Pick #96: Game Poems

Sometimes the world is just beautifully weird. Game Poems are almost Zen-like short games, often games akin to role play and story telling, which you can set up in no time and play in... like 15 minutes. Perhaps they are more for people who also like Fiasco than those who like D&D, but I guess they are worth checking out just for the mind-jarring effect the idea has. Be sure to try some links to get your head around them.


Marc Majger devoted a whole blog to them at Gizmet Game Poems, and made a book too. This blog is a fine place to start.

"[Game poems] generally address some specific mood or emotion, or focus on one particular notion, but not all of the games here strictly adhere to that definition. First and foremost, a game poem is just there to be taken in and experienced with a friend or group of friends for a few moments, and then those moments are over – and hopefully, something small and wonderful will happen in the process."

You can find more about game poems on the Norwegian Style Blog,  The Story Games forum, or here at Board Game Geek. The idea of the roleplaying poem seems to be Norwegian in origin, I figure. Be sure to check out the crazy Children Monks: role playing poem by Bryan Hansel, too.

If you're in for a weird experience, or like things like theatre sports, this may certainly be for you.

Pick #95: PlaGMaDa archives

Have you ever wanted to get rid of your old gaming notes, scribbles, hand-drawn maps and doodles? Or are you instead intrigued by the scribblings and sheets of others? Do you want to see the real originals? The PlaGMaDa archives may be something for you then.

PlaGMaDa stands for the Play Generated Map & Document archive, and it takes any kind of paper and digital donations, as long as they pertain to paper & pen role playing games. So there's lots of old character sheets and hand-drawn modules that belong there.

You can surf through scans of the archive freely, and there are plans to have real life exhibitions in the future. PlaGMaDa even published a few shirts and books, including one by Ken St. Andre, game designer of Tunnels & Trolls. As I write this their shop is down, but it should be up in a week or maybe two if all is well. They also have a blog, and you can help fund them if you like the initiative.

Pick #94: Yet Another Dark Dungeon!

Dark Dungeon is a wonderful name - so wonderful that there are various games bearing it - sometimes to my chagrin, as they are confused with my own Dark Dungeon. Still, most are good games in their own right, and this site is dedicated to Dark Dungeon in many forms, so... here's another one!

This Dark Dungeon is a fairly recent Flash implementation of the game you might know as "Rogue" or "Hack!" which used to be played on Unix mainframes in the 1980's. Actually it's nice, and plays smoothly. Enjoy.

Pick #93: Star Wars meets Reality

Suppose the soldiers, creatures and droids from Star Wars appeared in our own reality. What would that make for a picture? That's what the work of French photographer Cedric Delsaux is about in his Dark Lens series.

If you don't know about it and you're a Star Wars fan, you might be jarred. If you like documentary photography, you may be jarred aswell. Enjoy in wonder, and join me in a nother thought: what would a Star Wars role playing game be like if we allowed it to mesh in with our reality? Naturally, Star Trek regularly went into its past, into our own time, but Star Trek has a different feel. What about Star Wars? Boba Fet in a parking lot, Imperial troops in Iraq and Shanghai, Darth Vader in Dubai. What intriguing stories can you spin from there?

Pick #92: What does a real sword weigh?

Have you ever wondered what a real suit of plate weighs, and whether you can move around in it if you're not like Lou Ferigno? Or have you ever wondered whether two-handed swords were really as cumbersome and heavy as the older GM guide said in Dungeons & Dragons? Thirty pounds for a sword seems rather hefty to use - that's about the weight of a bicycle. Because, what's the use of a big weapon or powerful armour if it badly slows you down?

Well, here are a few writers who bust the myth. They just tried it on and did their historical research. Plate armour was really made to be easy to carry. Maybe it's not as comfortable as spandex tights for the X-men, but it's surely workable. And two-handers? The well-balanced ones were easy to wield, they say, if you know how to. The less balanced ones were probably never meant for fighting, and if these were used at all, they would only have been used at executions. And how much do they weigh? A few pounds.

Check out what I Clausewitz and J. Clements at ARMA have to say about it. You might also have a look at the extensive information by the Metropolitan Museum in NY or laugh about the Dragon Preservation Society take on this one. If you're not handling swords every day, they may give you a few eyeopeners. They did for me, when I first read them!

Drawing by Urs Graf, borrowed from Dragon Preservation Society, picturing what a true 30 pound sword would look like.

Pick #91: 24-Hour RPG Competition

Have you ever contemplated writing your own role playing game? Chances are, if you've stumbled upon this blog, that you have. Have you ever considered writing one within 24 hours?

With some regularity, the guys at 1kM1kT have a competition to do just that. In fact, there is one now, as I write this during November 2013. You can win 30 sterling in vouchers to meet "your gaming habit needs", and all you have to do is lock yourself up for 24 hours somewhere and write that game.

If you think it's not possible - you may be surprised - I participated four times, and I was both proud and surprised of what I could do in such a span of time. It's quite a boost to see what concentration and time-limits can do for your creative brain. Later versions even became full fledged commercial games of which I'm proud - like the cooperative card RPG Ringworld Zombie.

Even when you don't feel like participating, or if you have no time to do so - you might want to look at the results of others' efforts, and be amazed with at least some of them.

Pick #90: Xenobiology

Alien lifeforms, completely different from our own typical build can be the spice of your science fiction, or fantasy games. But how do you imagine lifeforms that you've never seen? Before you know it, everything starts to look either like insects, like Lovecraftian creatures, or like the Aliens from the Ripley-driven film sequels. This in itself isn't bad. But there are a few other possibilities.

Here's some sites I stumbled upon that may give you entirely new ideas. You could see them as a jumpstart to Xenobiology 101.

The first is Furahan Biology blog, run by a Dutch scientist. It features quite a few nice thoughts on xenobiology and the imaginary planet Furaha. Similar blogs are The Xenobiology of Nereus, run by Evan Black from Utah, Xenoblog by the mysterious lady Amoeboid, and Biology in Science Fiction by Peggy Kolm.

The second thing to look at would be the Aldebaran, Betelgeuze and Antares science fiction comic series by Leo, a Brazilian artist. You can find some on the english translations of Leo's Aldebaran series here. The creatures of these series are thought through quite well, being quite weird and alien indeed.

A third thing to look at, when you're able, is Falling Skies, a science fiction series now in its fourth season, produced by Steven Spielberg. It features quite a few special effects and weird creatures.

Good luck imagining! - oh... and if you can stand Niven, read the Ringworld series!

Pick #89: BlueHolme

In case you haven't noticed it yet - someone did a Open Gaming License rewrite of the Blue Holmes Basic D&D set. That someone is Michael Thomas of Dreamscape Design. It's called Blueholme (wonder why?) Maybe it's not needed - but hey, it looks good.

It is sprinkled with old illustrations (by Ford and Lambdin), from fairy tales - a bit a la Rackham.  Strangely enough this aids a bit in recreating the feel of the original Holmes edition. It's free - on DriveThru. Michael Thomas plans to have a full fledged expert set for sale later. Now... the only thing missing is some ole players from 1982 and a print-on-demand version :-) Have a look and see what you think.

Pick #88: Castle For Sale

No, this is not about a plot hook for a comic horror game, although it could be. In fact, why not write one? No, it's about actual castles being for sale, today, right now.

Hunting for some real castle maps, I stumbled on this one. Then I found this site specialising in rather expensive real estate for aspiring nobles. A Dutch site it seems... my fellow countrymen seem to enjoy strange hobbies. This one sells for 25 million gp - eh, euros.

A regular castle may be a bit hard on the average role player's budget, but that's probably precisely why there's quite a few luxurious estates for sale out there. Fancy one? If you do the cleaning, you're welcome to stay in the one I'd buy if I had the money. Which I don't. Ah well.

Gaze and be astounded. And call me if you buy one and want me over. I won't clean ;-)

And enjoy this new year, whatever it may bring!

Pick #87: The Alexandrian Blog

While wondering about railroading, game structure, dungeons vs stories, and bottlenecks (or choke-points), I just discovered some excellent writing by Justin Alexander. Especially when you're just trying to make the transition from dungeoneering to mystery gaming (or more general story gaming), checking out his "three clue rule" essay may save you quite a few headaches. And even if you're not exactly new to more story based gaming, there's some nice theoretical and practical thinking in the Alexandrian. I particularly like the pieces on game structure, of which you can find the first article here.

Have a look, and see if you can help Justin finishing the 3rd edition compatible Legends & Labyrinths rule book, too. To be honest, I'm not too fond of third edition, but the idea of having *better* and easier rules that can handle the same modules and materials sounds nifty to me. And that's what L&L proposes to do, so I'm at least curious.

Pick #86: Philip Glass as Inspiration

This may be a weird pick for an RPG blog, but music and videos can be very inspiring. This is one - edited by Ulises Tamez in 2007 - is  a video meddley on Underground Storm from the Truman Show soundtrack. Think it's pretty impressive, almost begging for its own setting or story.



Might try it this weekend.

Pick #85: Lone Wolf Relives!

Did you ever play Grey Star? Does the name Lone Wolf ring a bell? Missing it?

In the eighties, there was a phenomenon called "game books". Books full of numbered paragraphs through which you could follow your own adventure path. Before the time of computers in every teenage room, you could play without your friends, solo, in a full adventure. You just played on your own, with one of these books, and sometimes a pencil to make notes.

The Lone Wolf series was one of the better series. One of my friends even named his favorite character after one in the series: Greystar. For some time these books got lost in history, but now you can get them again. Joe Dever and a group of fellow writers decided to republish their books on the Aon Project, for free!

You can download a complete html or pdf, or even play an "online version" of many books, including the Kai, Magnakai and Lone Wolf series. You can play many of these, again.
Very recently there even are epub and kindle versions.

Actually you can even get some in Spanish, or buy special full color maps of the Lone Wolf World. Check it out.

Pick #84: WTF?!, that's no WOW!

For those of you who play World of Warcraft, or know people who play WOW, or those of you who do not want to confess to either of these but know... well, what the truth is, there's this: WTF?!

WTF?! is not necessarily what you'd think it would spell out to be. It's basically what WOW might have been if it had been coded in Flash, in two dimensions. That's what it is: a spoof of WOW. And it's rather well done. Your first quest, as Stretch-eared Elf Lady Phallicity (I don't even want to think about what that means), is to kill eight poor piglets. It goes downhill from there. Or actually it doesn't. Best of all, it's free, if you don't consider time spent which you could have spent elsewhere, which cannot be said for WOW.

Have a try here.

Pick #83: More Hobbit Ponderings

Never guessed that the set of the Hobbit would be blessed by Maori.



But you all knew, didn't you? I just was slower to watch ;-)



I wonder if my family who went to live in Wellington NZ noticed anything of the filming there.

Here's a silly note to the teaser with alternative lyrics. No, it's not official, whatever it says.



Just to make sure, by now I do think it's a good idea to split the Hobbit into two parts, and not just because of increased funding opportunities - as in "two movies pay out more than one". The story is quite extensive for just two hours. Better to give it the length it needs.

On yet another note, if you could not get enough of the short eerie version... here's all 27 verses by ShaDoWCa7.

Pick #82: The Hobbit on a darker note... through Dungeons Deep

Some time ago, I noted that the Hobbit teaser almost suggested a movie of horror - being much darker than the book. Now, some people who have spoken to people who spoke to the insiders suggest that I may be right.

The Hobbit will be a more grown up, darker movie than the book. As it seems, J.R.R. Tolkien tried to rewrite the Hobbit in the 1960s, to make it lead up more naturally to Lord of the Rings. Apparently, he abandoned the attempt, as the Hobbit would have changed too much.

Peter Jackson picked up this idea, and seems to be extending on it. The movie thus will not only contain elements from the Hobbit, but also from other, more mature Tolkien works. At least, for as far as copyrights allow, that is. To ponder on what this may mean... listen to the chilling Misty Mountains (Cold) and Dungeons Deep from the trailer. For twenty-five minutes.



Or take to this eerie enchanting version by ShaDowCa7. It's spine tingling, believe me.



Makes you look forward to the film after all, doesn't it? It does to me.

Pick #81: Really Ancient Dice...

Okay, so James already pointed at this one in his Grognardia, but it's worth saying it again. You thought the roleplaying dice looked funny? That they must have magickal origins? They might have. The four-sided die for example is really, really ancient. And I don't mean 1973 with that. I don't even mean it looks like a little pyramid. I do mean the Royal game of Ur. It's a 3600 year old racing game remniscent of backgammon.

On the other hand, maybe it was the first role playing game... ;-)

Just in case you're as amazed as I was, here's some more dice history on the awesome dice blog.

Pic is courtesy Wikipedia.

Pick #80: Old School Hack, or D&D Pretzel Style

Possibly this one needs no introduction to you, as this one won this year's ENnie award. I'll chance that.

Old School Hack is an easy going, beer and pretzel style take on what 1981 D&D might have been. What it might have been if the designers would have hated intricate dungeon mapping, three digit math, and rulebooks heavy enough to knock an Umber Hulk out. Instead they would have loved sweets, easy rules, fast paced combat, a cheery atmosphere, comic style play, and a cooperative group spirit.

One of the nicest touches of the system I think, is the awarding of awesome points. These are a sort of luck points, or fate points, as many systems know them. But in this case players may also award them to eachother, for cool play moments. Also, the game master can deal out more nastiness, while giving more awesome points to compensate. Awardable awesome points are kept in a bowl, possibly as sweets or other edibles. To me it's a refreshing system mechanic to find in a dungeon delving game.

Old School Hack beta 1.0 is available for free, and worth to give a spin in your group. Be sure not to eat your awesome points before you use them though. If you want, you can read some interviews with writer Kirin Robinson here and here - or have a look at the Red Box Hack inspiration for this game by Eric Provost. And despite his busy private life, Kirin intends to expand on the game soon. Which seems an excellent idea to me.

Pick #79: Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque

Have you ever wanted to do Gothic adventuring, wistfully looked at Vampire the Masquerade - but didn't want to play a lovesick undead creature? Looked at Grindhouse Lamentations or Carcosa and thought it too weird for you? Loved Poe more than Moorcock, but never dared to leave the fantasy arena? TOTG&D may be something for you.

Just a few days ago liche lord Jack Shear put his home brew Labyrinth Lord campaign resource out on the web, for free. It's called Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque, like the blog, and sports 116 pages of remarkably good stuff. Good enough for me to want to plunder it for ideas. And good enough to think wistfully about gothic adventure campaigning. Have a look, and drop Jack a word to tell him what you think of it.

Pick #78: Why I love Spirit of the Century

A few days ago UPS finally delivered the hardcover of Spirit of the Century to my door. On 3rd try... despite that I told them I wouldn't be there; so much for communication with UPS. Spirit is a hefty 7"x9" book, well over 400 pages long, printed by Lulu, produced by Evil Hat Productions, written by Robert Donoghue, Fred Hicks and Leonard Balsera.

And I guess it just earned its spot near Talislanta, the 1E DMG, CoC, Traveller and Stars Without Number. Which means it's in my top five of RPGs (not counting my own DD2). Why?

Because this implementation of FATE (a FUDGE variant) inspires me to revise the way I look at role playing. The pick up game (a game session where you don't have all your regular players, and need to improvise outside a regular campaign) is actually made into a strength, instead of a weakness. The use of Fate points and Aspects gives the players more influence on changing the story, without making it totally free form. And it's chock full of good GM advice on running your story driven game. And I mean really good advice - despite my 30+  years of game mastering experience I found enough to make me smile.

Maybe the Pulp Hero game setting itself is not directly suited to your group's style - being a mix of Top Secret, Indiana Jones and Marvel Superheroes. But I found the book is definitely worth reading, and the game very probably worth playing. The PDF is currently only $5, so you don't have to plunder your pocket book to get it - unless of course you go for the hardcover, like I did...

Pick #77: Charlie Brookers GameSwipe

Maybe you haven't seen the British rants of Charlie Brooker yet, maybe you have. As a master of not too subtle and subtle yet nasty but true comments on just about everything, he has not only turned to movies and daily news, but also to video games. Someone posted these on the net - enjoy and learn something new along the way.