Thanks to RPGNet.
Mrs. Evil DM has never shown the slightest interest in gaming. She’s not opposed to the hobby as several of my Ex-girlfriends were when I was single (which is the most common reason they are EX girlfriends and not my wife). gaming just never interested her. I respect that, but like all gamers who are married to civilians, there is deep down, a part of me that would love nothing better than to have her by my side as we stormed the Darklords Keep or entered the Temple of Ultimate Evil. But after 10 years together I’ve pretty well resolved that it aint gonna happen. Until tonight- for the first time I cracked open a copy of Blackmorn Manor- a board game from a company called Pacesetter. Pacesetter is no longer with us and I have had this game sitting on my shelf for at least 4 years, so it was high time we cracked it open. Blackmorn Manor is a tile based horror game where one player takes on the role of a monster in the manor and the rest of the players are the intrepid explorers out to destroy it. There is combat, magic, and supernatural goings on a plenty. The “board” is made up of tiles that are placed in turn by each player; therefore no game board is the same. All in all it’s a fun game. My son and I sold it to my wife as a board game, which technically it is but there were enough RPG elements in it that we soon had her actually role playing her character- My son played the "Professor Challenger" type character and my wife was “Gina Diamond” professional singer and amateur supernatural sleuth. The minion I selected was a female vampire. After slogging through the rules for the first few minutes we were soon up to speed and chasing each other around the game board. The Professor eventually faced off against the vampire alone and was quickly defeated and turned to the Dark Side. We then proceeded to hunt down Gina who managed to thwart our efforts with skill and remarkable dice rolls-talk about beginners luck. In the end the Vampire absconded with the wooden stake (The item needed to destroy the vampire) and won the game, however Gina survived to the end without being turned into a servant of evil so it was a moral victory for the forces of good at least. The best part is that my wife said NEXT TIME she’ll win now that she knows the rules. There’s gonna be a “Next time”…WOO HOO!!
Yesterday I was thinking about my next post in the Sword of Skartaris game and “Lost World” gaming in general, when I came upon an idea that makes perfect sense. First take the Hollow World Campaign supplement for the D&D Mystara setting, and then take characters from the Masque of the Red Death Campaign supplement for the Ravenloft setting. Combine them and you have a pretty sweet Victorian era Lost worlds campaign!
Man I wish I would have had this particular epiphany back when I had a regular gaming group. I always wanted to play a Pulp game but I could never talk my players into it. They were hard core D&D geeks, but I think I could have sold them on this idea. I get my pulp fix and they get to keep the same game engine and rules they were comfortable with.
While on the Subject of gaming I found this site that has some tools worthy of a look-
RPtools. There's a dice roller,a mapping program and an icon creator. The updates look to be frequent and regular and the forums seem to be active. 
1. Bring a gun. Preferably, bring at least two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns.
2. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.
3. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.
4. If your shooting stance is good, you're probably not moving fast enough nor using cover correctly.
5. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral and diagonal movement are preferred.)
6. If you can choose what to bring to a gunfight, bring a long gun and a friend with a long gun.
7. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.
8. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating, reloading, and running.
9. Accuracy is relative: most combat shooting standards will be more dependent on "pucker factor" than the inherent accuracy of the gun.
10. Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but they should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty.
11. Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.
12. Have a plan.
13. Have a back-up plan, because the first one won't work.
14. Use cover or concealment as much as possible.
15. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.
16. Don't drop your guard.
17. Always tactical load and threat scan 360 degrees.
18. Watch their hands. Hands kill. In God we trust. Everyone else, keep your hands where I can see them.
19. Decide to be aggressive ENOUGH, quickly ENOUGH.
20. The faster you finish the fight, the less shot you will get.
21. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
22. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.
23. Your number one option for personal security is a lifelong commitment to avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation.
24. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun, the caliber of which does not start with a "4."
thanks to RPGNET
First off, in case you haven’t noticed the Lair has had a few cosmetic upgrades. We are now publishing in Blogger Beta which allows us to have a post subject header in the sidebar- so now If you want to see all the posts on this Blog regarding action figures just go to the sidebar and click on action figures. And Blogger will pull all the action figure posts and show them on a separate page. I also got rid of the “Starry background” gif and the dungeon movie and replaced it with a collage of images from past Blog entries. I also updated the links.
Please let me know what you think of the changes.
I’ve been very busy the last few days working on a variety of RPG projects.
The Legends of Steel players section is done-complete-finito! I’m working on the Game masters section now and then it should be ready for play testing, editing and layout.
For Broadsword, I’m writing three of the six adventure scenarios that will be released with the game. I want to get this done by Dec 1st so that we can roll the game out by the 15th.
I’ve also been working on my FASERIP Pulp expansion. This is where I take the rules engine from the Marvel Super Heroes RPG (commonly known in the RPG world as the FASERIP system) and adapt it to a Pulp Era setting. I’ve added a great deal of content and made some cosmetic changes to the font and graphics I’m using.
I also found a logo creation program and came up with this-
You do if it's this one.
My buddy Jeff H. turned me on to it.
I tell ya man, The Jeff's are happenin', we post the best chick pix and we know where all the "Cool Blogs" are.
Here's a sample from the "Longbox"...
Now go check it out. And tell him The Evil DM sent ya.
(He'll probably say, "Who?")
Here’s the ad.
Here’s the link
Now move yer ass!
It ends tomorrow!
Thanks to rpgnet.
I’m a big fan of street level superheroes. Guys like Union Jack, Dr. Midnight, Iron Fist, Wildcat, etc. So I’ve been really pleased with the titles that have been coming out lately.
JSA Classified, Moon Knight, The Black Panther, Union Jack, and the re-launch of Heroes for Hire. In the last few issues of Black Panther, prior to his wedding with Storm, T’Challa was hanging out with Blade, Luke Cage and The Falcon- we had the makings of a cool ethnic team there for a bit, I would love to see that premise taken further. Coming up is a re-launch of Iron Fist and a special Dr. Midnight limited series in JSA Classified. All this street level coolness almost makes up for the travesty that was the Warlord series earlier this year…almost.
In my opinion this is about the best show on network TV at the moment. It’s well written, the characters are engaging, visually its crisp, and at the end of each episode you are left satisfied but still hooked and wanting more, unlike “Lost” which just fucks with your head, teases you and then leaves you there hanging for five weeks.
The official website is well supported with clips, interviews, games, blogs, and all kinds of geeky goodness to help you catch up to speed. They even have their own comic...um excuse me. Graphic Novel, thank you very much...
VOTE
Heads up gamers! Mongoose games has released over a dozen issues of their Signs & Portents Magazine as free PDF downloads. Lots of great articles usable for a wide variety of genres. What a bargain!
Thanks to RPGNET.
One of the things I do in my PBP games is give each character a sort of “Mini-adventure before the actual game starts. Nothing fancy just an encounter so that the player and I can get a handle on the character. It can also help to establish a little background outside of the usual dry character background write ups. The scene below is from a “Lost Worlds” Pulp game I’m currently running, It’s a series of back and forth posts edited together. This is an encounter set several days before the actual adventure begins. The character is globe-trotting Geologist / Adventurer- Archibald “Archie” Armstrong.
Honolulu, Hawaii-1936
Three days till the ship leaves for San Francisco. Three days in paradise. Beats the hell out of West Virginia. Archie thought to himself.
Sitting back in his rattan chair enjoying some Filipino egg rolls that Lita had called “Lumpia”- good stuff, At the moment life was good... Archie sat up as Lita returned to his table with a tray holding a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.
“Did you miss me?” she said with a twinkle in her eye.
Lita was Filipino / Hawaiian with golden skin, long, silky black hair, and a body that would put Venus De Milo to shame.
“You know,” she said as she nuzzled close to him and proceeded to pour the drinks, “I don’t get off for another two hours. But if you want to pay my “bar fine” we could go to Waikiki, my cousin plays in the band at the Royal Hawaiian hotel. It’s a real high-class place.”
Archie’s attention turns from the beauty at his side to the bar where a group of Merchant sailors are loudly announcing their arrival. One of the larger sailors turns as he lifts a mug of beer, and spies Archie’s table.
“Lita baby!” he exclaims. “C’mere and give me some luvvin baby doll!”
“Just ignore him honey.” Lita says as she takes a swig of her drink.
“Hey, HEY!” the sailor exclaims. “What the hell? Are you ignoring me?”
Another sailor attempts to restrain him, “C’mon Nick, lets get a drink.”
“Naw” Nick says, pushing his friend away. “I ain’t letting no damn Chink Bargirl, give me the blow off.”
The sailor stalks over to Archie’s table. “Who do you think you are huh? You two-bit floozy, playing it up all innocent for this Mook?” he says as he points to Archie.
Armstrong stood up, positioning himself between Lita and the bellicose sailor, he did so while maintaining enough distance that he wouldn't be sucker punched in the process.
Archie had been down this road before, many times and in many countries.. But at least this time he actually had the luxury of understanding the language of the goon in front of him.
"That's "Mr. Mook" to you swabbie, ya better put dat finger away if you wanna keep it!! I gots ten damn good reasons why youse should apologize to the lady and go sit down with your buddies"
Archie then gave the merchant seaman his "steely eyed glare". Unblinking and without emotion, most men would wither under Armstrong's intense stare. Those who encountered it called it the “dead face". More often then not this would settle a fracas before it would happen. If that wasn't the case even though he appeared relaxed, Archie was ready for the "Oh so familiar” pugilistic dance.
The whole bar went quiet except the sound of the angry sailor's breathing.
Nick meets Archie’s stare.
No one will ever accuse Nick of being the sharpest tool in the shed, but the sailor knows a bruiser when he sees one. Nicks a bully and a loudmouth and when he looks into Archie’s eyes he sees neither.
Looking down at Lita who is sitting at the table, Nick mumbles an apology and backs off.
“That was close” Lita says as she daintily closes the butterfly knife she was holding under the table and secures it in her garter. “I need this job.”
Looking at Archie again “So what do you say Guapo? Wanna go buy a girl a steak?”
Archie silently remains standing as he watches Nick humbly go sit back down at the table of merchant seaman.
There is a sigh of relief from the bartender and the rest of the bar resumes it's usual drunken jovial hub-bub.
Armstrong nod's at the fellow who tried to restrain Nick, the sailor raises his mug of beer as a salute in return. Archie turn's and grins down at Lita.
"Ya want's steak does ya baby!?.. I just can't say no to those honey brown eyes of yours darlin'..So let's blow this Popsicle stand and you take me to this fancy hotel you wuz talking about and, Archie winks. "We can watch your cousin play his ukulele"
Giggling, Lita lithfully rises and the bar looks on in envy as Archie hands the Mama-san a twenty and escorts Lita out of the bar into the warm Hawaiian night.
An incessant knock finally rouses Archie from his pillow. Running his fingers through his hair, his eyes slowly adjust to the daylight streaming from his Hotel window. Taking a deep breath he stands and locates his skivvies. Sliding them on, he glances at the beautiful naked form of Lita as she lay sleeping.
*more knocking...*
Archie mumbles something incoherent as he covers Lita's lower half with the bed sheet and heads for the door.
Distractedly scratching his rear, Archie grumpily stomps towards the banging door while muttering to himself. " Rassin' Frassin'...*grumble*...don't ya know a fella needs his beauty sleep..."
In one very swift action Archie hurls the door open.
"What part of DO NO DISTURB do you not understand!!!!?” He bellows.
In the hallway are two serious looking men in grey suits. Suits, in Hawaii.
G-Men.
Suit #1 speaks first “Mr. Armstrong.” A statement rather than a question. “I'm Mister Smith and this is Mister Jones.” Smith deftly presents his credentials-they’re legit (Archie also notices that “Smith” has a heater in a shoulder rig, which means “Jones” is probably packing as well).
Smith continues “We’re with the War Department and we’ve been sent to escort you to Hickam Airfield where a plane is waiting for you. Your presence is requested in Washington at the highest level.”
Mr. Jones finally breaks his silence. “We’ll wait out here Sir, while you get ready and uh…say yer goodbyes.”
Archie quickly soaked in the situation and grinned at the stern proper clean-cut men.
"Sure fella's..I guess I'm back in the saddle huh? See ya PDQ!!!" He whispered as he quietly closed the door.
Armstrong silently dressed and quickly packed his valise; his years living abroad meant he knew how to travel light and just pack the essentials. His mind raced as to what could be so important that two of J. Edger's finest would be escorting a mug like him to the big ol' Washington DC? And by plane no less. This was something big..
He strode over to the sultry sleeping form on the bed..
"What was her name again?" he wondered? He felt a little sad, so many ports, so many open arms but the connection always fleeting. At the very least a gentleman remembers the name of his dalliance.
"Lita!...right...Wow..Wotta gal!" he thought to himself while trying to remember the previous night.
He gently nudged her shoulder, as she was beginning to awake Archie spoke in a low voice.
"Lita baby, sorry honey but I gotta go, I just got word I have to go work for my uncle. Next time I am on the island I'll look you up"
Archie turned and walked towards the door to leave, grinning while thinking about the world famous Hawaiian hospitality.
Man I love this cover.
Anyone who reads this Blog regularly knows what a fan I am of the Pulp genre. I often whine about not getting to play in my favorite genre mostly because Pulp heads like me are few and far between. But for some reason at the moment I’m riding a wave of pulp.
Mutants and Masterminds-Golden Age
My buddy Ed W. his son Eddie and my boy Anthony had a rousing game of Mutants and Masterminds this last Saturday, Ed ran the game and is using the Golden Age setting. It was our first foray into the M&M system. Ed and his son are old hands at the D20 system so the there was at least familiarity, though M&M is not straight D20 it’s more like D20 with modifications. I ran a “Rocketeer” type character; Anthony had a character who was one part Captain America, and three parts Sgt. Fury. Eddie had a mystery man type claw guy and Ed. Ran an NPC tracker/sharpshooter. We had a jungle adventure featuring killer apes, Nazis, lava caves and a huge earth/fire elemental creature. Our team dynamic was spot on, with each character having a chance to shine using their special powers and abilities. The game was really just a way for us to get used to the mechanics and run through some combats, but it was fun for its own sake as well. I really like the one dice roll thing what a concept! We had a great time and I hope that we make it a regular thing.
Swords of Skartaris
I’m also running an online Lost Worlds Pulp game, nominally using the Savage Worlds system and the Skartaris setting from the DC comics Warlord series.
After a bit of character creation and preparation the players have just crash landed in Skartaris and the fun stuff is about to begin. I’m even kit bashing some figures of the group; I’ll be posting those soon.
Lands of Mystery
As it happens I won an EBay auction for “Lands of Mystery” Aaron Allston’s classic gaming supplement for the Justice Inc. RPG. In my opinion this book is one of the best gaming supplements ever written. I have a copy in storage in Hawaii, but that was doing me no good here in Sacramento. Hence the EBay purchase. And what a timely arrival it’s been. Flipping through Lands of Mystery is like visiting an old friend. Usually when I get inspired by a book or movie, I’m usually playing in some other type of genre- but this time the planets were in complete alignment- my PBP game is getting a head of steam and here I have Lands of Mystery to keep me on course with great advice and inspiration.
The Sand Pebbles and Blue world
In the casual reading arena I’m reading Richard McKenna’s novel “The Sand Pebbles”
It deals with the adventures of a sailor serving in a navy gunboat on patrol on the Yangtze River in 1920’s China. Steve McQueen starred in the movie version.
I’m also reading a short story collection by horror author Robert R. McCammon, called “Blue World”. In particular a short story titled “Night calls the Green Falcon”, in this story an old and destitute former Saturday matinee movie star from the 40’s goes on a quixotic quest to bring a serial killer to justice in modern day Hollywood.
It’s all Pulp and it’s all good!
This is one cool Toon. Action-Pulp flavor in the vein of Jonny Quest. Too bad it never got past the pilot.
Here is the website with more info.
Thanks to RPGNet.
I’ve been doing this Blog for a couple of years now, and I was thinking the other day that this is really the closest I’ve ever come to a journal or diary in my life. As I started going over my past entries I realize that certain posts sparked memories of where I was and in what frame of mind I was at that time, which for me was kind of neat. One post in particular dealt with the day that Yahoo (May they rot in fucking cyber-hell) yanked my membership and deleted not only my yahoo groups membership but deleted all of my Yahoo email addresses and files. For a “term of service violation”, they had every right to do it, but Damn them for it. The lesson learned that day besides back up all yer stuff, is that nothing lasts forever, which is why I started thinking –what if I woke up one morning and Google decides to discontinue Blogger? My mind began working on a safeguard for my posts. What I came up with was Snag it. Snag it is a screen capture program that allows auto scrolling of a webpage and then can save it as a jpeg. This way I can go back over my monthly entries and save them month to month as jpegs. I can then burn them on a CD and I have a set of archives of all my witty posts and photos. There may be better ways, and if you know of any let me know as well, but for now this is at least something-which is better than doing nothing at all.
Yesterday over at the Treasure Table Forums, the question was posed “What is the best way that we, as RPG consumers, can help revitalize the industry?” One of the members, Telus, gave a most eloquent summary of what we all as gamers should strive for in relation to the hobby. Reprinted here, with his permission is the list of To Do’s.
•Don't be a closet gamer. Admit it freely, and ask your interlocutors if they play fantasy football, and to explain the difference.
•Buy the good stuff, and tell people about it. Hell, buy the bad stuff, and warn people about it.
•Get your friends to game, even if it's a simple-rules one-shot.
•DM if you don't already. There are a TON of players out there looking for DM’s.
•Go to cons, buy stuff, and give feedback.
•Don't be a stereotypical gamer. Bathe regularly, learn some manners, and get a haircut and a job that lets you move out on your own. You'll find a better group of gamers and maybe even "get some".
You Gotta admire the guys who actually go out and do the cool stuff. I have a hundred projects on my plate and maybe ten of them will ever get done. Which is why I love seeing projects like this one come to fruition.
the REH poem "The Return of Sir Richard Grenville" put to film. Great fun!
Special thanks to T. Allen of the REH Comics Group (an excellent resource, by the way) for the "heads up".
thanks to RPGNET.
I started A RPG group over at http://tribes.tribe.net/sacarearpg
Mainly to have a place where Sac area gamers can network and hopefully get some gaming going on.
I’m on several boards where they have “players looking for games” threads but I haven’t seen much in the Sacramento area. There is a great Meetup Group for D&D players that meets once a month. But they are for the most part a solid 3.5 ed D&D group. I enjoy D&D and I have recently started to play 3rd edition but there are a lot of other systems and Genres I would like to try my hand at such as Savage Worlds and Mutants and Masterminds. Being a gamer for over 25 years I’ve also amassed a collection of
“ Old School” games like AD&D, GURPS, Star Frontiers, Chill, CoC, etc. so I wouldn’t mind running some of the older stuff from time to time. So rather than play the Grog nard over at the D&D Meetup group, I decided to try and start a group that would have a bit more of a universal outlook, of course D&D is THE roleplaying game and it will have a place here as well. My intention is not to try and compete with any existing local groups out there it’s merely to offer a few more options.
A couple of the ideas I’ve had bubbling in my brain are:
Setting up a meeting place for a monthly gathering where we could do some actual gaming rather than just posting about gaming.
I’d like to get something going where we could highlight a different system from time to time, maybe one month The Savage Worlds system, the next month the GURPS system, and so on.
Another thing we might try is a genre theme. Maybe one month we do western games, the next Pulp, and then Horror and so on. Of course there would still be open play for folks who would rather play their own on-going campaign.
Anyway those are just some thoughts. Of course in order for any of this to get off the ground we need folks to join, so spread the word.
What is it?
Its called BROADSWORD. Its a soon to be released Sword & Sorcery RPG Written by yours truly.
When is It coming out?
Very soon, the final stages of layout are being done.
