Five For Friday 36: Five Off-The-Beaten-Track Inspirational Books for Table-Top RPG Gamers (Appendix N)

If nothing else, I think I set a new personal best with the length of this post title. Here is an eclectic collection of books that were great reading and, for the purposes of this blog, surprisingly inspirational for gaming. Presented in alphabetical order:

• Atlas of Remote Islands by Judith Schalansky. This book is perfectly described by its title. It is an atlas of fifty of the world's most remote islands.
• The Book of Legendary Lands by Umberto Eco. Italian scholar and novelist (The Name of the Rose) Umberto Eco's fascinating description of the legendary lands that we humans have come up throughout the course of our history. Eco's writing is, as usual, amazing and the illustrations are worth the price of the book.
• The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker. This novel is set in the city of New York at the very end of the nineteenth century and tells of the unlikely friendship between a golem and a jinni, both of whom find themselves lost and friendless in a foreign land. Just a really great read.
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. This book has a lot going on, more than I can even attempt to capture in a brief description. Just two things: (1) I absolutely loved this book and (2) there is a house that grows a megadungeon at the heart of the story. Oh, and it is really creepy.
• Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. Calling this book a novel might be a  bit of a stretch. A fictional dialogue between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, with Marco Polo describing fictional cities of Kublai Khan's empire, each city more fantastical than the one before it.

Related Post

Five For Friday 2: A Modern Literary Appendix N

Five For Friday 33: Games I Want To Play in 2015

I don't really have any gaming goals besides wanting to continue gaming at the rate that I am currently gaming, but there are some games that I am interested in playing in 2015. Here they are in alphabetical order:

• Dead Inside: This just looks weird and fun and a bit creepy at the same time. The PDQ looks like it is very easy to grab hold of and play for a few sessions as a break from more extended campaigns. New to me.
• The Esoterrorists: +Tim Shorts ran a session of this for our Monday Night Uber Goobers Gaming Group at Con on the Cob. I am really wanting to finish what we started. I would love another serving of this.
• Fiasco: Any game inspired by the movie Fargo (among other titles) gets my attention. This just looks like a good time and perfect to play when the GM is unavailable. New to me.
• GURPS: I have played two different GURPS characters, both in Dungeon Fantasy style games. I would really like to play (not run) a modern or science fiction game. I would love a third helping of GURPS.
• Microscope: How can I not want to roleplay the whole history of a world? This looks like a blast and could also be way to collaboratively create a campaign setting. New to me.

Given my limited time (except Monday nights), thanks to a bit of success in playing music on the weekends, I am not sure if I will get a chance to play any of the above games. But here is to hoping.

Five for Friday 28: Shameful Desires

I have tried. God knows that I have tried to not lust after gaming stuff. But I am a weak man, so here is an accounting of my current sins in the form of a wish list of hard copy gaming items (in alphabetical order):

• Castle of the Mad Archmage: I love megadungeons and I have heard/read lots of great stuff about +Joseph Bloch's revamped entry into the field.
• The Dungeon Dozen: How could I not add +Jason Sholtis's collection of d12 tables to my dungeoneering bookshelf?
• Horror Companion (Savage Worlds): I haven't played anything using the Savage World systems, but I keep coming back to it again and again. I just picked up the Fantasy Companion and it has piqued my interest.
• Microscope: Ben Robbins' award-winning RPG game is described as "fractal role-playing." No GM. No prep. The more I read about it, the more I am intrigued. It can be used as a game in itself, but it can also be used by a gaming group to create settings via Microscope game sessions.
• NOD #6: I have been buying issues of +John Stater's NOD at a rate of one per month. This is next up on the list. I am currently using his Blood & Treasure rules for our Montporte Dungeon campaign. 

I will quietly break the rules here and add a few extras to the list...don't report me to the blog police. I'd like to pick up some GURPS stuff in hardcopy: GURPS High Tech and GURPS Powers. I might have to settle for the PDF version of GURPS High Tech, as it out of print and the priced for print copies is steep. Tome of Horrors 4 has also caught my fancy.

Sadly, the purchase of a custom order bass guitar dented the bank account but not my shameless desire for musical possessions. Daddy wants an upright bass and a high end acoustic guitar. And I have to postpone my wish fulfillment as my wife also wants a new acoustic guitar...hard to argue that it isn't her turn when I have my new bass guitar on a stand in the living room. Obviously, the solution is a winning lottery ticket, but for now I have to balance the spending across two money-sucking pastimes.

Five For Friday 25: Dungeon Campaign Ideas

"Underground City" by Elias Lewinsky

We have made it to Session 25 of the Montporte Dungeon Campaign and our sessions are still going strong. It has me thinking about some other ways to use the dungeon setting that I have already created for some future campaigns (this won't happen for a while because the other four guys in our Monday Night Gaming Group are all chomping at the bit to GM). Here are five thoughts that I have had, in no particular order:

• Montporte Dungeon + GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: I really like what I have been reading about GURPS Dungeon Fantasy on other blog posts. More specifically, I have thought about GURPS templates based on the Holmes version of D&D (or maybe B/X), except I would drop halflings and add gnomes (based on what has already transpired with the Montporte Dungeon. I'd be tempted to start at 175 points for characters, but I think I would be fine with 250. I had also thought about a American Wild West or Victorian smash-up and then an hour later saw Peter D's (Dungeon Fantastic) review of Pyramid #3/60: Dungeon Fantasy III, I am definitely interested in checking out the article by David Pulver, "Eidetic Memory: High-Tech Dungeon Crawl."
• Montporte Dungeon + Fudge: I have been really interested in watching +Rob Conley adapt his Majestic Wilderlands setting to Fudge. I have played two campaigns in the Majestic Wilderlands, with Rob as GM--the first campaign using Swords & Wizardry and a second using GURPS. I have been in on one playtest session with the Fudge version of the Majestic Wilderlands and really liked it a lot. 
• Montporte Dungeon + Savage Worlds: This just looks like loads of fun (no apologies to those gamers who hate fun). I am not sure how Savage Worlds would hold up under a long campaign, but it would be groovy to do a shorter mini-campaign perhaps just to see how Savage World works (I haven't actually played it yet).
• Montporte Dungeon + Heavily House-Ruled Swords & Wizardry: I would combine the human classes of Crypts & Things (warriors, barbarians, thieves, and sorcerers) plus dwarves, elves and gnomes (using the race-as-class concept). Maybe I would drop the non-humans and just go with a slightly modified version of C&T.
• Montporte Dungeon + Onyx + GURPS: I thought about combining my half-baked idea for a medieval urban fantasy campaign (Onyx) with the dungeon by placing the city of Onyx deep in the Underdark. GURPS would be my preferred system. This seems like a lot of work, but I have parts of it already done.

Not sure if any of this will happen, but a boy can dream.

Five for Friday 24: Summer Vacation

"The first day on my vacation, what I did on my summer vacation, the first day on my vacation, I woke up. Then, I went downtown to look for job. I did not find one. Then I hung out in front of the drugstore. The second day on my summer vacation, I woke up, then I went downtown to look for a job. I did not find one. Then I hung out in front of the drugstore. The third day on my summer vacation, I woke up..."--Cheech & Chong

This week I enjoyed a staycation. It has been hot and humid, plus some nice convection thunderstorms almost every afternoon, but I have enjoyed the time off nonetheless. Here is what I have been doing:

• Gaming: We had a GURPS session on Monday night in Rob's (Bat in the Attic) Majestic Wilderlands campaign. It was an awesome session. I have also been working on maps for my Montporte Dungeon campaign.
• Grilling: My goal has been to grill everyday (charcoal and wood...no gas). I have had to dodge thunderstorms, but so far I have grilled: Piri Piri chicken kabobs; Beef fajitas with grilled onions and peppers; Sage/thyme/juniper pork tenderloin with grilled fennel & grilled tomato salad, plus grilled pineapple for dessert; Orange sesame tofu and grilled sesame asparagus. Still to come: Pizza; Salmon; Mexican tofu and grilled pineapple salsa.
• Gigging: I played music last Saturday and am playing out again this Friday night.
• Reading: I finished up Daily Life in the World of Charlemagne by Pierre Riche and also read Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis. Next up is the second half of The Great Book of Amber by Roger Zelanzy, which contains books 6-10 of the Chronicles of Amber.
• Sleep: Work has been running me ragged so it is nice to sleep. I have made it a priority and my body is thanking me for it.

What are you doing for your summer vacation?

Five for Friday 23: Five Questions for Rob Conley

Hey, Kids! I am thrilled to have Rob Conley (Bat in the Attic) as part of my blog today. He is the author of numerous gaming products from Goodman Games (Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor, Points of Light, Points of Light II) and his own Bat in the Attic Games (Majestic Wilderlands, Blackmarsh, Scourge of the Demon Wolf).

Here are Rob’s answers to my Five for Friday questions:

What was your weirdest gaming experience?
Going to Toronto and playing NERO (a boffer LARP) in a vampire club. It was black…very very black (although the use of the basement for a dungeon labyrinth was cool due to the fact it was built of this old stone masonry). The upstairs though, man, I didn't know how much black could be in a building until I went there.

In what ways is your style as a player different than your style as a GM? (assuming they are different)
When I play, I roleplay my character and interact with other characters, whether NPCs or PCs. Pretty much my main focus is to immerse myself into the setting and character…which is one reason why I like LARPS so much as a player.

I do this when I referee as well but I’ve got a bunch of other things that has to go on as well along with the responsibility of handling the whole world outside of the PCs.

If you were a dragon, what kind of dragon would you be?
Silver, they are workhorse of the good dragons. They do cool stuff without being pompous, like Gold Dragons, and self-centered. like Brass, Bronze, and Copper dragons.

Is there a game or ruleset that you have not played that you would really like to try? If so, what?
Fate, I just can't figure the out the main points of the system, especially stunts. Generally is resolved after I play with somebody who know what they are doing. But I haven't had a chance yet.

What was the name of your favorite player character (played by you)? Give us some details.
I would have to say Argyll Malcolm MacDoughall a human fighter…both as a tabletop character and a LARP character. Somehow, with this guy, my luck shoots up to an 18 and, while I don't always "win," I am always doing something interesting.

I play Argyll with a Scottish accent and when I play him in a LARP I wear a full nine yard kilt. As it turns out a nine yard kilt is pretty useful to wear.

During a LARP event I was sitting in a tavern when another PC sat down across the table from me and said I was wearing a skirt. I politely ask him to repeat that and he say very slowly "You are wearing a skirt". Now, one of the useful thing about wearing a nine-yard kilt is that the folds are great for hiding things, including a two foot long short sword that I keep in the back fold. So, after he repeated, it I stretched and in one motion drew and proceeded to knock his character out in one blow. Then I put the sword back before anybody would react.

The whole tavern immediately leaped up and drew weapons and readied spells, very confused as to what just happened. Quickly, it became obvious that I did something to KO the guy but as nobody was really paying attention to me they are were confused as to how I did it. The culmination of all this was when the Baroness came into to investigate the incident. The conversation went something like this;

Baroness: I have a report you were involved in an attack?
Argyll <sipping my mug>: Yes I was.
Baroness <looking startled because the usual thing is for a player is to deny everything>
Baroness: Well, you can't just do that you know.
Argyll: Yes I can, I just did it. He should know better than to say I was wearing a skirt.
Baroness: Well we have laws against that, you know.
Argyll: Ah yes, well then here my fine <I throw 10 gold pieces onto the table>.
Baroness: <stares at me for a minute, not knowing what to say>
Baroness: You keep your gold and we will let you go this time. But don't do this again or there will be severe consequences.
Argyll: <I continue to sip my mug not saying anything>
Baroness:<Tries to figure out whether she had the last word and then decides to leave>.

The guy never tried to mess with Argyll again.

One problem with NERO LARP and adventuring is the mob of treasure seekers. Basically real-life rooms are pretty small and when you got a party of 5 to 8 people, a room gets crowded quickly and everything is searched and picked over pretty quickly. Normally, like in tabletop, everybody throws what they find in the pot and it gets split later. But in adventures that involved more than one group working together the splitting doesn't go smoothly or even fairly if one of the groups has nobles with them.

Well more than a few times as Argyll, I was able to spot a item out of sight in a corner, snag it , and put it into my kilt with none of the nobles the wiser. What makes this notable is that this never happens to me when I play my other LARP characters.

I will have to mention Boog as well, which is the only character that managed to "knock prone" another player out of game.

Boog is a half-orc fighter that I use as one of my "stock" characters at a convention. I play him with a distinct personality. One of his quirks he always refers to himself in the third person unless he gets angry. While his Intelligence is 12, he has a Wisdom of 7, so he doesn't always quite things through the implication of he thinks up.

So during one game at a con the adventure involved this weird journey through the dreams of the noble lady we were trying to help. The incident with the "prone player" occurred when we found this cottage where it turns out that one of her hang ups is mourning her lost baby by constructing a dream baby to take of. Unfortunately this meant also she didn't want to leave the dream world. So Boog using his famed Boog logic offers a solution where he takes his axe, chops the dream baby in half, and shows the result to the lady. Thus showing that it not real and snapping her back to reality.

Now written it sounds morbid but said in the third person voice I use for Boog it supposed to sound goofy and ludicrous reflecting Boog's 7 Wisdom. It got the laughs I expected from the rest the table when I hear a thud next to me. The player next to me found it funny it enough to be a gut buster and literally fell out of his chair laughing. After that, there was a total chaos of laughter at the table and it took a couple of minutes before everybody, including myself, got enough of a grip to resume the game.

Five for Friday 22: GURPS, the Church of God, and Group Showering

The Keep

Last weekend, I had the privilege of gaming with most of our Monday Night Gaming Group for a 9 hour face-to-face session. It was the first time that they have actually seen me and the most amazing event of the day is that they let me play, even after seeing me. Rob and Tim have covered the session in more detail here and here (you can check out the pics of Dwayne's keep as well).

On our way to meet the baron.

Here are five awesome things about last Saturday's gaming session (in no particular order):

• Dwayne's Keep: There are lots of great pics on his blog, Gamer's Room. 
• Playing a GURPS spellcaster: Until Saturday, I have only played one character in GURPS, a very simple dwarf with an axe. On Saturday, I played Belafore, a Viking priest. It gave me a chance to experience another part of GURPS, namely, the magic system. One more step in my GURPS newbie journey.
• The Church of God Prayer Meeting: We rented a small conference room at a Days' Inn and there was a prayer/worship session going in the next room. I could imagine their fervent prayers on our behalf as we were loudly fighting skeletons while trying to gain entrance to the Blood Oracle. I was expecting them to rush in and perform a mass exorcism on the spot. I have to admit that we were shouting a lot during combat and a few f-bombs were dropped.
• Spending time with Tim and the Happy Whisk: Tim and his lovely bride opened their home to me for the night. We had a great visit and I came away with a box of lovely parting gifts--gaming stuff and lots of goodies from Whisk's couponing expeditions. Very generous. More than makes up for the leaky air mattress and the weird moment when I went into the bathroom to take a shower, only to be followed by Tim, his wife, and both of their dogs. I did wait until they left before undressing and showering, but I chalked it up to the west side of Pennsylvania having different hygiene and hospitality customs than those of us on the east side of the state. Maybe they were going to scrub me down with the dogs?
• The Group: For me, the joy of gaming is really not about the gaming stuff but about the group of people at the table. I am still a casual gamer at heart. It is the group that keeps me coming back.

On our way to the Blood Oracle.

All in all, it was a great time. Thanks, guys!

All Spread Out: We are a fun group, but tactics often elude us.

Five for Friday 21: Mash-ups

"You got chocolate in my peanut butter!" "You got peanut butter in my chocolate!" Who doesn't like peanut butter and chocolate together (actually, I don't, but that is a Sheldon Cooper kind of sensory thing for me, a matter for professional help, and beside the point).

I like RPG mash-ups but I am not particularly creative with them myself, so I thought I would take a crack at coming up with five mash-ups. To be honest, I am more interested in what other people come up with, but here are some things that have occurred to me:

Constantinople (c. 1150) + Oceans 11 + GURPS: I have actually put some work into this one as my embryonic Onyx campaign. A medieval urban fantasy campaign, featuring a band of specialists engaged in heists against the rich and powerful. It is currently on hold because our Monday Night Gaming Group is busy with other stuff.

Dresden RPG (Fate) + Amish + Jack Reacher: Our in-house gaming group created the characters for this, but the three kids in the group all left for college before we could actually play. My wife created a young Amish woman whose spellcasting abilities put her at odds with her community and her own faith. I was bummed we never played. I was a delivery truck driver with Jack Reacher combat skills (much like real life).

Swords & Wizardry + Realms of Crawling Chaos + Post-Apocalyptic Detroit: It doesn't take much imagination to cast Detroit in this role.

PDQ + Steampunk + Alice in Wonderland: This would take a bit of work and I probably would hack a few existing PDQ-based games but this seems like a trippy rules-lite combo.

Crypts & Things + Weird Adventures + Silk Road (Central Asia): I have always like the part in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana Jones travels to Nepal, plus I am a fan of Central Asia, medieval and modern. I also really like Crypts & Things and Weird Adventures. It would take a bit of work but C&T is really simple and WA is awesomely groovy.

Have you come up with interesting mash-ups and hybrids? Have you seen something created by someone else that strikes you as particularly creative, bizarre and fun to play?

Five for Friday 19: Why Dwarves Are Better

I have been swamped with work, so I have asked Delvin to take a turn writing a Five for Friday post for me. Some of you may remember Delvin from the GURPS Majestic Wilderlands session notes on my blog. By the way, Delvin prefers to use "dwarves" as the plural for dwarf (following Tolkien).

I am not much for this whole blogging thing, but, then I should keep Ken happy as I am his character and I am hosed if he decides to create a different character. Anyway, I am not much for writing so I am going to use pictures to help me tell my story today. Most of you humans would rather see pictures than have to read and think anyway. Since I have been given free reign for this post, I am going to give you Five Irrefutable Reasons Why Dwarves Are Better:

  

5. We Can Multi-Task: Do dishes, sing, juggle, and play catch all at once? No problem. 

4. Our Weapons Can Multi-Task: I quick draw with my +2 bass guitar.

3. Farts and Burps Always Acceptable (even especially at weddings and funerals): I know. How cool is that? 

2. We Are Optimists: We always see the positive in everything. 

1. We Are Not Elves: No explanation needed.

Five for Friday 18: Dungeoneer's Library

I don't have a huge amount of gaming books. I have even less after selling a big pile of D&D 3.x e on eBay a few years ago, although my new-found love of GURPS is filling up the shelves again. Anyway, I tend to only buy stuff that I am going to play. One exception is dungeon-related books. Here are some of my favorite dungeon reference books (excluding actually published dungeons). These are in alphabetical order:

• Central Casting: Dungeons--Robert Sassone's masterpiece--if we can use that word here--presents 180 pages of dungeon-creating tables. There are lots of dungeon room ideas, as well as a lot of detain, even if you don't use the random-generation approach. This is the one dungeon book I would take with me on a spaceflight, lifeboat, or desert isle.Engineering Dungeons is similar and more recent, but also drier and lighter on content.
• Dungeon Builder's Guidebook--This little volume--from the AD&D 2e era--is a nice companion to Central Casting: Dungeons. It is not as comprehensive or detailed, but it includes some weirder dungeon variations (e.g. underwater, aerial, and interdimensional).
• Dungeoncraft-- A D&D 3.x e product from Fantasy Flight Games (part of their Legends & Lairs series). I nice collection of dungeon ideas, mixed in with the obligatory prestige classes.
• Dungeonscape--This Wizards of the Coast publication was intended for D&D 3.5e. The content is uneven and a bit thin but it does have some groovy ideas and interesting magic items. If you combine this with the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, you end up with something kind of decent.
• Tome of Adventure Design--This Frog God Games product is still in print and is a go-to book for me. Lots and lots of excellent tables. They are not all dungeon-related but there is enough dungeon goodies to put this on the list (I use this book a lot...more often than any other book on the list). Kellri's Encounter Reference, available for free as a PDF and is excellent. Michael Curtis' The Dungeon Alphabet is a fun book with some great off-the-wall creative and useful ideas, but is lighter on content. If you are looking for dungeon tables, check out The Dungeon Dozen (blog) and also my own blog page, Megadungeon Links II: Maps, Tables, Generators.

I should also mention GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, as I have been working my way through the various PDFs.

What books or blogs have been helpful for you in designing dungeons and in creating adventures?

Five For Friday 17: Swords & Wizardry Five Ways

This is my wrap-up post for my week-long celebration of Swords & Wizardry. Here are five different approaches to Swords & Wizardry that I enjoy (in alphabetical order):

• Crypts & Things: A good example what can happen by thoughtfully adding a few cool tweaks AND deleting extraneous materials. A very swords & sorcery approach, with a bit of horror thrown in. The mage class, a combination of cleric and magic-user, is particularly good.
• Majestic Wilderlands: Rob Conley's (Bat in the Attic) setting has a very "played in" feel to it for good reason: It has been his setting for thirty years.
• Qalidar:  Christina Lea's pandimensional ruined city is a very cool setting for Swords & Wizardry. I am thinking this would be an interesting setting for a GURPS campaign, as well.
• Swords & Wizardry Complete Rules: This is an almost exact replica of what I was playing back in 1977--a weird mix of Holmes D&D, the four supplements, the AD&D Monster Manual, and Judges Guild's Ready Ref Sheets.
• Swords & Wizardry Core: The simplicity of it all is the key to what makes it work so well...plus the PDF is free.

Five for Friday 16: Loving the Dungeon

The original plan was for me to GM a one-shot on a Monday that Rob (Bat in the Attic) was unable to GM our current Majestic Wilderlands GURPS campaign. I just threw some orcs with human prisoners into a previously created very large dungeon level and turned the players loose. Now, lo and behold, we have an actual dungeon delving campaign going on Monday nights (scheduled around our MW GURPS sessions).

The last time I ran a dungeon-based campaign was in the late 1970s. I had a blast back then and I am having a blast now. Here is five things making the Montporte Dungeon work so far:

• The Guys at the Table: Our Monday Night gaming group is awesome and they are bringing it all to the virtual table top.
• Don't Ask Why: If you start thinking about rational or realism, you are done for. Of course, the existence of a multi-level complex in a medieval setting is absurd. I acknowledge the absurdity of it before I start and my worries about realism go away. I am not anti-realism and I like the idea of simulation in play, but I have to let that go to run a dungeon.
• The Encounter Is King: Nothing is as important as running an encounter. Not the dungeon design. Not the backstory. Not the planning of rumors, hooks, and secrets. 
• Go With It: There is a lot of improvisation in our sessions. Good improvisation in music requires a structure (melody/harmony/rhythm) as the base. The dungeon has the physical structure of, well, the dungeon. It makes it for all of us to improvise. When you have a solid structure, it is easy to wing it and still have it work for everyone.
• It Is About Fun: A few years ago, there were a lot of blog posts about megadungeons...What is a megadungeon? What are the keys to designing a good one? What is the old school philosophy behind the megadungeon? All good stuff. But in the end, it isn't about the philosophy or the design or being old school. It is about playing and having fun. The dungeon is a great reminder that good play by the DM and the players trumps philosophy, design, school, and rules.

I do not have any grand plans for our dungeon campaign. I am finding that just staying a little ahead of the players is working best for all of us, so while I have been jotting ideas down in my Red Notebook, I have been intentional about not doing too much details prep work.

Five For Friday 15: Quinton, a Haiku (Haiku #6)

Hey, kids: Today we have a very special episode of Five for Friday, one that features haiku and modrons and the Five for Friday theme all rolled into one glorious post. This was actually posted on my original Rusty Battle Axe Blog (which makes my current blog a retroclone, I suppose). Here--without further interruptions or digressions--is the Quinton:

fifth order modron
bureau chiefs keep our records;
five bendy arms strike

Five for Friday 14: My Favorite Avalon Hill Wargames

This post is a sequel of sorts for my post, Five for Friday 13: Favorite Non-RPG Games.

Chess and Stratego are my favorite two player strategy games. However, I have a deep and abiding affection for the Avalon Hill games that I played as a high school goof before that fateful day I cracked open the Holmes D&D box. Once we started playing Dungeons & Dragons, we never looked back. However, back in the 1970s, Avalon Hill games reigned supreme. Growing up in a rural area and being in high school meant that I didn't have ready access to many opponents. I did have a cousin and two other friends who would occasionally play AH games. Later, the four of us would comprise my first D&D gaming group.

Here, in alphabetical order, were my favorite Avalon Hill games:

• Panzer Leader & PanzerBlitz: These two games utilized very similar mechanics. PanzerBlitz was released first, focusing on the World War 2's Eastern Front. I mainly played Panzer Leader, which was a small unit tactical game that simulated combat and tactics on the Western Front. These two games were innovative in a number of regards, but the big RPG connection is that these two games pioneered the use of isomorphic mapboards that are now staples of dungeon fans everywhere.
• Rise and Decline of the Third Reich: The grand strategy game of World War 2. This game takes into account economies, economic development versus armament production; international logistics, strategic bombing, naval activity, alliances, and, of course, combat. There are a lot of moving parts here but it is a fun, playable game due to the ingenius game design that involves a high level of abstraction and a thoughtful combination of differing game mechanics. I think this game, as different as it is from early editions of D&D, allowed us to quickly grasp the abstract concepts of hit points, armor class, and the Vancian magic system.
• Russian Campaign: I bought this game right after it came out in 1976. It is my favorite wargame, hands down. The rules for "double impulse" allowed for a nice simulation of mass breakthroughs and encirclements that were bread and butter strategies on World War 2's Eastern Front.
• Starship Troopers: I was a science fiction fan before I was a gamer, so I was excited to find out that Avalong Hill had released a game of one of my favorite sci-fi novels. I still think it is the best sci-fi game around and wish I owned it.
• Tobruk: I only had a chance to play this once and I never owned it. I had borrowed the game friend, so it true gamer fashion, had read the rules multiple times. The game was released in 1975 and simulated combat in North Africa, circa 1942. It utilized even small units (infantry platoon and individual vehicles/artillery) than the PanzerBlitz/Panzer Leader (company level) and I often think about this game while playing GURPS. Not that there is similarity in mechanics, but GURPS feels like Tobruk to me for some reason--lots of cool tactics and a simple mechanics to support them.

Avalon Hill produced hundreds of games during the heyday of board-based wargames. When I look at the list of games, there are a number of games I wish I had a chance to play, including: 1776, Afrika Korps, Jutland, and Midway.

Five for Friday 13: Favorite Non-RPG Games

I am a fan of games--card games, board games, war games, to name some that I enjoy (I avoid video, online, and PC games as I have no interest in living a life of addiction, rehab, and relapse). Here are some card and board games that I enjoy (in alphabetical order):

• Acquire: I first played the older edition back in the early 1980s. The current rendition is a Wizards of the Coast production.
• Apples to Apples: My favorite party game.
• Dutch Blitz: Moving to southcentral Pennsylvania (Amish Country) and marrying into a Mennonite family has given me a deep appreciation of this game. It is one of the few Anabaptist outlets for otherwise forbidden aggressive tendencies.* Think of it as a cross between Uno and MMA. It is not a game for polite lapsed Lutherans from the Midwest...I always have the most cards in the my hand at the end of the game. Keep your elbows out and tender parts in a safe place at all times.
• Fluxx: A card game that is like Uno on streroids--the rules of the game are written on the cards so the game changes with each card played. There are lots of expansion packs: Family, Pirates, Zombie and Cthulu, to name a few.
• Settlers of Catan: My introduction to European/German style strategy board games. I really like this entire genre of board and strategy games and wish I could play more than once every other year or so.

What are your favorite non-RPG, non-digital/electronic games?

*Someday I'll have to post about the surprising amount of fighting by the Amish in our local rec hockey leagues.

Five for Friday (Saturday Edition) 12: My RPG Hardcopy Wish List

Work has been brutal lately...in the office by five a.m. and home after midnight. Fortunately, it hasn't cut into the gaming time but it has slowed down the the blog posts. Anyway, here is a post that I meant to do for Friday but didn't get done. It is my current wish list of hardcopy gaming stuff.

Everything on the list is pricey, with GURPS Powers at the low end ($25.24) from Amazon. Rappan Athuk weighs in at about $100 (ouch!!). My wife and I both work as nonprofit CEOs...with "nonprofit" being the operative and determinative term for our salaries. So, with kids in college, a money pit for a house, and four aging pets, I have to curb my buying of expensive gaming stuff. I also want a new bass guitar and amplifier...I should have mentioned that, too. I shouldn't whine about all this...I really do love my job, my wife, my kids, and most of our animals (sorry Pirate). The jury is still out on our house.

Here is my wish list of hardcopy game products:

• Barrowmaze II
• GURPS Martial Arts
• GURPS Powers
• Legends of Anglerre
• Rappan Athuk 

I have tried to talk my wife into finding a very wealthy older man for a boyfriend (for her, just to clarify, although if he was rich enough I might be tempted...). I thought it was a good plan for us--and quite generous on my part--but, alas, even with all of my persuasive powers brought to bear, nothing has come of that idea. Bummer, for sure. For now, I will just have to create wish lists.

Five for Friday 11: Favorite Fantasy Series

A Fantasy Come True--The Castle of Books

I never connected with Game of Thrones, sad to say. I felt the same way trying to slog through Kate Elliot/Alis A. Ramussen's Crown of Stars series and some of the books by David Eddings. I don't really read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi, at least not at the rate that I did while I was in my teens. However, there are some fantasy series that I do enjoy. Here are five (in alphabetical order), plus some "honorable mentions:"

• Dresden Files: Jim Butcher's best-selling series was not love-at-first-read for me. I really struggled to make it through the first book and I wasn't all in until book 4, Summer Knight. Sadly, there was no love connection between me and Butcher's Codex Alera series.
• Earthsea: I recently reread Ursala Le Guin's Earthsea Trilogy, plus the sequels, and found that they still do it for me.
• Elric of Melniboné: Anything I write will only detract from Michael Moorcock's masterpiece. I am also a big fan of the Moorcock's other books, particularly the two Corum trilogies.
• Newford: I am still working my way through Charles de Lint's sprawling Newford series. Set in a fictional North American city, his series features an overlapping cast of slackers, hipsters, and musicians whose lives intersect a powerful, yet unseen world, where Native American and Celtic mythologies run wild.
• Tales of the Otori: A series of five novels by Gillian Rubinstein (written under the pen name, Lian Hearn), the Tales of the Otori is set in a land very much like medieval Japan. An added bonus is that the individual book titles all utilize Japanese poetic style (waka and haiku). You know me...I love me some haiku.

Honorable mentions: Fritz Leiber, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser; Terry Pratchett, Discworld; Glen Cook, The Black Company; Robert E. Howard, Conan the Barbarian; Robin Hobb (pen name for Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden...you can see why), The Realm of the Elderlings; and, yes, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter.

Hall of Fame: J.R.R. Tolkien, Middle Earth novels

What is your favorite fantasy series?

Five For Friday 10: Five Paths For Dungeon Design

Designing a megadungeon as the basis for an extended campaign is a daunting task. To start with, it is a huge time suck. And, even you put in a buttload* of time, the finished product might not support extended play. While there are no magic bullets, perfect shortcuts, or foolproof methods, there are some design tools and methodologies that I have found helpful. I use them as paths for dungeon design.

I have these in, what seems to me, a logical order. However, in practice I do jump around between them to plan ahead, solve problems, organize my thoughts and do whatever it is I need to do to come up with a fun playable dungeon design.

• The One Page Dungeon: Here is a modular approach, popularized by Stonehell Dungeon (which utilizes a Two Page Dungeon) and a string of One Page Dungeon contests. Basically, the dungeon is mapped out in 300' X 300' modules (or similar size) with the map and the map key fitting onto one page (or two pages). Here are some early posts from Sham's Grog `n Blog (here and here), ChicagoWiz's RPG Blog (here), and The Society of Torch, Pole and Rope (here) that provide more detail and insight.
• The Architect DM Series: This series of blog posts on Critical Hits are not profound, but they do serve as a good reminder that a dungeon is a physical space underground (two sample posts here and here). I try to include basic engineering elements, such as columns. More importantly, it is a good reminder to have lots of "black space" or solid rock to physically support the rooms and passages. Part of this is my own personal dislike of dungeons that have no apparent means of support the roof (you know, those dungeons where every space on the map has been used (like Gary's map pictured here). My undergrad degree is in geophysics, so I feel a suprising need to have structural integrity in my dungeon (but at the same time, I don't worry about what dungeon critters eat...go figure).
• Map Flow/Decision Tree Approach: I wasn't sure what to call this approach to dungeon design. "Melan," in a now-classic thread post, analyzed a number of TSR/WotC adventure modules, by looking at the pathway(s) available to player characters as they physically moved through the module (you can find Melan's text here). While he restricted his analysis to modules (with smaller dungeons), his thoughts and observations have helped me think through how player characters move through space. I have found it particularly helpful in giving players opportunities for decision-making based upon the physical layout of the dungeon.
• Node-Based Dungeon: Another way to diagram and plan dungeon areas, factions, and encounters. Keith Davies has several posts on his blog, In My Campaign (you can read some of his node-based dungeon posts here, here, and here). Dungeon of Signs also has this post. [Update 3/8/13: Keith added links/landing page for his Node-Based Dungeon posts; you can find it here]
• The Dungeon, the Underdark, and Beyond: I am a big fan of the Underdark concept. I love the idea of underground cities, complexes, and sites connected by stairs, rivers, passages, and portals (like this and even this).

What approaches, tools, publications, or methods have you found helpful for dungeon design?

*Thanks to the Happy Whisk for providing me with this useful unit of measure.

Five for Friday 9: Groovy Lists

G-Rated Beholder

I love lists. Tallest buildings. Best batting averages. Fastest growing MSAs. Here is a list of five posts or articles, each containing a groovy list:

• D&D is Really Scary or How to Run a Rated G Game: A visual tour of how to make your game table less scary.
• Dungeons & Dragons: Celebrating 30 Years of Very Stupid Monsters: Any article that celebrates the Giant Beaver is A-OK in my book (someday I'll write a post about how using an animal control potion on a group of giant beavers resulted in an unintended massacre of a village...it is a painful memory). Be sure to check out the sequel article.
• Hobo's Treasures: I was all-in at "'Hobo Treasures' for a gonzo hobo themed dungeon node."
• Secret Santicore: New Planes Revealed! Inner Plane #2 is #1 on my list.
• Strange Armor: What is your favorite? Mine is the "Living Suit of Tough Meat."

What gaming lists have grabbed your attention and imagination?

Five For Friday 8: Five Questions for Tim Shorts

Hey, kids! Today we are thrilled to have Tim Shorts as part of the blog to answer us up on 5 questions. I get to game with Tim on a regular basis and, thanks to his invitation, I am part of a groovy Monday Night Game Group. You can find Tim at his blog, Gothridge Manor, and you can check out and purchase his gaming products at GM Games.

What was your weirdest gaming experience?
Weirdest?  I think gaming is a weird experience in itself.  I remember a game at a convention where a guy (I guess more kid) got so upset his character died he slammed his head on the table.  Hard.  He caught a 4-sider on the right side of his forehead.  It was stuck there.  It bled.  He cried.  I laughed.  What can I say, I thought it was funny.  Not sure if that's weird, but it's the first thing that came to mind.

Why in God’s name do you choose to publish adventures and The Manor? Isn’t life hard enough? (a two-fer)
 I've been writing since I was 17.  Mainly fiction of various genres.  I love the process.  Gaming is such a great way to flex your creativity.  The Manor and the adventures were a natural step from there.  I've always wanted to do my own magazine.  When Christian did Lovaitar I thought "Wow, it can be done."  I live in a literary wasteland.  I'd only heard a little about zines.  Ivy comes from Jersey and she ran with a group that printed their own horror zines.  And they were great.  And all this time all I really needed was a long armed stapler.  Life is hard enough without banging my head on the wall writing The Manor, but when its done and I get to look through it and all the great art Jason Sholtis, Johnathan Bingham, Dylan Hartwell, and my ginger haired wife, Ivy, have done to support my idea it is just cool.  Plus there has been a good response to The Manor.  The OSR crew are good folks.  I'm just here to have some fun with it.  So making the zine makes life a little better not harder.

If you were an orc, what would be the name of your tribe?
Sucking Chest Wound.  First thing off my head and I like it.  Cue it up for the next Manor and get Jason on the phone for me.

What are your three favorite gaming rules or systems? Why? (another two-fer)
I'm going to cheat.  I like all the retro clones, probably Swords & Wizardry and Blood & Treasure are my favorites.  Then I have to pick what really got me into gaming and that was AD&D.  Then GURPS.  I've played a ton of games in a ton of genres rolling 3d6s.  Some people think GURPS is too crunchy, but you doesn't have to be that way.  It's a tool, a Swiss Army knife of systems.  Just use the right tool for the right situation.  You don't use them all at once.

What was the name of your favorite player character (played by you)? Give us some details (not a two-fer…a question and a command, I guess)
I've had some fun ones, Stew 'the Spike' Nool who was a thief, but thought he was a magic-user.  Ronnable, a irritable Dwarf who bit stuff as much as axed it.  I played twin half elves, Tamelight and Wildfire who kicked the crap out of an order of monks and took their temple.  Ashling a semi-psychotic elf you had the pleasure of adventuring with.  Slice Handler, a dagger throwing fiend who took advantage of Unearth Arcana when it first came out.  But the best was Draco-Lindus.  His career lasted on and off over four years.  He started out as a slaver mercenary.  Became a mercenary captain.  Somewhere in there he kidnapped a duke and ransomed him off getting throw out of the lands of the City State of the Invisible Overlord.  Become a champion of a god.  Reclaim lost lands on a back of a dragon. Building a small kingdom.  Joining the Overlord who had kicked him out.  When the Overlord died, it was the reason civil war broke out and changed the landscape of the entire campaign.  That was pretty cool.

Thanks, again, Tim.