Motivational Monday

Thanks to RPGNet.

Sunday gaming

Well today was the second official meeting of my GURPS Castle Falkenstein group. We are using the GURPS 4th Edition rules. When the first call for gamers was made a month or so back 7 answered, back then I said if I got two or three solid players out of the group that showed up, I would be happy. Well my wish came true. Out of the seven, 5 flaked out for one reason or another. The last to bail was a player that just couldn’t get the swing of the genre. To be honest, the two that remained were actually the ones that were the most promising. I would rather have two players that are into the genre and involve themselves in the campaign that a dozen players who just wait till the fights occur so they can roll some dice. Don’t get me wrong I love slinging dice as much as the next geek, but if combat just for the sake of combat is all you want, well then you’re at the wrong table. Anyway today’s game went off without a hitch and we were all reacquainted with the lethality of the GURPS tactical combat system.

WARP 11-She make it so

In my heydays of gaming back in the late 80’s – early 90’s I hooked up with a bunch of guys from Carmichael. We gamed maniacally- we started on Friday evening and sometimes went non stop through the weekend except for Taco Bell runs and Mountain Dew infusions. One summer we were mostly all unemployed and living in a pair of upstairs lofts of a house that one of the guys inherited. It was a cool crazy time of music videos, porno movies, blasting stereos, girlfriend meltdowns, and of course all night gaming- D&D, Champions, GURPS, Traveller, Cyberpunk, even a weird ass game called vampire. One of the guys was Karl. Karl was the luckiest guy on earth. He had a job AND a hot girlfriend, Dawn, who was not only totally cool but she also liked to game (she ran Ravenloft). Karl always had something about him, a mystique if you will (Charisma of 16 at least). He was a guy you just wanted to hang out with. He’s still got it. Here is Karl and his band WARP 11 (Karl is the singer by the way). Karl if you’re out there- I miss ya buddy. Good times my friend, good times.

BASH brings it on!

Yesterday I was itching to buy a game, and as I was looking over RPGNOW, I ran across a game called BASH – Basic Action Super Heroes. I love universal systems and this one looked relatively successful- It had good user reviews, a couple of supplemental products, a free fanzine, and a very attractive price of $5.00- for five bucks I figured I could take a chance.
Back on October 19th I posted a gamers mantra here on the Blog. One of the points was:

“Buy the good stuff, and tell people about it. Hell, buy the bad stuff, and warn people about it.”

So I put my money where my mouth was and purchased BASH. I’m happy to say it was money well spent. I’ve been reading it over this evening and it makes me want to play, which is the best compliment I can pay a game. The rules are fast and light- a very easy read. The art is just okay-but it does convey the impression of an action packed game- so it does its job. They even provide a “Printer friendly” version without the art to save paper, this is a nice touch that I wish more companies offered. I honestly can’t review it since I haven’t had the chance to play it. But as it stands I will be playing it at my first opportunity. In fact, I’m eyeing the Fantasy supplement at the moment and will probably be buying it shortly.

For affordability BASH is hard to beat. The other day I was at a game store looking at the new Runequest game by Mongoose, each those anorexic books costs $24.95 or more and you need at least three of them to have a complete game. One of the books doesn’t even reach 100 pages. What a joke.

So you want to step up for the little guy? Help out small business? Encourage efforts to produce fun low cost games? Give BASH a look. Hell, if you really don’t want to pony up a five spot for a game then download their free magazine and give it the once over. There are a couple of adventures and a few articles in there to mine for ideas.

The Evil DM's album

In my daily net surfing I run across a lot of photos. many of them I save for use here. some however languish in my files for months looking for just that right post. Here are a bunch that have been waiting a bit some may eventually make their way to a post but for now they sit in The "Album of misfit pics" waiting for a blogpost to claim them.





Atlas Comics holds a lot of memories for me. they had a short run but there are still old guys out there like me who remember...

I was gonna use this gal as a character in my Lost Worlds PBEM game, she was to be cast as a "Jungle Princess" but she lost the role to one of my action figures.

Here are a couple of pics that didn't make the cut for my FASERIP Pulp gamebook. the first was from an old Marvel monster mag, the second from a trading card game.

I love the expression on this gal. You should see the whole pic. YOWZA!


Can you say "Creepy kid"?



You gotta love this old Long haired leaping gnome.

Love her or hate her, the girl can sure take a hot photo.


Must be the Danish army.


Teddy, now more than ever!



Is this a cool "Evil DM pic or what??


Awesome shot!


God I miss "Firefly". Fox network, you fucking idiots, you completely screwed the pooch on this one.


PS3 for sale- cheap!

Motivational Monday

Thanks to RPGnet.

Sword and Sorcery Saturday

I’m the kind of reader who absolutely cannot start a series in the middle. Because of that I have about a dozen or so part two or part three books lying around waiting for me to locate their predecessors. Today we made the rounds of the local used bookstores where I managed to complete not one but two collections that have been sitting around in the house for a while. And best of all they’re Sword and Sorcery titles! I just finished a Victorian age thriller and was about to begin a Western, but it’s been too long since I cracked a good sword-slinging tale. The books I found were Hadon of Opar by Philip Jose Farmer and Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer Book 2 "Lords of Destruction" by James Silke.
I’m starting with the death dealer books. And if the first few chapters are any indication, it was the right choice. It’s down and dirty S&S action with plenty of gore, sultry witches, barbarians, and wicked fights- I start to miss these kinds of stories after a while.

Red Nails

So is this movie ever gonna get made?
I doubt it. The website has been dead for months.
But in the interest of keeping the art around, here are some Pics.

Savage Tales is back!

Great news for Sword & Sorcery fans -
The Savage Tales title is back in print. Marvel has let the trademark lapse and it was picked up by Dynamite Entertainment. It looks like issue #1 will be hitting the shelves in March 2007 with a cover by renowned artist Arthur Suydam. For more information visit Newsarama.
Thanks to Terry Allen from the REH Comics Group for the “heads up” on this

Just Chill

The other day I posted an article of mine from a past issue of Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine revisiting the Conan game by TSR. Today I have another article from a past issue (#118) revisiting The horror RPG Chill from Pacesetter games.


Chill-Adventures into the unknown
Jeff Mejia

In 1984 a small company called Pacesetter games released “Chill”, a Role Playing Game set in the genre of classic horror. All the guys in my gaming group back then grew up on a regular diet of Saturday night “Creature feature” shows on TV. We loved the old black & white Universal monster movies featuring Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein’s monster, etc. as well as the Hammer horror films with Christopher Lee and lots of busty vampire chicks.
Up until Chill the only horror game around was Call of Cthulhu, and while there is no denying that Call of Cthulhu is a classic, my group never really cared for it, mainly because no matter how well you played your character, He/She would eventually go insane, in fact everybody’s character eventually goes insane in Call of Cthulhu. My group was made up of mostly “meat and potato” gamers- we liked to hunt down the bad guy, hack him into tiny pieces, and then loot his lair for +2 swords. The idea of our characters eventually going nuts never held much appeal.
Chill didn’t have that aura of hopelessness that Call of Cthulhu had, and none of the pretentious angst that “Vampire: the Masquerade” would later have. And though I was familiar with Lovecraft’s works most of the guys in my group weren’t, so it was hard for them to visualize why they should be running from a “Slithering Miyagi” or an oozing puddle of space pudding with a hundred eyes. It just wasn’t working for them. With Chill, if I told them they were being attacked by a pack of hatchet wielding zombies led by a Voodoo priestess, they had a frame of reference.
The Chill game comes boxed. Back in the day, most Role-playing games came packaged in a box. And believe it or not, many a games complexity and dollar value was judged by the weight of the box. Chill came in at a healthy weight, better than “Cyborg Commandos” but way less than “Bushido”. The game consisted of two rulebooks, a world map, introductory adventure, three 10-sided dice, a set of cardboard counters and what in today’s terms would be called a set of “fast play” rules.
In Chill, the player characters are all part of a secret organization called S.A.V.E (Societas Albae Viae Eternitata, the Eternal Society of the White Way).
S.A.V.E. Operatives fight a never-ending war against the supernatural forces of evil. In the world of Chill, Vampires are real, Were-creatures are real, and Malign spirits are real. The forces of evil exist and the agents of S.A.V.E. seek them out and destroy them. The setting for the game can be in any period from the mid 1800’ to present day, and globe spanning adventures are not only possible but encouraged. The setting has a classic horror movie feel to it thanks to the great artwork of Jim Holloway throughout the rulebooks.

The campaign book covers character creation based on eight abilities generated by random dice rolls and a system formula. Along with the regular Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Stamina, and Personality, they offered some additional “genre” specific abilities such as Willpower (used when making the obligatory “fear check”), Perception (which aids in noticing specific clues or unusual details), and Luck (which aids in character survival by allowing “Luck checks” to avoid immediate death).
All of these abilities are used when deciding the success of a characters action, this is known as making an ability check. There are two types of ability checks the first is known as the standard check, and is used when rather straightforward actions are resolved the second is known as a specific ability check this type of check uses a unique chart system known as the “Chill action table” to gauge the degree of success. The better the roll, the higher the degree of success, for instance, if your character is trying to jump out of a window to escape from a foe, the referee may want you to roll an ability check based on agility. If you succeed the referee will compare your roll to the success chart. A limited success may indicate you jumped out of the window but may have injured yourself on the fall. A medium success could indicate you landed hard but are uninjured, a high success may mean that you landed on your feet and can move normally next round.
Characters advance and gain experience in Chill by participating in adventures and defeating evil creatures and their minions. “Insight Points” are awarded for success and these points can be later used to improve current abilities and skills or to purchase new skills for future use.
Chill offers a wide variety of combat and non-combat skills to choose from when creating a character. All skills have corresponding success scores that are based on one or more abilities and ranked as student, teacher, or master. Each rank adds a percentage point bonus to the skill, which insures a player at master rank, is effectively a leader in that field. Players start the game with student ranks and use “insight points” to increase their rankings in various chosen skills.
As with the ability checks, Chill has two types of skill checks. The basics skill check which is a straight success/failure roll and a specific skill check which utilizes the “Chill action table” to determine the degree of success. There are a fairly adequate number of skills supplied for the game, and by following the general formula it’s not at all difficult to add new skills to the list as needed. It’s worth noting as well that Chill spends a good amount of time explaining the use of professional and research skills. In Chill your characters ability to read a map, use a library, and speak Latin will be as valuable as what caliber of pistol he carries or what level of mastery he has in Judo.
Character actions are covered in the next section. The mechanics of campaign play are introduced in this section. Game time, travel times, fear checks, movement, damage and healing, and combat are all examined. An area, which was revisited quite often in our campaign, were the rules on lighting and visibility. Quite a few of our combats took place on fog-shrouded streets and in dark cemeteries.
The various types of Non-player characters are covered in part five of the rules. The reactions of Animals, persons and creatures are covered here along with societies reactions in general. The hardest part about interacting with NPC’s in Chill is trying to convince them that your character isn’t a loon, this is where having an organization such as S.A.V.E around is invaluable. Not only are there people who will actually believe your story about the secret cabal of demon worshippers at Fairfax manor, they may even be able to help you do something about them.
Which leads us to part six of the rulebook. Characters in Chill may face vampires, mad scientists and evil witches, but they don’t do so without powers of their own. This section of the rules outlines the use of The Art. The Art is basically a collection of disciplines used to combat the minions of evil. The Art is a combination of Psionic abilities and arcane protections that enable the agents of S.A.V.E a fighting chance when confronting the disciples of the evil way. The chapter ends with a brief history of S.A.V.E, it’s rules and tenets. The final section gives some brief advice for the “Chillmaster” (CM) on running a successful horror campaign.
The second book in the boxed set is titled Horrors from the unknown. This volume is essentially a combination spell book and monster guide. The first part describes the various spells and magical effects that the creature’s posses and use to combat the heroes of S.A.V.E. the second half of the book details creatures both common and supernatural that are used in the Chill game, unfortunately they only list around eighteen creatures total.
Chill received a decent amount of support for its run. There were nine published modules ranging from encounters with Dracula and the Mummy to exploring haunted amusement parks and touring with a rock band. There were also several sourcebooks, which added to the Chill line:
• A “Chillmasters” screen with the obligatory mini-adventure.
• Vampires-a sourcebook giving detailed descriptions of several vampires from different parts of the world.
• Creature Feature- a Chill game variant that lets the players assume the role of the monsters. The book also offers more rules for combat, new skills and an additional discipline of the Art.
• Things- basically an expanded (over fifty) listing of creatures and new evil way disciplines.
• Evenings of terror with Elvira- a set of nine linked scenarios hosted by the mistress of the dark herself.

It’s worth noting as well, that in the 1990’s Mayfair games purchased the rights to Chill and gave it a new look and a new audience for a brief time.
By today’s standards, when held up against somber fare like the World of Darkness and Kult, Pacesetters Chill might seem a little light and old fashioned. But for the folks who like their horror a little less Anne Rice and a little more Boris Karloff, Chill is just the ticket.

Motivational Monday

Thanks to RPGNET.

The Conan RPG from TSR

The following is an article of mine that appeared in issue #108 of Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine.

Lost Game Safari: The Conan RPG from TSR
By Jeff Mejia

Conan. With the exception of the works of Professor Tolkien, no other character of the 20th century embodies the spirit of fantasy gaming more than the grim, blue-eyed Barbarian from the magnificent stories by Robert E. Howard.
The hard fighting, hard drinking, savage warrior has been the favorite character of countless players through the years. Currently Mongoose games has a well supported version of the world of Conan based on the D20 system, and about 10 years earlier, Steve Jackson Games gave Conan the GURPS treatment. But did you know that once, long ago, an ancient gaming giant known as TSR took a stab at Hyborian Adventure with “Conan the role-playing game”?
It was over 20 years ago that veteran game designer David Cook created the system for TSR’s Conan game. The game comes boxed and contains two slim books, a fifteen-page reference guide, a map, some character sheets, and dice. The actual rulebook is a mere 32 pages, all crunch, no fluff. The second book is a combination Gazetteer and monster manual, written in the style of an archaeological notebook, with short snippets outlining the various countries, cultures, beasts and characters of the Hyborian world. Again, to call the entries brief would be an understatement. The reference pages are surprisingly one of the more important pieces of information; these 15 pages contain all the information for the various talents as well as several key tables containing wound charts, equipment lists, and combat modifier charts. Why these reference pages were simply not put in the rulebook completely escapes me (it almost seems as if they were an afterthought, and rushed to the printer at the last minute).
There are a number of unique innovations used in The Conan game. First of all, the mechanics are surprisingly simple with both task and combat resolution being decided off of one percentile chart, called a resolution table. “Talent pools” replace the traditional attributes of strength, intelligence, wisdom, etc. and their corresponding number ratings.
Combat of course is the heart of gaming; many people speak of the “role-playing experience” or “character development”, whatever. Gaming is about rolling dice and killing your opponents. The Conan game understands this and makes no apologies for it. The Combat in this game is both quick and brutal.
For example Khoraj, a mercenary from Turan is facing Anteus, a Bounty hunter from Ophir in an alleyway. Khoraj has a movement talent of 4 and is armed with a saber (talent 5). Anteus has a movement talent of 5 and is wielding a large club (talent 2). It is determined that Anteus will be attacking first. Anteus declares that he will be aiming for Khoraj’s head. To determine if Anteus hits, we take his fighting talent (Club 2) and subtract Khoraj’s movement (4) the difference is 2 this is the combat differential, find that column on the chart, roll percentile dice, and pray for a low roll. The roll is “23” so Anteus hits, he didn’t roll low enough on the chart to cause a specific wound to the head like he wanted to, but still he did hit (a Percentile roll on the location chart shows a hit to the right leg). The resolution chart is colored and a successful hit in a specific color indicates the amount of damage done, in this case three points of base damage are done, to this number we add any damage modifier for the weapon and any strength bonus (in both cases zero) and subtract the protection value of the opponents armor (if any). Khoraj has no leg armor so he takes the full 3 points of damage. Khoraj’s damage talent (which are basically Hit Points) is only 5 so these three points cost him dearly. Khoraj now declares an attack to Anteus’ head as well. Khoraj’s talent with the saber is 5 and Anteus’s movement is 5 which comes to a zero differential. Khoraj rolls a “02” well within the “specific wound” range. Khoraj declared a headshot as his intended target. He rolled a specific wound. The result of a specific wound to the head for an enemy is death. Khoraj’s blade slices through muscle and bone and Anteus’s head goes flying down the alleyway into the shadows. End of combat.
The rules continue with an overview of movement and travel as well as the dangers of falling, fire, drowning and poison. All of this information is covered in two pages, once again very little is given over to fluff.
The next chapter deals with magic. In the Hyborian world, mages are a rare and mistrusted bunch. The path of the arcane in the “Conan” game is lonelier than in just about any other fantasy game world. There are no Magic stores, kindly absent minded wizards, or schools of Sorcery. This however, is in keeping with the flavor of the original stories, priests and mages were adversaries to be thwarted. In some rare instances a spell caster would provide assistance, but the focus of the Conan stories were on the ability of a determined man, wielding cold hard steel to overcome his foes. The magic system In the Conan game was truly original. It was one of the first open-ended systems ever published. Basically the player and the Game master get together and agree on a spell, it’s parameters, and it’s effects. But that’s just the start.
Magic is a long and arduous process in the Conan game. To begin with the mechanics are heavily skewed against a magic wielding character; the rulebook itself discourages player character sorcerers. But just like someone always has to be the Elf with a nineteen dexterity in D&D, someone invariably is going to want to play a sorcerer in Conan.
Mages begin the game with the obsession disadvantage right from the beginning and they gain various additional weaknesses as they progress in magical talent, for every simple illusion they learn to create, or cloud of fog they summon, they are burdened with additional mental and physical disadvantages. As stated earlier there are no “wizard schools” so spell casters are tasked with researching through dusty tomes and raiding crypts to unearth scraps of long forgotten spells. And when its all said and done, the fruits of their labor are still nowhere near as powerful as their fireball-slinging brethren in other games.
The “Living in Hyboria” section gives rules and advice on currency, haggling, cost of living, dealing with NPC’s, and employment.
The “Ultimate goals” section handles the use of fame, expertise, and luck. Fame is a reflection of a characters notoriety it could be a positive or negative value. For every heroic deed, act of bravado, or victory in battle the character can earn fame points. Consequently for every cowardly act, notable defeat, act of pure stupidity etc. fame points may be detracted. Giving the character a negative or “Infamous” rating. The value of a high fame score is of course obvious, more free drinks come your way, wenches are more willing, and you tend to recruit a better class of henchman. Using your talents in an adventure is rewarded with additional talent points awarded at the end of the game. These points may be applied to increase current talent scores or to purchase new talents that the character was exposed to during play. One additional feature to encourage the reckless and heroic style of action that can be found in sword and sorcery stories is the awarding of “Luck” points; good role-playing and originality earn these points. In the Conan game heroic deeds call for heroic rewards. Luck points are valued for enabling your character to re-roll a failed result or to reduce the ill effects of damage, you can also apply them as a modifier to aid in performing extraordinary actions. Even “Codes of Honor” are touched upon in these rules, reminding the players that despite Conan’s barbaric ways and bloody adventures, he held himself to a strict barbarian code of honor. The rules encourage players to emulate the heroes of the genre and have their characters act accordingly.
The remaining three sections consist of general “how to run an adventure” type advice, including tips on preparation, mastering the rules, character death, creating adventures and campaigns, all the stuff you have all no doubt read before, but its still good to revisit every once in a while. The final section is a small mini adventure loosely based on the Conan story “The tower of the elephant” it’s a whopping four pages long.
Three modules, “Conan the Mercenary”, “Conan the Buccaneer”, and “Conan Triumphant” were all the official support the line ever received. There were no source books of the various Hyborian nations, no splat books filled with new talents, weapons, monsters or magic items, not even a measly GM screen.
But despite its minimal support there were die-hard fans out there willing to give it a shot, Fans for whom frolicking with faerie folk in the magic rich worlds of Dungeons and Dragons and other Fantasy games held little appeal. They wanted to slink through the streets of “Shadizar the wicked” making dark deals, or test Aquilonian steel against the blood red hatchets of Pictish warriors on the frontier. And for that they turned to Conan the role-playing game.

FASERIP Pulp

For the last couple of months I’ve been working on a little labor of love. I’m trying to take one of my favorite systems –The FASERIP system from TSR’s Marvel Superhero game and apply it to one of my favorite gaming genres- 1930’s Pulp adventure. The result is what I call FASERIP Pulp. It’s not a rewrite of the rules, it’s more like a sourcebook with tips and suggestions for taking the FASERIP system into uncharted areas. Please give it a look over and let me know what you think. Any constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. Here is the link to the PDF draft.

A Geekboy Christmas

Everyone here at the Lair had a wonderful Christmas. The little DM's in training were spoiled once again with a variety of sports equipment, electronic gadgets, toys and would you believe a few honest to goodness books (with printed words and everything)! "She who must be obeyed" is bopping around the house sporting a shiny new ipod and jewelry. The Evil DM happened to score quite nicely this year- in addition to the customary clothing articles, calenders and Dad gadgets, I was bestowed a most wonderful collection of geeky awesomeness. Take a look...










Did I roll high on the loot table or what?