Rowan Tree and Red Thread

Inspired by the beautiful maps Dyson Logos (rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/) creates, I took a stab at drawing a side-view dungeon at the weekend.

It needs more tidying up and could really do with some shading or cross-hatching to bring out the edges, but I'm pleased with it as a first effort.

Anyone fancy stocking the caverns and rooms? Who or what dwells in the various catacombs and crevices?

I listened lately to a podcast at Clyde Rhoer's Theory from the Closet, which was an interview with David Wesley, retired US Army Major and the man Dave Arneson said originated the idea of roleplaying. Wesley was an active wargamer, both board and miniatures, who ran a formative game called Braunstein, a creative mixture of Diplomacy-like negotiation, LARP and seat of the pants free-forming.

The interview is long, over 1 hr 20 mins, but fascinating, as it ranges from the wargaming scene in 60's Minnesota, the creation of roleplaying in its nascent form, and the pitfalls of self-publishing back in the mimeograph era. A wonderful document from the days before D&D.

I'm reading a new roleplaying game called ICONS. It uses random generation of superpowers (if so desired) and I got the urge to roll for powers. I don't have my dice at work and...
Well to cut it short I found this QuickKwiz link and generated super powers for my game group. It was a slow lunchtime.

( Powers beyond mortal ken lie within... )

I saw this and did a little happy dance. Charlie Stross's Laundry series in RPG form is definitely in my wheelhouse. (Am I only six months behind with that joke?)

Gar Hanarahan is a mark of quality all by himself, but Jason Durall and John Snead make a nice triumverate. Roll on July!

Because all the cool kids are doing it: ( my gaming DNA. )

(courtesy of bryant by way of Claw/Claw/Peck.)

"So: you're about to leave for a desert island. There will be four to six other people on the island; they will magically adjust to suit your gaming preferences without being annoyingly similar to you. Or if you want, they can be your best friends, whatever suits. It's magic.

You can bring ten tabletop RPGs. (You can also bring ten boardgames, but that's a different post.) You get the core book plus all the supplements. For something like the new World of Darkness, you get the core rulebook, plus the appropriate game-specific rulebook, plus all the supplements."

Right, let's get my thinking cap on.

• Pendragon - Best. Game. Evar. With tragic romance and fights over faerie berries too.


• Over the Edge - simple, flexible and a great rulebook full of ideas and drug references. Also stands in mechanically for Risus, Ghostbusters and Star Wars at a pinch.


• (Classic) Traveller - Just imagine having all the supplements in one place! For those times when I want to set up a triangle trade route that just happens to wander into a shooting war, alien invasion or a man with a sure-fire claim to an unexploited asteroid belt.


• Runequest (2e) - My nostalgic fantasy number 1. All that creamy Gloranthan goodness wrapped in limb-loss and scrabbling for copper coins under the merciless Praxian sun. Possibly just the new BRP edition, but then I'd be without the Big Rubble and Pavis boxed sets.


• Mutants and Masterminds - For flexible superheroing without quite as much number crunching as Champions.


• D&D 3.5 - For the supplements so I wouldn't have to build a shack. I could just live under the Complete X books. Also dungeon crawling is always an option.


• Spirit of the Century - I'd finally read the damn thing and stop pretending that I know the rules from a quick skim. Plus Zeppelins with Robo-Gorilla Marine squadrons.


• Dogs in the Vineyard - Mechanically a real thinky game and morally compelling.


• Primetime Adventures - The indie game I've never played I most want to play.


• Paranoia - The best SF game there is. And the only game I've played where painting a corridor can lead to a death count double figures.

Games I considered but dropped. Call of Cthulhu, Everway, Ars Magica; each one a dagger in my heart.

Ken Hite said it best. Dave Arneson has died and every roleplayer owes him a great debt for conceiving and nurturing the hobby we all love.

I hear he was a great granddad too.

I was reminded by sleepyscholar that I hadn't posted about our recent change of roleplaying entertainments. We wrapped our Grand Theft Starship game a few weeks ago and the generous sammywol stepped into the breach so we have...

Judge Dee: The White Lotus Rebellion

sammywol has kindly offered to GM a game from the casebook of Judge Dee. Drawing on the books by Robert van Gulik, she has the PCs in the employ of the good magistrate Di Renjie, in the district of Lan Fang, on the Northwest border close against the Uyghur hordes.

Recent events have thrown the whole district into disarray. A rebellion led by the mysterious White Lotus Brotherhood has shattered the local Imperial Army, driven the judge from his tribunal, and left the town under the brutal martial law of the rebels.

Into this mess come the player characters. They are an odd assortment of assistants, followers and hangers-on to the tribunal of Lan Fang. They are:

Miss Ting/Mrs. Kang (irishkate): the wife of missing Mr. Kang, she is an ex-acrobat, now respectably married, who lost contact with her husband during the recent unpleasantness after falling into a river.

Bo Jiang (marzut): ex-soldier with a heavy conscience and a habit of singing drunken songs. He has an unfortunate weakness for 'ripe fruit' (buxom lasses).

Win Gao (The Mysterious alaimacerc): disgruntled ex-bureaucrat and herbalist. The only local in the group, now fled from Lan Fang and offering help to the magistrate.

Chen Mi ('Pete') : Sensitive poet and ladykiller, sporting sleeve arrows and a winsome smile.

Zui Quan (moi): Drunken fallen Daoist priest with a sturdy constitution and mighty drunken monkey style gong fu.

The judge set up camp in the woods some distance from the city, and there began to organise the resistance. Our band were put to the task of investigating strange marks on some of the trees, evidence of a secret society at work perhaps?

I hope to post more here when I get the sessions properly written up. It's been fun so far, and I'm finding playing a drunken daoist surprisingly easy. (No sniggering at the back!)

[ETA: we're using Ghost/Echo, John Harper's adaptation of Vincent Baker's Otherkind Dice idea.

ETA2: Removed Alai's True Name for fear of naughty mages, so I thought I'd tidy up the rest.)

I got my gaming group together on Thursday night to give the Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple character generation a whirl. It went really well!

Daniel Solis (gobi) has been running a playtest of the character generation rules for Do, and my group graciously indulged me and agreed to give it a whirl on Thursday night. The group consisted of

mylescorcoran - Nomad/Hero - F
alaimacerc - Dreamer/Orphan - M
marzut - Dreamer/Runaway - F
Peter M - Warrior/Graduate - M
sammywol- Warrior/Castaway - F
irishkate - Noble/Fugitive - F

( Long description cut )

As I said, an excellent evening's entertainment and we were only making characters. If the actual play of the game in earnest is anything like last Thursday night I'd say Daniel has a winner on his hands.