Dorkland! Roundtable With Engine Publishing

We talked about their current book Never Unprepared, and how the Engine Publishing/Gnome Stew people go through the process of creating one of their books.

We also spent time talking about their influences as writers and gamers, as well as their love for older games. Martin's project to blog about the books from Appendix N of the AD&D DMG is a particularly interesting one that I plan to follow and see where he goes with it. Again, I had a great talk with talented creators and I am enjoying the insights that these Roundtables are giving me into the creative processes of other gamers and designers.

An Early Look At Nova Praxis

I was able to get an early look at the playtest documents for the upcoming Nova Praxis game from Void Star Games. They have a Kickstarter in the works (and if you are reading this blog post from the future it could be already happening or finished).

Nova Praxis is a transhumanistic science fiction game that uses Void Games Stands of Fate variant of the Fate rules as its underlying game engine. Transhumanism is a burgeoning genre in tabletop role-playing. Steve Jackson Games tilled the soil years ago with their Transhuman Space game, a game that featured collaboration between game designers and futurists to make a transhuman setting that seemed a probable extrapolation of the current world into a future one. Eclipse Phase by Posthuman Studios also goes over this ground, but adds an element of horror to the transhumanist SF. Both of these are strong games, with strong followings, that would be difficult for a new game to surpass and set its own ground.

Some would say: Do we really need another transhumanist role-playing game? I think that's a dumb question because, at it's heart, transhumanism should be an extrapolation of today into a probably and plausible tomorrow. As today changes, so should the tomorrows keep pace.

Dorkland! Roundtable With Gareth Skarka

I seem to have fallen behind on posting the videos of my Dorkland! Roundtables here to my blog. Honestly, I thought that I had already posted this. I had a talk with Gareth Skarka of Adamant Entertainment recently. One thing that you'll notice is that this discussion took place before the announcement that ownership of the Icons role-playing game was transferred back to creator Steve Kenson from Adamant.

We talked about a few things on the Roundtable, but a lot of time got spent talking about pulps (you can see the stack of Doc Savage reprints behind Gareth's head in the thumbnail), and James Bond. We also spent a bit of time talking about the James Bond RPG (put out in the 80s from Victory Games, an imprint of Avalon Hill). Apparently the talk of James Bond has sparked some discussion of the game over on Google Plus.

As I've said before in my commentary on these discussions, I am enjoying the process of talking with other game designers and publishers. It is interesting to get into their heads a little bit and see what influences them as writers and designers. This discussion with Gareth is not different. I think that we get a little bit of a peek into how he thinks as a designer, and what motivates him to design.

New Spells for Your Swords & Wizardry and Old School Games

I like spells in my fantasy games. I like the feeling of magic and wonder that they bring to a world. I also like for the players in my games to have options for their characters. The linked PDF has 26 spells that are new to Swords & Wizardry, converted from the SRDs of OpenQuest and the Renaissance system. I am pretty sure that none of them have appeared in an old school or d20 game. The spells are split between Cleric and Magic-User spells, so there is something of use to either class.

Some of these spells are a bit non-traditional, but that is why I am sharing them.

The PDF can be found here.

Blood and Treasure: Player's Tome in Review

I received a comp copy of the PDF of John Stater's latest game: the Player's Tome for Blood & Treasure. I have to say that I like what I am seeing. This isn't a retroclone, it is something that might be better classified as a "second wave" OSR game. Instead of trying to recreate an earlier edition of an out-of-print game, like most in the OSR had done previously, John has taken the know-how that he gathered while developing material for various versions of Swords & Wizardry, as well as working on the Tome of Horrors Complete for Swords & Wizardy, and has applied what he has learned to the d20 3.x SRD.

Like I said, he isn't recreating another older ruleset, he is taking the approach of simplicity and utilitarianism that is a hallmark of so much OSR work and he looked at how he could simplify the 3.x SRD material and still keep it as something that is recognizable as being derived from those rules. Has he succeeded?

I think that he has. Obviously, I'm not getting the full game from just the Player's Tome but there is enough of the game in there for me to come to some conclusions. This isn't the work of someone who hates modern games. Far from it, this is the work of someone who loves fantasy gaming but doesn't like the complexity that comes with a lot of contemporary games. That's a mind set that I can completely relate to. The whole reason for my jump into retro-gaming over the last couple of years is because I had gotten tired of the complexity of a lot of the games out on the market today, and wanted games that were simpler. This lead me to games like Swords & Wizardry and OpenQuest and Warrior and Wizard.

This isn't a perfect game, but few are. The game itself is definitely strong, and complete. The layout of the book is a bit lackluster, and the fonts are a bit small. I'm sure that was a choice so that page count could be reduced, but these eyes aren't as good as they used to be (particularly with reading PDFs). The art is a mixed bag, but the "iconic" character art for each of the character classes is phenomenal, which might be why some of the other art left me a bit cold. I also have to say that the iconic character art is some of the most inclusive art that I have seen in a fantasy game in a while.

Presentation aside, the rules are strong. John has streamlined a lot of the complexity down to a manageable level. At the same time he has kept the elements that are recognizable as being a part of the 3.x rules. Feats are still a part of the game, streamlined dramatically, and optional. Skills have taken a cue from some of the ideas coming out of the OSR and are based off of saving throws. This is a mechanic that I liked when I first saw it on a gaming blog, and I like the variation on the theme that John has done for Blood & Treasure. There are plenty of spells (most of the book is taken up with spell lists, even though the spells too have been streamlined), which fixes something that I don't like about a lot of old school clones. In their desire for fidelity to the source material, I think that magic-users and clerics tend to get shortchanged. It is nice to see that there is plenty of magic to go around.

This is a great game that a lot of people are going to be talking about for a long while.

Should you buy this game? Hell, yes. Organization and presentation aren't the best, but I'm sure that this will change with future editions. For a game done by an amateur layout person (since there is no layout credit in the book, I am assuming that John did the layouts himself), the book could have looked a lot worse. Underneath that, however, there is a strong fantasy gaming engine that more than makes up for any shortcomings in presentation. Blood & Treasure is the next Castles & Crusades, and I think that publishers like Troll Lord need to look out because there is some serious competition for them to be found in this game. Don't just take it from me, however. Go out now (there's a handy link at the top of this post) and buy yourself a copy of Blood & Treasure. You won't be sorry.

Howard Chaykin's Black Kiss [NSFW]

With Chaykin's follow-up mini-series, Black Kiss II, finally hitting comic stores, I thought it would be a good time to (finally) get my post about the original Black Kiss up on the blog and out into the world. Black Kiss came out from Vortex Comic in the late 80s. Vortex was a Canadian publisher that also brought us Dean Motter's Mister X. The Vortex books were ahead of their time, in one way or another, and very cutting edge. Which is likely why a creator like Chaykin would be interested in working with them.

This post is based on the Thick Black Kiss collection of the miniseries that Vortex put out in the 90s.

Dorkland! Roundtable: BRP Edition With Ben Monroe and Jason Durall

On a very special Dorkland! Roundtable with Ben Monroe and Jason Durall we talk about Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing System and the upcoming standalone BRP fantasy game, Magic World.

We spend a lot of time talking about why we like BRP, what drew us into the system in the first place and other topics of generally dorky conversation. A map is shown to us by a member of the upcoming generation of roleplayers, as well. It was a lively conversation, and much more fun than the last time that I talked with Jason on here. Before Hangouts on the Air because a thing, Jason was on my first Dorkland! Roundtable, which was a bit of a fiasco for a good number of reasons. But it also shows just how much things have changed, technology-wise, with Google+ in the last few months.

Magical Origins and Icons Superpowered Roleplaying

This blog post sprung out of a Google+ post that I made the other day. One of my favorite things in comics has always been the magical characters from Doctor Strange to Zatanna to Doctor Fate to John Constantine to Sargon to Doctor Occult. I like the fact that they are a little bit weirder than your "regular" super-heroes, that they don't always wear tights, and that their adventures are a bit more fantastic.

I wrote up a couple of new Origins for Adamant Entertainments Icons role-playing game. Actually, I wrote up more than a couple but I thought that I might save those for another blog post, or perhaps some other use. If you haven't played Icons, you should check it out. Designed by super-heroic gaming guru Steve Kenson (creator of Mutants & Masterminds and other super-hero games), Icons is a lighter approach to super-heroes, inspired by the Marvel Super-Heroes game of the 80s from TSR, as well as the Fudge and Fate RPGs. This is a game that is designed for pick up play so that you can get characters up and going with a minimum of effort and fuss. This game has a fun and novel approach to its subject matter, and I think that any one interested in super-hero comics and role-playing should have a copy of Icons on their book shelf.

Origins are sort of the archetype for a character in Icons. It represents the type of super-hero that your character is. Magically-oriented super-heroes have just as many options of types as do their non-magical brethren, if not more. In this article, I will give you a couple that will let you get started into integrating magical heroes into your Icons games.

Old School Caster: The hero has been around since the Golden Age of heroics, slinging spells and taking names. The character probably knew the parents and grandparents of many of the heroes operating today. Unlike a lot of younger magicians, honor and rules are very important to this hero. In the world of magic, knowledge is power, so the character gets two additional specialties.

Altered State: The hero was once human, but the supernatural world has changed them into something...other. The character is now a creature of magic of some sort, from an elemental being to a living plant to a magically animated golem. Raise two of the character's abilities by +2 and give them an additional aspect.

The (Un)dead: The character died, but that state of being does not stop someone from becoming a hero. Now serving a higher (or sometimes lower) power, the character has been given a new "life" and a mission to go with it. Increase two of the character's abilities by +1 and give them an additional aspect to cover their (un)life.

Aspects and Magical Origins
You will probably notice that these new Origins give characters more Aspects than more "normal" starting characters under the basic Icons rules, and there is a reason for that. The magical community in super-hero comics tend to be more maladjusted than most regular super-heroes (outside of mutants, at least). Icons has an excellent mechanic for dealing with that with Aspects. Challenges work well to simulate the social and psychological tolls that the world of magic can take on a hero. Yes, it gives magical heroes a bit more determination to play with but that will not always offset their other problems.

Normal super-heroes often find magical heroes unsettling, for one reason or another. That has to do with the magical world and its dangers being so much stranger than what regular heroes have to deal with. Magicians and demons rarely have the desire to rob banks or kidnap people. The normal super-heroes are lucky to deal with that. The magical heroes get to deal with the reality incursions of elder gods and demonic entities that live within left angles.

Magical Specialties
Just to give your new magical hero a little bump, here are a couple of magical/occult specialties to give them a little more juice.

Demonology: The hero has received training in demons, their workings and the realms in which they live. Add their specialty bonus to tests dealing with these subjects.

World of Magic: Magicians tend to know the mover and shakers, human and otherwise, in their community (both good and evil). Add their specialty bonus to tests dealing with knowing who might consider a place within their territory, what witches may sell potions in a city, and other similar tests of knowledge.

Legend Lore: In a world where gods actually walk the Earth and magic exists, knowledge of the legendary past of the world and some of these beings can come in handy. Add the character's specialty bonus to tests about the myths, legends and folklore of the world.

Valiant Masters: Bloodshot Vol. 1 To See October Release

The series that laid the foundation for the "Summer of Valiant" is finally back in print! Valiant is proud to present an advance preview of Valiant Masters: Bloodshot Vol. 1 HC - Blood of the Machine - the first in an all-new line of deluxe hardcovers collecting classic stories of the original Valiant Universe! 

 

Once, he was the hired killer known as Angelo Mortalli. Now, there is only Bloodshot. Brought back from the grave by the government scientists of Project Rising Spirit, Bloodshot is powered by microscopic nano-machines that can repair all injuries and maximize his physical potential. But the nanites can't replace his lost memories – or help him shake the feeling that he was once anything but a hero. Atoning for his sins in a world he no longer knows, can the man now called Bloodshot recover the secrets of his past? And survive his deadly first encounters with the likes of the Eternal Warrior, Ninjak and Rai along the way?

 

Collecting Bloodshot's best-selling debut with the original series coloring, the inaugural Valiant Masters volume re-presents Bloodshot (1992) #1-8 by fan favorite writer Kevin VanHook and comics legend Don Perlin for the first time anywhere! Plus no fan will want to miss "The Tablet" - a brand new tale of the VH1 Valiant Universe starring Bloodshot and the Eternal Warrior by the classic creative team of VanHook, Perlin, and Bob Wiacek!

Rediscover the series that defined a generation when the Valiant Masters: Bloodshot Vol. 1 HC - Blood of the Machine arrives in finer comics shops everywhere on October 24th!

 

VALIANT MASTERS: BLOODSHOT VOL. 1 HC - BLOOD OF THE MACHINE (AUG121341)

Written by Kevin VanHook

Art by Don Perlin, Andrew Wendel and Ted Halsted

Cover by Barry Windsor-Smith

$24.99/Rated T+/200 pgs.

ON SALE OCTOBER 24th

 

 

Squeezing A Bit More Out Of Your Old School Fighters

For me, as a designer, I think that the best "content" comes out of play. Whether it is making adjustments to a game to better fit everyone's styles, or coming up with new mechanical bits and bobs to give a little more something to player's characters. This is the second batch of character options that I have come up with for our weekly Swords & Wizardry game, but it can just as easily work for Labyrinth Lord as well. I came up with the method that I am using previously to add some zing to clerics, and the method works for other character classes as well.

Basically what I am doing is offering up an additional class ability, one that the player gets to pick for their character. It adds some new special abilities and a bit of customization to a character. The player picks one Fighter Style during character creation, and is stuck with it for the duration of their character. These styles also add a bit of flavor to your character, giving you (as the player) some story and background hooks into the character. This can end up helping with the role-playing of your character as much as it can help with the gaming of it.

I know that this is going out of the boundaries of old school play, for some, but my approach is that I am looking for a simpler approach to gaming, which games like Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord supply for me, which I can then customize to fit the needs that the group and I have for play. So far that has meant bolting on this rudimentary advantage system onto the character classes. This approach has worked well with our party cleric, without making it out of proportionally more powerful when compared to the other characters in the group. It may not work for everyone, but it works for us.

Dorkland! Roundtable With Kyrinn Eis

I spoke with Kyrinn Eis earlier this week on my Dorkland! Roundtable.

It was a good talk. We talked about gaming, Saturday morning SF television in the 70s, and how Google+ is impacting people's gaming and talking about gaming.

Google+ Actual Play Archive

I have put up a new page (linked in the menu at the top of the screen) to archive some of the actual play going on over at the G+ social media site. Click on it to see links to actual play videos that have been made by the people using Google Plus for their "tabletop" role-playing needs. There is a link on the page to a thread on G+ where you can leave your links, if you want to be added to the archive. With any hope, we will see this page swell dramatically.

If scrolling up is too much, here's a link to the page: http://dorkland.blogspot.com/p/google-actual-play.html This is a static page (rather than a blog post) that I will update as people share their links with me.

Five Magical Items For Your Fantasy RPG Campaigns

I try to keep these fairly system neutral. so that you can easily pop them into the game system of your choice. I like magic items with interesting qualities to them, and I think that these reflect that. They have been influenced by various media sources, that you will probably recognize.

I hope that these magic items spark something for you in your games. If you use them, let me know.

The Dorkland! Roundtable with Quinn Conklin

Last week I talked with Quinn Conklin of Occult Moon on my Dorkland! Roundtable. His was an interesting talk, personally, because both his career as a designer and these Roundtables got their start because of Google Plus. I don't think that I can say often enough what a great tool that this site is becoming for gamers and gaming. The quality and quantity of discussion via G+ is the best that I have encountered online, better than message boards or any other social media site.

There are a lot of people who are saying that Google+ is a wasteland, that no one is out there using it or talking on it, but they obviously aren't tabletop RPG gamers. You can find a link to my G+ profile in the sidebar of the blog, or at the bottom of this post. If you enjoy the blog, and haven't connected with me over on Google+, you should go ahead and do so now.

I can be found on G+ at http://gplus.to/chrishelton. If you add me to one of your circles and don't have something that identifies you as a fellow gamer then please send a private message so I can add you back.

Kickstarter Crack: Are RPG Publishers Going Down A Rabbit Hole?

Every day we all see announcements of new Kickstarters, or publishers/designers saying that they've submitted Kickstarters, or that they are planning one. It is a goldrush as publishers, and wannabe publishers, see the dollar signs that some are getting and want a piece of the pie. I had figured originally that in a couple of years we would reach the saturation point and Kickstarter would lose its luster, now I'm not so sure that the tipping point is all that far away.

We have had a couple of high profile RPG Kickstarters fail to materialize after a couple of years: Gary Sarli's e20 has been plagued with alleged behind the scenes issues, nearly from the beginning, and Phil Brucato's Powerchords is apparently in a limbo-like state since achieving funding in 2010. Yes, I know, there will be defenders of both of these Kickstarters that will likely come out of the woodwork, but I still say that a 2-year gap after reaching funding with no product in sight is inexcusable. With the rush for money that is going on with Kickstarter and people wanting to publish, I think that this is really only the tip of the iceberg. When you have people who do not have any sort of business background, working off of the basis of their "awesome" ideas, who are suddenly hit with the fees and taxes that come with having a real business it is going to be easy for them to get overwhelmed and burn out as well. Considering the history of a lack of business training that we have in the RPG business, there could be a lot of these coming up in the future. Like I said in a recent post here, there are too many (both fans and publishers) who value enthusiasm over professionalism, and this is going to bite Kickstarter backers on the ass.

True, I want creators and designers who are excited about their upcoming and current projects, but enthusiasm without professionalism, or even some sort of track record, doesn't mean that things are going to get done. This also leads to Kickstarter overload, with publishers announcing one Kickstarter after another, sometimes launching a new project before the previous one reaches its final stages of coming to market. Enthusiastic, yes...but is it practical? I don't really think so, plus it starts to lead to a fatigue and the fans start to believe that publishers see them as nothing more than a piggy bank. This attitude is already surfacing around the various social media outlets as gamers are saying "Enough!" to the grind of Kickstarter projects.

The enthusiasm angle also has the added danger of self-selecting for your existing audience. If you know who your audience is, and you know what they want, you end up selling the same things to them over and over again, at the exclusion of a broader market. This ends up creating a look of success to your Kickstarters, but there's no further buzz or market share gained, which is one of the strengths of Kickstarter if you plan on getting your product into distribution.

A year ago I would have said that Kickstarter was the savior of RPGs, allowing projects that would never have seen the light of day to have a chance at getting published. Now, I'm not as certain about that as I used to be. Publishers need to start pacing themselves, particularly in this economy, and realize that every Kickstarter isn't going to be like Traveller5 or Ogre. Yes, there's money to be made to get projects off of the ground, but now we are even seeing projects that announce their stretch goals out of the gate. The assumption being that gamers are going to kiddy up the money. A couple of these projects have had to revise their pre-announced stretch goals, or offer up further bribes to get people interested.

Sloppiness also plagues Kickstarter projects. The reason why I made my Enthusiasm post (linked about) was because I encountered a poorly written Kickstarter project from them, not to mention poorly thought out. A "stealth" Kickstarter like theirs, they are Kickstarting a new printing of their Swords & Wizardry Complete book and yet one of the pledge levels is for a new version of their Monsters book) leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Subsequent communication with whomever answers the mail on their Kickstarter account didn't do much to help that feeling. Ultimately, I chose to not support their Kickstarter, even though I would have liked the books that they were offering. I'm sure that some people will think that there's nothing wrong with adding a stealth Kickstarter to a publisher's existing project but I think that is just another example of the money-grab mentality that is surfacing. I will admit that this mentality isn't unique to those with RPG-related project, it is just that those are the ones that I am watching.

I do not think that Kickstarter is a bad thing. I still think that it will be able to help a lot of publishers get their projects into the hands of gamers that would not have otherwise seen them. I do think that publishers need to exercise more caution and forethought, and a little less enthusiasm on the part of their projects. I'm sure that this isn't going to be a popular or widely-held opinion within gaming circles, but it has been percolating in my head for a while and I think that it finally needed to be released into the wild. Hopefully this spawns some debate and thought on the subject before more gamers get burned on overly enthusiastic projects that never see the light of day.

Garth Ennis And The Shadow

I made one of my irregular stops to the comic store today. Unfortunately they didn't have the book I went to find (Chaykin's Black Kiss II, but I guess you have to go on new release day for things like that), but I decided to pick up a couple of issues of Dynamite's new version of The Shadow. I would have picked up more than the first two issues, but unfortunately the store didn't have any copies of number 3. The first arc of this new book is a story called "The Fire of Creation." I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum, but since these books are already a few months old now I am pretty sure that most of the people who want to read them already have. If you aren't one of those people, you might not want to read past this point.

Dorkland! Roundtable with Jacob Wood

I talked with Jacob Wood of Accessible Games about his upcoming game Psi-Punk (currently going through it's Kickstarter). As of the time of this posting, he is at 34% of his goal for his Kickstarter. I like the Fudge system, and I like cyberpunk stuff, so this is a Kickstarter that I endorse and think that you should check out and put your money into.

This is the video of the Roundtable with Jacob:

In addition to talking about his Kickstarter, we had a very interesting and enlightening discussion about issues of accessibility for handicapped people in gaming. Jacob talked about issues that he has with commercial PDFs and the problems that he often has with them in reading software for the blind. I learned some important things about accessibility, I think. Jacob also discusses accessibility issues at his blog and reviews materials on the basis of its accessibility for handicapped gamers. Really, some good stuff.

Like I said at the top of this post, I hope that you check the link to his Kickstarter and show it some love.

Enthusiasm and Professionalism in Tabletop RPG Publishing

About this time last year I wrote a post about publishers rushing games in order to have them for sale at Gen Con, only to have to release a new edition within months because the rush job missed so many errors. The business of RPG publishing sometimes seems to forget the fact that there's more to this than just having something to sell at Gen Con.

The polar opposite of this attitude is the "hobbyist," those who publish because they love games more than they understand how a business really works. A good example of this would be the current (as of the date of this post) Kickstarter being run by Frog God Games for a new edition of their Swords & Wizardry Complete, in hardcover format. They previously released a hardcover edition that was marred by printing errors and poor follow up and customer service. I guess some lessons are difficult to learn.

I do not think there is any nobility in publishing something from the stance of being a hobbyist, so if your responses to this opinion post are based from that mindset don't bother.

The Fungi That Walk Like Men, A Labyrinth Lord Monster

The Fungi That Walk Like Men

No. Enc.: 2-8
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 30' (10')
Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 4
Attacks: 2, special
Damage: 1d6
Save: F4
Morale: 10
Hoard Class: I
XP: 100

Spore Cloud: Once every three rounds a Fungus can fill a 10' x 10' area with its fungal spores. This takes the form of a yellowish-grey cloud that emanates from the Fungus. Everyone within range must make a Saving Throw versus Poison. If the save succeeds, characters are coughing and blinded by tears for 1-4 rounds, during which they are at -1 on all rolls. If the save fails, characters take 1d6+1 damage from breathing in the spores. When killed, a Fungus will explode into a spore cloud that is twice the size of their normal cloud.

While the origins of The Fungi That Walk Like Men are unknown, it is believed that they were the creation of a wizard looking for ways to protect himself and his tower from attacks. Fungi reproduce via spore, and each time they use their spore cloud there is a 1 in 6 chance that 1d6 of the spores grow into new Fungi within 8-10 days. Fungi exist best in dark, dank locations like deep dungeons or the depths of forests. The appearance of a Fungi is vaguely bipedal humanoid, of about 5-6 feet in height, but the shape is formed from various mushrooms, molds and fungi held together in a humanoid shape. They are not very intelligent but can recognize people and follow very simple orders. They have no method for speech, nor have the developed any method of communication. They do not use tools or weapons, mostly because they cannot hold them.

Simple Random Treasure Table

You ever have that moment when you need to figure out how much money was in a room, or on some monsters, and forgot to figure it out in advance? Use this simple d4-based table to make up some quick treasures. All this table does is figure out the money that they have on them. You can use this table in two ways, you can roll once and then just move across the line of the table, or you can make two rolls. If you make two rolls, use the first roll to determine the first two columns, and the second roll to determine the second two columns. You could roll 4 4-siders and then just use one die for each column. This would give the most random of results, and might even work best.

If you want to go faster, just ignore the last column and assume the treasure is in gold (unless you're using Lamentations of the Flame Princess, then silver is the standard).

d4 roll	die to be rolled	number of rolled	multiplier	currency
1	d4	4	x3	CP
2	d6	3	x2	GP
3	d8	2	x1	EP
4	d10	1	x0	PP

Now you have a fast way to find out what's inside their wallets, after fighting some monster in the dungeon.

The Nothingface: OSR Blogosphere Monsters Project

The Nothingface is a monster for Swords & Wizardry that I did a write-up for over on Google+ a few months back. This is a slightly updated and cleaned up version of that initial posting. The monster was inspired by a song/album by Voivod that I used to listen to a lot, back in college. I decided to clean this up and post it to my blog after reading about the OSR Blogosphere Monsters Project. I figured that a creature this horrid deserved to be inflicted upon others. Converting this monster from Swords & Wizardry to another retroclone like Labyrinth Lord or Lamentations of the Flame Princess should be easy enough for referees of those games.

This particular write-up is for Swords & Wizardry Core.

The Nothingface
Hit Dice: 8
Armor Class: 7 [12]
Attacks: 2 claws (2d6)
Saving Throw: 8
Special: The unnaturalness of the Nothingface requires a saving throw when you first encounter it, failure causes a character to freeze up and be unable to do anything for 1-4 turns. Their extraplanar nature makes them immune to normal weapons.
Move: 10'
Alignment: Chaos
Challenge Level/XP: 10/1,400

The Nothingface is a vaguely humanoid creature with spindly, elongated arms and legs with swollen joints and longer than normal, thin fingers and toes. The nails on their toes make a faint scratching/scraping sound as they walk. Their body hair is sparse and pale and their flesh is, at best, pallid. The remarkable feature of a Nothingface is the void where their face should be. This void is a frightening lack of a face that the observer's mind attempts to fill in but cannot.

A Nothingface is extraplanar and summonable with the right spell. Their resilience and doggedness make them popular as guardians of a dungeon, even if they are likely to turn on their summoner. Typically only one appears when summoned.

Howard Chaykin and Shadowmania

1986 was a heady year for comics. Two stories that have since come to be regarded as modern classics were released by DC Comics: Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons Watchmen and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. Both of these books have left their marks on comic books. Moore and Gibbons' Watchmen has become for many the highwater mark for comic book storytelling, while Miller's Dark Knight single-handedly altered the course of The Batman forever. Somewhere in the middle of all of this was released a four-issue miniseries that has every bit of the same right to be considered a masterpiece of comics as those other two series: Howard Chaykin's The Shadow.

Since Dynamite Comics is publishing a new trade edition of this mini-series, I will try to avoid spoilers in the story itself for those who have not yet experienced this masterful comic.

Howard Chaykin is a comic artist and writer, sometimes doing on or the other on a book and sometimes doing both. With The Shadow Chaykin wrote and drew the book, infusing it with his characteristic fusion of 1940s period dress with a modern sensibility. Previous to doing The Shadow, Chaykin was known most for having done some well-regarded fantasy series for DC Comics and the early run of the blockbuster Star Wars comic from Marvel Comics. Chaykin has the rare distinction of being one of the first people outside of Lucas' production company to create original material for the Star Wars Universe, helping to usher in what we now know as the Expanded Universe. Chaykin also adapted Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination and worked with British fantasist Michael Moorcock for Heavy Metal magazine. He also found the time to create one of the earliest independent comics in 1976 with Star Reach, and his seminal character Cody Starbuck.

Each of Chaykin's works informs the next, and it was with characters like Cody Starbuck, Dominic Fortune, and of course Han Solo that he became known for his roguish male lead characters. In The Shadow, this disposition towards the roguish lead was married to an old school social conservative to make his interpretation of Kent Allard/Lamont Cranston/The Shadow. Chaykin's Shadow is probably one of the more fleshed out interpretations of the character too, leagues away from the cipher of a character that plagued the radio shows and some of the more poorly-written instances of the pulp magazines.

In this mini-series Chaykin made a ballsy move that upset a lot of pulp purists...he moved The Shadow into the modern day of 1986. Before this pulp characters adapted to comics either existed still in their original eras or were "updated" to a hazy setting that could be the contemporary world, or it could still be the past. A lot of people did not like that Chaykin moved the story to a contemporary setting. However, the strength of this idea is that it pitted the character of The Shadow, who was still very much rooted in a pre-World War II social and psychological mindset, against the contemporary world of 1986. As with any Chaykin work, this play of the vintage against the contemporary is a method of showing that change is both good and bad, and the past should not always be viewed through rose-colored glasses. The Shadow's attitude towards women is compared to that of his contemporaries, like Harry Vincent (an important supporting character from the original pulp stories), who have been exposed to the changes for forty years and have been able to adapt to those changes. The Shadow is still very much the force of nature that he was in the pre-War days, and still he has to come to grips with the societal changes around him as well as the physical changes to New York City.

The plot of this mini-series is launched by having a number of The Shadow's operatives from his early exploits, now old, being targeted and killed by an unknown villain. This serves to bring The Shadow out of his lengthy retirement in the Himalayas. The Shadow himself is unchanged and unaged in the near forty years since he was last in New York City, and now establishes himself as the son of his original cover identity of Lamont Cranston. Assembling a team of his remaining operatives from the 1940s and new contemporary operatives (including two sons that he had while retired), The Shadow moves against this new villain. The balance of these issues deals with The Shadow and his operatives uncovering the villains of the piece and finally moving against him.

Despite the opinions of those who felt (and those who probably still feel this way) that the adventures of The Shadow should have remained in their original historical period, I think that a great deal of the success of this story came because Chaykin decided to update the time period to the contemporary. Much of the tension of the story comes from the interplay between The Shadow and his "unenlightened" (according to other characters in the story) attitudes. The Shadow as a man out of time is as much of a driving factor to the story as the actions of the villain of the piece. The story is an engaging one, although ironic because now the setting of 1986 is a historical one as well. For some current readers, the 1980s can be just as foreign as the 1930s of the original pulp stories.

I do think that the story holds up well, regardless. The characters (new and old) hold up well and Chaykin demonstrates that he can write a Shadow story in the vein of the original pulps and update it at the same time. This mini-series was the launching point for a long-running on-going series featuring the characters which would lead to some of The Shadow's strangest adventures. Fans of the pulps should enjoy this story because of the loyalty to the characters and concepts of the original pulp stories (despite the time period updating). Fans of Chaykin's current work should enjoy this story because of how it shows the development of some of his now standard storytelling tropes. If you would be bothered by a lot of people in 1930s-era clothing in the 1980s, this might not be the comic for you.

I am glad to see that this story is getting a new lease on life, and a printing up to modern standards. I never picked up the first trade collection of these comics and have had to rely on my original comics over the years. At least now I can get a good trade collection and I can put away the comics.

Shadowman Is Coming Back From Valiant!

The next epic expansion of the Valiant Universe starts this November in Shadowman #1 – the FIRST ISSUE of an all-new ongoing series from comics superstar Patrick Zircher (Captain America, Thor: Ages of Thunder) and Harvey Award-nominee Justin Jordan (The Strange Talent of Luther Strode, Team 7)!

There’s a million dreams in the Big Easy. But now its worst nightmare is about to come true. As the forces of darkness prepare to claim New Orleans as their own, Jack Boniface must embrace the legacy he was born to uphold. As Shadowman, Jack is about to become the only thing that stands between his city and an army of unspeakable monstrosities from beyond the night. But is the mantle of Shadowman a blessing or a curse? And what is the true cost of his otherworldly power?

"Shadowman is one of the most popular characters in the Valiant Universe and the fans have been asking me since day one when he's going to return," said Valiant Executive Editor Warren Simons. "Justin and Patrick have put together an action-packed debut that also adds an incredibly important new dimension to the Valiant Universe. And as Patrick's pages clearly demonstrate, he's one of the finest artists working in the medium today. We've got an amazing team at the helm of our fifth ongoing launch and I can't wait for the first issue to hit the stands."

On sale this November, Shadowman #1 features a standard cover by Patrick Zircher with incentive variants by Eisner Award-winning industry icons Dave Johnson and Bill Sienkiewicz. Additionally, Valiant is continuing its wildly successful Pullbox Exclusive Variant program with a "blackout" cover by Patrick Zircher - available only to those comic shop patrons who pre-order Shadowman #1 with their local retailer.

X-O Manowar, Harbinger, Bloodshot, and Archer & Armstrong have captivated a new generation of fans and critics. Now prepare for the rebirth of the next Valiant icon. Fear no evil when Shadowman #1 strikes this November!

SHADOWMAN #1 – ON SALE THIS NOVEMBER!
Written by JUSTIN JORDAN & PATRICK ZIRCHER
Art by PATRICK ZIRCHER
Cover by PATRICK ZIRCHER
"Blackout" Pullbox Exclusive Variant by PATRICK ZIRCHER
Variant Covers by DAVE JOHNSON & BILL SIENKIEWICZ

Dorkland! Roundtable with Zak Smith

Perhaps you've heard of Zak Smith. He is an artist, writer and game designer who has written/designed the excellent game supplement called Vornheim: The Complete City Kit. He has also done porn, and plays D&D with a group of porn actors, models, strippers and a hairdresser. You may remember when I wrote about them before over at this post. Today I talked with Zak for one of my Dorkland! Roundtables. It was a good chat/discussion/interview. Whatever you want to call them. One of the things that I like about Zak is that he is a man of opinions but he goes beyond just stating opinions and tries to back up what he says with facts and information.

More than a few people get upset because Zak has done porn, because he games with people who do porn, because he has a blog called D&D With Pornstars. People shouldn't be afraid of sex and sexuality, or think that all forms of entertainment has to be safe, sanitized and polite to all ages. There is plenty of room in gaming for people with all sorts of backgrounds, genders, orientations and races. It is OK to want things to be a little grown up too, and to want to game differently than you might have when you were 13.

You should check out the videos of Zak and his friends gaming. They are fun to watch, and they have a group of people who are having a lot of fun gaming. There's a bit of strong language in them (and my YouTube video above) so I wouldn't suggest watching them at work. People say that we need more people in gaming, and sometimes I even agree with that idea. I think that one way to do that is to show different people, outside of the conventional stereotypes of gaming, having fun at table top gaming. I think this group is as good of an example as any others. They kick ass, take names and have fun. Who cares about their jobs?

I had a good time talking with Zak, and I hope that you enjoy this interview. My standard Thumper rule is in place for this post. If you can't say anything nice about the people, don't say anything at all. I will delete people for being a dick. You're more than welcome to be a dick on the internet, you just don't get to do it on my blog. There's plenty of other virtual real estate out there if you want to do that.

The Internet And The Art Of The Actual Play In RPGs

Updated: I will add our new videos to this post as we make them.

I have to first admit that I'm really not a fan of reading, listening to or watching other people's actual play reports/podcasts/whatevers. I've been running a Swords & Wizardry game for a couple of months now, using the Google+ Hangouts for its video chat services. It's been a lot of fun. The last two weeks, we decided to use the Hangouts on the Air function to broadcast and record our sessions.

This is our first recording:

And this is our second recording:

Our third recording:

Before I had started running this game, I was strongly anti-running games online. I'm what you would call a social gamer (in that I game for the social aspect of things, hanging out with people and that sort of thing), and I didn't think that using online tools would come close to equally the feel that I get from gaming. It turns out that I was wrong about that. Maybe it is just because of the group of people that I have met because of this game, but this group has been every bit as engaging for me socially as any face to face group that I've ever been a part of.

I'm still not a big fan of actual play however. People seem to be watching and getting something out of our posts, so I guess that's a good thing for them. I can see the benefit of actual plays for games that you have never played before, and would like to watch others doing it so that you can make sure that you are doing things right. I'm not saying there's no use to actual play posts or reports.

What do you get out of seeing someone else doing an actual play?