dying Baron Blunt, and initiated a cross-country chase through stifling, fog-shrouded jungles to a secret Moon Soldier base. Arriving too late to rescue the Moon Mistress, they commandeered one of three remaining rockets and gave chase towards the direction of the Earth-Moon system (at astounding speeds that would get them there in just three days).

Their plan was to "fly casual" and attempt a stealthily boarding action but the two remaining rockets gave them away and the party was forced to daringly eject themselves from their own disabled vessel toward one of their pursuers. That was actually the second of three rockets that were stolen by Ace Pilot Willie Wilder over the course of the session.

Through cunning and strategic use of Science!, the Moon Soldiers were evicted from their craft without alerting the remaining rockets. The party then completed the trip to the Moon while discussing their options.

Arriving at a secret Moon base, the party hastened down the gangway disguised as Moon Soldiers, hoping to rescue the Moon Mistress as she was ferried into the Moon Soldier facility. But when she emerged, unharmed and undistressed from the rocket in full command of her Moon Soldier minions, the party knew they had been had. The Moon Mistress was really after the majority stake in Blunt n' Lee, who were coming dangerously close to her own supplies of Phlogistonium ore. Having been raised in a "Lunar Paradise" by her mad scientist father, Duke Torgano, she naturally was predisposed to assume the worst about Terran imperialists.

Anyway, Captain Poww jumped the gun and tried to affect a "rescue" while the party was surrounded by regular Moon Soldiers. A vicious battle ensued, with PP-69 obliterating scores with his heat ray, Professor Sloan employed his Goliathon-88 to disintegrate with great deliberation, and Rocky and Tosca did their best to survive the scrum. Willie had climbed into one of the undamaged rockets and used a turret to fire into the crowd, "accidentally" atomizing Captain Poww. Partially disfigured in the blast, the Moon Mistress slipped away down an exhaust shaft while the entire party escaped via the rocket that Willie had commandeered. The entire party, that is, except Professor Sloan, who followed the wounded Moon Mistress to swear allegiance to her cause, and the cause of her deceased father (who, as it turns out, was the professor's scientific mentor in his youth).

"We Hate The Moon And Want To Burn It To Cinders..."

It's been a long week of life crap, but tomorrow morning I will be running my first game of Risus in nine months! Moon Soldiers Must Die: The Moon Mistress Is A Harsh Master blasts off at 10:00 at DC Gameday. I'll be sure to post a play report in the coming days.

October Risus Adventure Challenge

Following a successful One Page Adventure Challenge that was thrown down last July, Brent Wolke has put out another call for would-be Risus masters:

Yes, it's that time again...the One-Page Adventure Challenge is in full swing and you have 2 weeks [edit: somewhat less than that now] to complete it (midnight on October 11th). 

The challenge this time is to produce an adventure where everything (maps, stats, description, etc.) fits on one page and conforms to the rules of this challenge. 

This time...the challenge is to mash-up two Television shows that aired before 1980.
Example...I take Gilligan's Island and Hogan's Heroes and come up with Hogan's Island...a whacky adventure about about a bunch of WWII soldiers who are shipwrecked on an island and must deal with slapstick cannibals and bamboo forts. 

Any questions? 

GO!

Yeah, I'm a little late in posting this, but I've been a bit busy. And I really would love to participate in this again, but given the timing, it's just not going to happen. Even with my insane schedule, I was tempted by thoughts of mixing Colonel Klink, Sleestaks, Kato, Gomez Addams, and Emma Peel. Oh well, hopefully next time...

Go to the Risusiverse to submit!

TV Tropes Story Generator

Hey, did you know that the awesome TV Tropes has a an instant story generator? I had already been using the site's random article tool for ink blotting and general inspiration, but this totally kicks it up a notch.

Sample output:

Setting:	Elevator Tropes
Plot:	Crossing The Desert
Narrative Device:	Chair Reveal
Hero:	Neutral Good
Villain:	Glory Hound
Character As Device:	Crazy Homeless People
Characterization Device:	Stroke The Beard

Hat tip to Guy Hoyle of the Risustalk group for pointing this out.

Where's That Monkey?

The answer isn't that complicated. I've been gone because life happens. Partially, it has to do with a crazy work deadline and new, more restrictive internet policy which has cut into the the time that I used to whip out my blog posts. Mostly, though, it has to do with this:

I HATE painting ceilings

We're scrambling like crazy to get our house ready for sale before it's too late to put it on the market. We're a bit worried that if we get too far into October, buyers will be scared away at the thought of moving during winter. It's not like we have to move or anything. But with the kids starting school, we'd like to get settled into our final neighborhood. And I'd like to move closer to DC to make a serious dent in my commute from hell.

But I'm still thinking about gaming pretty much constantly. Heck, I even managed to do some real gaming. We had a great Slaying Solomon session last Sunday, welcoming Oddysey into the ranks of regular cast members. And next week, I plan to escape from house work to geek out at DC Gameday. If I do much posting at all this week, it will most likely relate to my Raygun Gothic Moon Soldiers Must Die! game that I'll be running (and I'm also facilitating a game of Microscope).

Since it is the first of the month, I'm going to see if I can't manage to ease myself, back into the posting regularly. I should be back up to full speed in a few weeks.