Five Inspirations, Issue 2

In no particular order, and with no cohesive fabric between them, here go five sources that have I have consumed, and provided great inspiration for roleplaying. Go read part 1's five inspirations if so inclined (heck, it's been how many YEARS already?!?!). Each in this new batch is probably worth a post of its own.

As my disclaimer usually goes, these are things that I personally like, paid with my own money, and nobody is pushing them my way. Other than the sophisticated advertisement apparatus of the tech giants, of course.

1. Thorgal

Thorgal is a great comic book read from the early 80s. If I were to describe it in a few simpleton words it would be "soft Conan, padded with historical curious and psychedelic dimension hopping". 

Art is tremendous.

There are enough planar adventures and science fantasy shenanigans. The titular Thorgal traveling to the land of the dead, discovering ruins that are not what they seem at first, etc.

2. Piranesi

The following is an excerpt that starts around pg 29 in the hardcover version:

I saw a vision! In the dim Air above the grey Waves hung a white, shining cross. Its whiteness was blazing whiteness; it far outshone the Wall of Statues behind it. It was beautiful but I did not understand it. The next moment brought enlightenment of sort: it was not a cross at all but something vast and white, which glided rapidly towards me on the Wind.

What could it be? It must be a bird, but if I could see it at such a great distance, then it must be a bird of much grater size than the birds I was accustomed to. It swept on, coming directly towards me. I spread my arms in answer to its spread wings, as if I was going to embrace it. I spoke out loud. Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! was what I think I meant to say, but the Wind took my breath from me and all I could manage was 'Come! Come! Come!'

The bird sailed across the heaving Waves, never once beating its wings. With great skill and ease it tipped itself slightly sideways to pass through the Doorway that separated us. Its wingspan surpassed even the width of the Door. I knew what it was! An albatross!

Still it continued, straight towards me, and the strangest thought came to me: perhaps the albatross and I were destined to merge and the two of us would become another order of being entirely: an Angel! This thought both excited and frightened me, but still I remained, arms outstretched, mirroring the albatross's flight. (I thought how surprised the Other would be when I flew into the Second South-Western Hall on my Angel Wings, bringing him messages of Peace and Joy!) My heart beat rapidly.

The moment he reached me - the moment that I thought we would collide like Planets and become one! - I gave out a sort of gasping cry - Aahhhh! In the same instant, I felt some sort of pent-up tension go out ouf me, a tension I did not know I had until that moment. Vast, white wings passed over me. I felt and smelt the Air those wings brought with them, the sharp, salty, wild tang of Faraway Tides and Winds that had roamed vast distances, through Halls I would never see.
...

This book's setting is ripe for implementation as a depth-crawl, a la Gardens of Ynn.

3. Atlas Obscura

This website probably requires a dedicated post. A trove of inspiration that highlights the most bizarre corners of our planet and history. Temples, shop, sites, curios.

There is also a hardcover book which compiles a good selection of articles.

Because sometimes the most imaginative inspirations are right in front of our own noses.

4. Dead Cells

Not one for videogames, whilst everyone and their mother is raving about Elden Ring and their ilk, I decided to restart an old favorite of mine: Dead Cells. A roguelike metroidvania game, it is part of my holy trinity of essential masterpieces (Hollow Knight and Blasphemous being the other two, thanks for asking).

Once again, I remind myself of how much we can learn from it and others in this genre, when we think of elfgames. Moreso megadungeons.

5. Scavenger's Reign

The implied setting is imaginative to no stop. The planet is the main character, and I was taking copious notes. Will probably rewatch very soon, lots I missed for sure. Go watch!

2023 Ends, 2024 Begins

I have done a few of these in the past (here and here). It is that time of the year, where Mariah Carey crawls her way back from the dead, we remember Sinatra was a thing, and we reflect on the year past.

This blog has been pretty quiet. That is because there has been very little gaming this past 2023. If nothing else, this drought has shown me a deeper appreciation for the times in my life were silly elf games were my biggest worry, and have reinvigorated me to make a return to them. The luxurious position to be able to revel in gaming. One day.

My free time has been reduced, and also that of my semi-regular group (The Calaveras, from which I've written before). Mental energy to arrange a new group or join an existing one has not manifested. And realistically since online games tend to exhaust me, in-person ones are a beast to arrange with my current life obligations.

Instead I have been avidly reading a decent amount of science-fiction and Russian classics. And I picked up on Magic the Gathering play, which I know is hypocrite given my distaste with WOTC to be throwing them some of my limited discretionary money. As a hobby I'm less invested. It is just so much easier to drop by the local club whenever I can make it, play and have a good time, and not drop by in the next month or two. There is less emotional investment. Less preparation. That is my personal experience.

In terms of role-playing games, my engagement was front-loaded to the beginning of the year. Covered was:

• A dip into two sessions of story games (no GM/master of ceremonies).
• Winter's Daughter by Gavin Norman. With Basic Fantasy
  
• The Sky-Blind Spire by Michael Prescott. With Basic Fantasy
• Microscope (two sessions)
• One-off sessions at the local club: one of the Knock! 2 dust jacket cover [1] adventure, another of Mork Borg (never remember where the umlauts fall).

If some sessions materialize next year, given my recent affinity with science fiction media, I could see myself taking one of {Mothership, SWN, Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells} for a spin.

Be it as it may, I wish everyone a prosperous 2024.

[1] Disclaimer: I got a monster published in that magazine, and got paid for it. They are great books, but take my opinion with that in mind.

On the OGL and OSR

I live! A bit salty that my regular diet of demonic cackling, cloud yelling, fist waving, and general resignation has to be interrupted to come back to the blog. Life is even better outside of the Matrix. And I rejoice at having morphed into a grumpy old cackling demon. So let me indulge here as well.

Oh wonder! A Fortune 500 corporation wants to encapsulate your imagination and put a price tag on it. Let's monetize and shoehorn micro transactions on your deepest desires and fantasies, on a private activity with accointances, friends and family. The eldritch tentacles of capitalism, oh my, find their way through your orifices to suck your brain.

Te amount of panic I'm seeing in some creators I follow on the sidelines is remarkable. If anything else, and with selfishness, this will serve to have an updated version of some of my favorite games, with a truly open source license. Because, never forget, OSR stands for Open Source Roleplaying. That is a long standing argument settled, right there. Since the birth of the OSR is unequivocally tied to the birth of the OGL license, this is irrefutable.

WotC has lost their little credibility and image over the last few years to become a pariah in the space. Ex-Micro$hoft execs taking over the C-level positions was already a screaming warning. But these shitshow already happened (to a lesser degree). Time is a flat circle yiddi yadda.

Human memory is damn short, and we tend to quickly forget and forgive via the limitations of our fruit-fly brains. This grumpy demon won't.

varguy

2021 Ends, 2022 Begins

Coming to a close with 2021, and doing some reflection on my adventure, this blog, and the state of things. Here is the one from last year, in case you're interested.

On the personal side, and as can be inferred from the low number of posts and ideas flowing, I've been BUSY and STRESSED. This year felt like a constant heart attack, jumping from crisis to crisis, navigating this never ending pandemic and its burdens. I barely have uninterrupted free time, more than half an hour through the day. And the less gaming, bizarre media absorption, and idle regurgitation, the less productive and exciting the blog gets.

A note of pride is that the Pywawa monster I put on the blog a while ago got published in the Knock! magazine issue #2. I'm a massive fan of the publication and the work being put out by the team, excellent OSR.

Gaming

Of course, my involvement in games slowed down dramatically, especially so in the second half of the year:

• We finished our 5e campaign of Tomb of Annihilation, where I was playing Oswald Lach the whispers Bard. It was a satisfactory ending to a bizarre campaign (the jungle trek vs the grand dungeon contrast). Great players and GM!
• Ran about 16 sessions of a Stonehell open table using OSE. My life circumstances halted the game. Some great players, but the voice-only nature of open online game means a lot of sifting through undecided and flaky players.
• With The Calaveras we completed a full run of Skerples' Magical Murder Mansion - here my thoughts on it. It was an absolute blast! We also played a few sessions of a heavily modified B2 (on hold), and completed The Waking of Willowby Hall (want to review it). All in all, we slowed down to play a couple of times per month.
• Joined an asynchronous play-by-post game run by vilecultofshapes as Sir Jaxon the Swine, a petty knight. We are playing Cairn, and the world is oozing with flavor and character, I love it! So far this form of gaming is quite different to the usual fare, but adjusts to my hectic life quite well.
• Also played about four "sessions" of solo Ironsworn. Still getting used to this type of play.

The Blog

It is no secret. Face-to-face gaming is still burdened by difficulties for obvious reasons. I've had some slight disenchantment with the whole online gaming experience, and the difficulties of finding a reliable group with my sensibilities. So here I am. 19 posts (20 if you allow this one), and a wish to ramp up the creative front in 2022. Some of my favorites of 2021:

• d10 Bulky Treasures
• Five Inspirations 1
• OSE Stonehell Rival Adventuring Parties 

The Future, 2022

First, about my gaming. I want to find some regularity to it, which would also mean that my life situation settles down. The success of this is unfortunately not solely down to me. An OSR open table with a weekly cadence would be my ideal. But for that have to strike the right avenue and audience. Castle Xyntillan is one option. Rolling my own hexcrawl another. Then I might veer The Calaveras to try indie games instead of an irregular OSR affair. We shall see.

Second, I would like to ramp up the state of the blog. Despite the myriad of material out there, and my fear of being an irrelevant and callous voice, I find the act of sitting down and dumping and present ideas therapeutic. My aim is to beat the 20 posts of 2021.

Third, I want to publish some material from past games into the blog, itch, drivethrurpg, or another similar platform. This will prove hard, since as a solo show you either have to wear a ton of hats (layout, art, information design, and of course writing), or pay for it. One project that excites me is a bestiary based on my sister's illustrations.

As we say around here, good slip to 22!

The Single Biggest Bugbear in Gaming

Deciding on a title for this blog post wasn't easy. Don't be fooled. This is both ramble and rant, with varied and disjointed thoughts on gaming groups and culture, and my recent experiences with them. Take the following words with that in mind. Or skip this one entirely.

My gaming has come to a sudden halt. Personal circumstances have seen my days filled to the last minute. Average sleep these past weeks hovers around the 5 hour mark. I can function professionally, but that's about it. Hobby time has been squashed like a bug, and I get the odd half hour break here or there, when the moons align.

How do people cope and find the time and energy to game? I'm not interested, at all, in the streamer superstar scene. All hell to the Manganiellos, Ann Wolls, Critical Roles and other actor fanfare. I want to know how the single mum with two kids gets a game going. How the guy with two jobs making minimum wage runs a game every week. And the person with insomnia and a gazillion responsibilities.

This frustration conflates with several recent observations.

I'am Pramudya

Scheduling

Remains the beast of the game. Postponed games. Cancelled games. Shall we shift to next week or wait for Mike? Summer holidays, anyone? And so the innuendo continues. This is the main reason I (and I reckon many others) started running games, instead of playing. To dictate scheduling. Open tables, west-marches, and megadungeons help mitigate this, but are only a patch.

Online Gaming (for the most part) Sucks

The bulk of my gaming has been online. So I've encountered a fair deal of bizarre situations when dealing with both anons and friends in this medium. I get that remaining focused† is much harder when dealing with so many distractions at your fingertips. But still...

I've seen people drop from a planned game 10 minutes in.

I've had my fair deal of Irish goodbyes. I get that there's anonymity, but a short message signing off?

I've had a player straight out tell me at the end of a session that during that same game they were in the background working AND getting high (what? how? seriously?!).

Players throwing insults at each other & me? Check.

Players clearly not paying attention to what is going on in the game? No bloody clue? Check.

Mitigations for online play could entail shorter sessions, everyone using cameras, rolling physical dice, avoid looking up rules, sharing visuals (maps, NPC portraits, etc). But it's tough to implement these without plenty of resistance from the gaming group.

Face to Face?

Yes please and thank you. But what if you can't host? Also, securing space in neutral ground (a café, bar, hobby shop) in my location is both expensive and impractical.

There's a local meetup group! Hurray! Rejoice! But... the interest is almost exclusively dominated by 5e. Oh, I could still launch my game and bait some players? But the group shoves a ton of donation links and buttons to any announced games, even if you, the person running and hosting, objects. Makes my stomach irk. Oh, and taking whatever players sign up fastest on the platform (and not the ones you gel with) is mandatory. Yikes to byzantine bureaucracy.

How do folks in my age group meet new people? In the age of the nerd one would think this is trivial, but the plague has exacerbated this problem. When approaching friends and colleagues I'm met with either courteous interest or a completely puzzled face. Got the feeling I slept through my younger years, and the deep pool that it can bring in from school and university.

Getting 3-6 adults in the same room at the same time for 2-4 hours? Worthy of the highest of praises.

Wat Do?

I don't know.

I will try to launch a game with The Calaveras (online), since we finished Magical Murder Mansion. With some adjustments, mind you. Have to prepare a pitch doc (all'Colville) of games I'd want to run. And try to play a couple times per month.

But other than that, I'm drained.

Perhaps a deeper delve into solo games? Yet many fall into the journal proposition, and there the blank page is a block. I'd rather take on something more passive (reading, watching), or take on a proper boardgame.

I found the time and energy to write this post, so that's a win, right?

EDIT: it appears, once again, that xkcd is reading my mind:

---

† This, alone, is worth another rant on its own. Attention spans in the smartphone age with constant distractions flocking, is TINY. Multi-tasking kills absorption. But this has little to do with a gaming blog, alas...

Five Inspirations, Issue 1

In no particular order, and with no cohesive fabric between them, here go five sources that have I have recently consumed, and provided great inspiration.

As my disclaimer usually goes, these are things that I personally like, paid with my own money, and nobody is pushing my way. Other than the sophisticated advertisement apparatus of the tech giants, of course.

1. The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, by Ken Liu

Just finished this book, and my mind has been blown.

 

This book contained, by a wide margin, the best writing I've had the privilege to read in all of 2021. And possibly including 2020 as well. My reading habit is certainly not what it once was, so take that statement as you will.

The collection of short stories is insightful, paced, and thought provoking. Evocative writing flows from the page. There is so much sentiment and soul embedded in every single sentence. Fantastical elements, science-fiction and alternate history are blended with gusto. Doesn't really matter.

The titular "Paper Menagerie" story had me literally crying, its themes of migration, culture, and heritage strongly resonating.

"Good Hunting" was adapted for the brilliant Netflix show "Love Death + Robots", and deserves high praise. Industrialization, and our land and culture losing its magic.

"The Perfect Match" could change its entity to Facebook, Alphabet or Amazon, appear on a newspaper, and I would strongly believe it true.

"The Literomancer" is a gorgeously saddening story on the magic of words and language.

"The Regular" tells in 50 pages a credible and engaging neo detective story.

I could go on and on. Stories range from great to brilliant. There are repeating themes, heritage, language, communication, history, industrialization fantasy and futurism.

This book is a must read. Broadened my view and mindset. Pick it up, and thank me later.

2. NOD magazine, by John Stater

Ran into this series of zines in the OSR space, where John Stater has consistently been throwing together very complete material. Mainly centered around his land of NOD, they include robust hexcrawls for OD&D, with interesting flavor, including bestiaries and interspersed articles. They are a tour of the world in terms of flavor and influences. You have your pseudo-european setting (issues #4-#7), but also one based on african mythology, another with east asian roots, and even a tour of Hell!

The PDF pricing is extremely fair for the amount and quality of the content. I would highlight issues #7 and #34 from the dozen or so I purchased thus far.

In all likelihood one of these will form the basis of what we do in The Calaveras campaign. I'm thinking of issues #19-#21. After we rebooted our game with 1 less player, we should be done with Magical Murder Mansion in a bit (it's taking us a while, but we're getting there...).

3. Watchmen, the 2019 TV mini-series

Swinging in quality from episode to episode, and very derivative from the graphic novel, I still enjoyed the first six episodes of this mini-series. The last third is a bit of a hot mess, losing its grounded reality, and going into realms that made my eyes roll... I would have dropped it if it wasn't for Jeremy Irons' performance. The original Watchmen graphic novel was a favorite of mine, so take that as you want.

The topics are ominous and worryingly prophetic, given its release was end of 2019. Before the mask reality. Before the BLM movement exploded.

Other than the great portrayal by Irons, I felt the secondary characters also had strong performances.

4. A series of Bloomberg Quicktakes

My failure to latch to the Expanse hype train has not prevented me from enjoying and consuming more quality science-fiction than in recent years. Books, serials and movies. I ran into this series of videos with interesting cutting edge technologies. Interesting topics.

5. James Bond Movies

Slowly making my way through the Bond movies of old, with Connery and Roger Moore on display. Man, pacing in these movies was completely different experience back then. Cheeky, campy, and a good deal of relaxed fun. Sometimes my pandemic brain can only take this amount of complexity, and I'm ok with that.

2020 ends, 2021 begins

Well into the year by now, but the nice disconnect of the holidays has kept me away from screens and RPG games. A good number of light boardgames (King of Tokyo, Azul, Splendor, etc) were enjoyed these days with the few close family members I was able to see.

What a bizarre year this has been. I'm extremely fortunate on how good it was for me personally, but also professionally stable. And for that I'm thankful.

Gaming

This year I enjoyed some games, but the circumstances in the world have also kept others from happening:

• I continue to play a whispers bard Oswald Lach in a 5e campaign, Tomb of Annihilation. We should finish the campaign within the next months, I reckon.
  
• It saw my Knave Stonehell play-by-post tables fizzle after some slow exploration of the first levels.
• Played a couple session in IdleDoodler's Barrowmaze open table. Good fun, and still going strong. The time just doesn't fit my schedule too well.
  
• The Calaveras campaign picked up with some old friends new to gaming. Knave at first, we've moved to Macchiato Monsters.
• We had a stint at the Stygian Library with Electric Bastionland characters and rules.
• Tried Microscope for one sitting, and I definitely want to toy more with it, and Kingdom.
• Played a bit (more) of Magical Murder Mansion with Macchiato Monsters, and the guys really want to continue playing that.
  
• Played a solo session of Ironsworn and enjoyed the experience. Might blog about it in the future.
  

The Blog

31 articles published. Some with useful ideas. But more importantly a repository of them for my future reference and use. And I like the "dead" nature of blogging. Seems archaic and ancient, even in the OSR circles, where Twitter and Discord seem more predominant. Here are my four posts of 2020 I myself liked best:

• d66 Random Inn NPCs
• The town of Walfalkon
• Zinequest 2 Post-Mortem Reviews
• Knave Inventories
  

The Future, 2021

First, about TTRPG purchases. Seeing how much I play and use, I will stop buying products and backing Kickstarters. Doing so at a much lower pace. This has been in my head much before Grognardia's piece, which echoes my thoughts like a megaphone. In my future, less is more. Might even consider giving some physical stuff away, or trying to sell it.

Second, about my gaming. The 5e game will wrap up in a few months. The Calaveras campaign will continue, but most likely at a tortoise pace even if I try to revitalize it. I will try to join or launch an open table to have a weekly game in the OSR space, beer & pretzels style. Perhaps OSE and Stonehell, but who knows. I'm also eagerly eyeing Mothership, but need the right group for me to take a stab at it. Solo Ironsworn will continue as well.

Third, the blog. The stream of thought dumping in this space will continue. At what pace, no idea, 31 posts a year seems like a lot. I will keep my focus on TTRPGs, might do a stint into other media I enjoy. Blogger will be nuked by Google, but hopefully not in 2021.

Anyhow, as we say around here, good slip to 21!